Identity Crisis: A journey as an agnostic Texicana to frum gierus to...who the hell am I again?

Two of my boys went back to public school last week and I haven't been myself since they made their decision, a little over two weeks ago. 

Yes, Omicron been rampant. Yes, I felt like I was just getting into the grove of homeschool. True, I was not looking forward to trying to build a bridge to the very rocky relationships we've had with staff and teachers at this particular school and deal with the awkwardness of having to interact with them again. And of course, the complete overhaul of our schedules, getting up at 5:30 every morning instead of 8 or 8:30, is complete exhausting.

Those things suck, but it's more than that. Much, much more.

What's really bugging me, really getting under my skin, is that I can feel my sense of identity slipping away. 

My identity as a homeschooling mother has been compromised. The (admittedly ridiculous) notion that I can provide all four of my kids every social/emotional, educational, and physical by myself (with my husband helping after work and weekends, of course) is shattered. There is a deep fear at work here, of failure and of determination to do everything 'myself' that on a conscious level, I do not prescribe to and do not wish upon my children. And yet, I'm having a really hard time shaking it. 

It's forcing me (and my therapist) to ask the question: What is my identity as a person? What is my identity as a mother? Am I comfortable or happy with those answers? 

There was a time, some twenty years ago, that I thought I knew who I was and I postly liked her. With all the chaotic naivety of youth. I was fearless and abrupt, passionate and silly, and, from what I can remember, incredibly thoughtless and arrogant. College and Orthodox Judaism knocked me down, but not just by a peg. I fell off the whole damn ladder.

Just me and myself. 18 years old

So there I was in my early 20's, reeling from the plummet of graduating from college without a job prospect and at the ending a grueling reprogramming as an Orthodox Jew. I got (halachically) married to a man I'd loved for years...only to realize that I had fallen not into another world and I didn't know who I was there. My identity had been fully stripped and replaced.  I was terrified to do something that broke the social rules of the new culture I was in. And then, to top it off I started having kids way earlier than I was ready for and they weren't what anyone expected. Some of them were downright difficult. And this is where a series of unfortunate rejections began to occur.

Where'd these little guys come from?
Oh yeah, me. Age 29

There's so much that happened in the intervening years, but this is a blog post and not a book, so you'll have to read the rest of my blog to figure it out so that we fast forward to now.  

The here and now.
Age 36

It's taken me a long time to heal and start my way back up again and now I don't where I stand. I don't know who I am or how to identify myself. What the heck even is 'identity'? 

Is identiy what I'm good at? Is it what I can offer people around me? Is it my background?

Maybe I'll post again when I have some answers.