roles.

I mean to post more but typing is a pain.  I can only type with my right hand because my left doesn't like to do the fine motor skills needed to type.  I try it occasionally but I'm not there yet.  I can type pretty fast with one hand.  It's just a lot slower than I was use to So my thoughts go much faster than the words can get on the screen  So most of the time I don't bother. 

So if I want to be thought of as more than the girl who had the stroke, which is how I see myself and how I feel others view me.  I need to figure out who I am and adjust how I see myself.  This wasn't something I was good at before and I've lost a few titles along recovery which makes it harder.  I can't work so I have no title there. I use to be a nanny and before that a preschool teacher.  I liked working with kids and although I don't think I would do that forever I know it's not a field I would go back to now. My body just can't keep up with so many kids.  I don't know when I can go back to work.  A lot of women can define themselves as either a work out of the home mom which I'm not  or a stay at home mom, which I have trouble defining myself as.  I have to put Bella in school becausse I can't handle her alone five days a week.  I also don't do great my time I'm home alone with her.  I could be a good stay at home mom I believe if things were different, but as it is now I' don't think of myself as one.  So what am I.  I guess unemployed but that doesn't seem a fair description.  I would work if I could.  I'm dissabled.  I get paid for having a dissability and that's my contribution to this family.  But that defines me by my stroke again which is what I'm trying to avoid. 

I'm a wife.  Which I've been for six and a half years.  Blake loves me and I love him but I'm not great at the marriage thing.  I suffer from deppression which makes me difficult to deal with.  I also need Blake to be more of a caretaker than is fair to him.  I need to work on being a wife more.  Putting my marriage as more of a priority and being a nicer person. The problem is also that the stroke has wormed itself into my marriage.  It's a third wheel in this marriage.  Our roles had to shift and change.  Although some of those changes were necessary it hasn't been easy.  We have to plan around my abilities.  There are things we can't do because I'm not able to.  My personality has changed. I've struggled with depression which has affected our relationship. 
The same thing with being a mother.  I've veen a mother since I got a positive on a pregnancy test five years ago this month.  I know in my head that Isabella still loves me the same since the stroke and that she likes having me as a mom but I doubt myself.   I see the things I want to do with her and can't. Yhings like drive to town and get an ice cream, go to the park, visit family and I can't do these things and I feel like I'm letting her down.  My defining characteristic 15 months ago was mother.  Now I don't feel as strong in that role and it's a struggle. 
So now I have to keep working on defining myself with new roles.  Also taking the roles I have and making myself better at them  It's the only way I know to make the role of stroke victim/survivor less important.  What roles are most important in your life?