By Jordan Sapir
It’s 2020, and you’re on a mission to find your footing. There’s always a mad dash to resolve the goals you didn’t reach in the prior year. Mothers worldwide are vowing to never yell at their children ever again, to keep a tidier house, to make more time for friends or for work, and to learn how to organize it all with zest and grace. How about this year, Über Mom, you put one priority on the top of your list. Prioritizing you!
I struggled before founding Über Moms. I struggled with a loss of identity. I had come from a very different world than a lot of the new moms I was in contact with. I had different goals from my former friends and I wasn’t accepted by many. I feared starting over from scratch yet another time. I mean, aren’t I too old for this? Shouldn’t I be gossiping and sipping lattes?
My biggest fear of all was having my children think of me as a failure. I just wanted to be a good role model and teach them to be feminists and to shoot for the stars. But all I could conjure up was making snacks and crafts. I lost countless nights of sleep and feared that my kids would think I was only good at looking after the house and cooking. At the same time, I was afraid of disappointing my partner for not being a good “housewife.” although I took on that role by default rather than by choice, since I’d had a career that didn’t fit into the motherhood I was imagining.
After five years of dealing with this inner struggle, I had some clarity. I needed to Prioritize Me. I would be no good to anyone if I had no self-confidence, didn’t know who I was, and if the only thing I had in my life was family! I had been training for triathlons for two years and finally took the next step. I signed up with a coach, got all the equipment I needed, and set out on a journey. That journey has been life-changing.
This summer I went with my triathlon team to a three day training camp called a TransAlp. It was the first time in five years that I left my kids! I cycled 234k and 3600hm in three days in the Alps.
I felt disappointments, anger, resentment and the fear of failure. I still packed up my bike and climbed the hell out of those mountains.
I did it. I did it alone! No one pushed me up the mountain or told me not to give up. There were many opportunities, believe me.
Photo by Helena Lopes from Pexels
I don’t take credit for it all.
Without Über Moms the organization, I would never have had the courage and the tenacity to go through with it. The friends who stood by me through this tumultuous time are the same women who stand behind this organization and our mission. That’s why I put so much into this organization. I want to help mothers who are in the position I found myself in find the same courage I have found. We all do. Every woman involved in this organization tirelessly volunteers to make a change.
I had the hardest day of my life ascending up the last summit on the last day of the trip. I wanted to quit, I wanted to get off my bike and walk back down. I questioned my motives, I missed my kids, and I felt like a failure. I told my coach I can’t make it. At that moment he said, “Look around you; you’ve already made it.” I stopped thinking about all my failures and started thinking about all my accomplishments. Then I pushed every last drop of energy I had into every forward motion. When I got to the top, I saw a 360° view of the Alps. After all that hard work, I descended into Lago di Garda. The descent was just as important as the climb.
This is motherhood, Über Moms. Motherhood is peaks and valleys. We can create our new selves when we don’t like the person we’ve become! We don’t have to re-create. We can continue to push forward, and with each turn, change the course of our lives.
I came home from that trip exhausted. I also came back highly accomplished. I didn’t know it then, but I am one of only a handful of African-American women to ever make that journey. I went out to change my life and ended up changing the world around me! I also learned a few life lessons that I use in my everyday struggles as a mom.
There is no shame in working hard to get to where you want to be.
Not everyone will understand your journey.
You may go out with one intention and come back with one thousand.
In the face of adversity, use force, centrifugal force.
That is how I Prioritize Me.
How are you gonna prioritize you in 2020?
Jordan Sapir
Jordan Sapir, mother of two glitter-laden girls, 2 and 5, studied Journalism and International Political Science in NYC, a place she once called home. She can slaughter five languages fluently. She has worked in a newsroom or two, walked a catwalk or three, and is all for an impromptu adventure. Having traded in her Prada for pretzels, the founder of Über Moms lives in Munich, where she is a stay at home mom and studying to become a certified nutritionist. She is a mommy on a mission and wants to help fellow mothers raise healthy happy families, and beat a PR here and there.