From Maiden to Mrs. | Musings on Marriage and the Transition to Womanhood

Hello Friends,

In today's blog post, I wanted to talk about the transition from being a maiden (young, typically unmarried & free-spirited), to being a Mrs. (married, older, a little wiser).

**Usually when speaking about feminine archetypes we'll say "Mother" instead of "Mrs." but since I don't have kids yet, we'll be using "Mrs." to represent the more mature season of life.**

As you all know, I am making this transition soon and I've been thinking a lot about the last 9 years of my life. I think about how I'm such a different person now, than I was even 5 years ago when C and I first met. At 22, a fun night consisted of me and my best girlfriends going out, scream singing karaoke, and making random friends at the bar on a Saturday night.

Now, a fun night includes dinner and a movie with my fiancé, grabbing drinks with him or a friend at the wine bar down the street, or game night with our couple friends.

Lately, I've been wondering if the key to a happy life though, is living somewhere in the middle of Maiden and Mrs. And I've been pondering the best ways to remain myself, while eternally tethered to someone else.

I think the homemaker community romanticizes marriage and motherhood quite a bit. So much so, that there are rarely honest conversations about losing yourself in marriage and in motherhood. Which we know happens time and time again.

I look at many of the women in my life; I hear their stories. The divorces they never thought they'd get. The kids that never call. The dreams that went un-pursued, all in the name of marital commitment and motherhood.

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So much of the conversation surrounding femininity and homemaking is black and white.

But I think joy, happiness, and fulfillment can live somewhere in the middle. Somewhere in the grey.

I recently went on a weekend trip with a girlfriend of mine, and we kept talking about how needed it was for us as women to be together, without our spouses. To talk, to laugh, to scream sing Misery Business by Paramore at the top of our lungs.

This might be a hot take, but I don't think marriage should inhibit those moments, and I don't think you should stop having them once you get married.

I've talked a lot about female friendships on my YouTube channel, and I think one of the things that impacts female friendships heavily, are our romantic relationships. A lot of women struggle to maintain their friendships with other women, in addition to their relationship with their romantic partner. Unaware of the fact that both are vital to our fulfillment and happiness in life.

I think you should still take the road trip with your bestie down the coast, or even book a hotel room for yourself!

I want my husband to go on a surf trip with his buddies every once in a while if that helps him connect to himself and his identity.

We all need community. And for women, community often comes in the form of our girlfriends who we can talk with, laugh with, and be a version of ourselves we don't often get to be anymore.

Of course I'm not saying that your girlfriends should take the place of your spouse or be more important than your spouse. And your husband's work buddies shouldn't take priority over you. I just want us to think of these feminine archetypes less as experiences we have at different times in life, and explore what it might be like to experience several of the archetypes at the same time.

What if you can be the maiden and the Mrs. at the same time? Youthful, playful and innocent, while also being knowledgable, experienced, and wise.

Can we hold space for many different parts of ourselves? And is that the best way to hold onto our identity as it shifts and changes?

I say yes.

I say that making space for all of the versions of ourselves to coexist, allows for us to sit comfortably in who we are. And to know that we are all of the versions of ourselves that we ever were.

We're the 18 year old starting college in a new town, knowing no one and unsure of how to make new friends.

We're the confident 21 year old, a few years of adulthood under our belt and ready to take on the world.

We're the 25 year old who feels a little lost, but has a solid friend group to help her figure things out.

We're the 28 year old who's starting to notice some lines on her face that she didn't see a few months ago.

We're all of the previous versions of ourselves in this current version, and it only makes sense to me that each of those versions, and each of those experiences, live inside of you in a variety of different ways.

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When you marry, there's so much of your identity that you can potentially "lose". Your name. Where you live. Proximity to your family. And that is a sadness and a burden that isn't often talked about.

At the same time, you get to start a new life, with someone who you love with your whole heart. And that makes it bearable.

All of these experiences morph you into this new, fierce woman.

A woman with a new name. A new home. A new purpose in life.

And it's so incredibly beautiful.