An Undefined Personal Identity

Jittery and anxious, I find myself again today. Resembling a heroin addict jonesing for her next fix, it isn’t narcotics that I seek, but time with my children. 
In an age where stay-at-home yoga pant wearing Starbucks addicted moms get a bad rep for their leisure days of pilates, pedicures, shopping and massages while the children are in the care of the employed; I find myself in stay-at-home mom purgatory. 
September has taken ahold of our routine and all three of my children are now in school. The youngest, a toddler, is on his second day of preschool. I awake each morning by 5:30am with excitement— ready to start our morning, the little time I have with them. I carefully pack their lunches and prepare a warm special breakfast— to include special plating and a touch of love with the hope they know just how much I cherish them. 
By 9am, however, they are all settled into their classrooms to grow, learn, and fly in each of their own little ways. 
By 10am, I’m full of nervous energy— house cleaned, errands ran. I contemplate another workout. Monday (on my son’s first day of preschool), I went out and ran eight miles just to work off some of the anxiety. Today, I reluctantly take my one day off a week from exercise so my body can truly recover. 
Do I write? Do I read? Do I organize another closet? Do I spend more time with friends? My nails most definitely need a manicure and pedicure…. my eyebrows do need a waxing. Do I shop? I’m not a shopper—- but the draw of shopping without a toddler is notable. Do I just wander the bookstore…. free, childless. 
I check my gym’s class schedule one more time…. maybe, I don’t need a day off this week.
The easel sits empty. Two finished paintings since the beginning of school. Maybe I should paint? 
Volunteer emails flood my inbox. Maybe I should saddle up and join the PTO? 
There are a hundred maybes. My options are endless, and my to-do list expansive. 

But at the core— the deep, lonely, vulnerable core— lies the truth. I don’t just love spending time with my children (even more than writing, painting, wandering free), but being a mother is my only true identifier. 
I’m lost, utterly discombobulated, without them. 
An amputee freshly missing an appendage, my brain has yet to catch up with my new state of being. 
Alone, I sit. And it isn’t the aloneness that is necessarily the cause of my anxiety. The childless hours of the school year is the start of another chapter— outside of motherhood. 
No, what feeds the angst is that I am adrift without the umbilical tether to my children, and the harsh realization that I have to find me again without the first and foremost identifier of motherhood. 
Filling my school days with projects, volunteering, reading, pedicures and even time with friends are nothing more than distractions, temporary aides, to the larger and deeper void in my personal identity. Who am I? What defines me? What fulfills me? Beyond my children. 
Questions to keep asking…