In April, my job changed and I was no longer working in an office setting. Previously, I would drop off my daughter at preschool dressed in my office-appropriate attire and would see some of the other moms in their office-appropriate clothes. I would also see the “Yoga Moms.”
That’s the name I gave them. I had no idea if they worked from home, had different work hours, or were stay-at-home moms, but I felt as if they were an enigma. How I wanted to be a yoga mom, too! I wanted to wear comfy tops, leggings, and sneakers every day. I felt like they were in this elite class of women who can wear what they want and maybe even do with their time as they pleased.
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Now, I was making a whole lot of assumptions and judgments, and I own that. The saying, the grass is always greener on the other side, comes to mind. While my family was struggling financially, in my fantasy, these women did not have a financial worry. They weren’t worrying about paying the next credit card bill or searching desperately for the best sale on oranges. These were my alter-ego moms, and I wanted to be like them. My rose-filled glasses made it seem so serene and comfortable, as if they led idyllic lives.
So here I am now, and I actually can call myself a yoga mom. Since April, I have been working from home as a contractor. It took several weeks to adjust to non-office life, and it was difficult in the beginning as I missed my work friends and other human contact. But I found my groove eventually, and I haven’t been this calm about work in a very long time. Those rose-colored glasses have been tossed away, and while I may not actually do yoga (though I have in the past), I’ve been staying very active, walking about three miles each day.
My yoga clothes are my work clothes, my walking clothes, my shopping clothes, and my playing clothes. I feel comfortable in my yoga clothes and feel they are quite versatile, serving many purposes and fitting so neatly in my life. This is something I did not think about months ago when I would enviously eye the Yoga Moms at drop-off.
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What I’ve learned is that being a yoga mom does not mean I am now financially stable—far from it, as my family continues to deal with high medical costs. Just like my fellow Yoga Moms out there, my life is not perfect, I am not perfect, and I most definitely do not feel elite for wearing these comfy clothes. If anything, I am more humble, more giving, and more emotionally available. Wearing these clothes and having the ability to work from home has opened up a new view of the world for me—one no longer based on assumptions and judgments; one that is much more honest and real. And for what it’s worth, a lot more comfortable, too.
