Finding Me Again

I was looking back at the books I read over the past year and noticed a trend--- most were books on how to be a better mom, how to be a better wife, how to be better at time management, how to be a better Christian, etc. Now I am all for self-betterment (I doubt that is a word, but I like it), but when my stack of how to be better books was significantly larger than my reading for enjoyment pile, I got a little worried. Did I really view myself as needing that much betterment?
I have this mental list of things that I know I need to and have been trying to work on, but lately I have been realizing that perhaps my view of me is clouded too much but what I am not, than what I am.
And so now I am starting to become comfortable in my own skin. I am not completely abandoning my betterment list, just balancing the negatives with double the amount of positives and embracing (what I see as) my imperfections not as imperfect parts of me, but as who I am.
Somewhere between college, marriage and now, I had some tainted views of what I thought a wife, mother, etc. should be and how they should act. Instead of being Sarah as a wife or Sarah as a mother, I tried to be Sarah as the Perfect Wife, Sarah as the Perfect Mother and this led to not being Sarah.
I remember Ben once saying to me that he missed the old Sarah. He has no idea how much that comment has played over and over again in my mind. It has just taken me much longer to realize I missed her too.
So now I stand here feeling like I am no longer looking at my naked self through a magnifying glass, but looking at myself through eyes that have just looked directly into the sun- Seeing a blotch of shadowy imperfections yet knowing that my eyes will readjust and I will see myself again.