Hilary Duff may have been out of the music scene lately, but that doesn't mean she isn't keeping busy learning about herself, raising her son Luca and dealing with those pesky paparazzi.

In a recent and very open interview with the fan site Hilary Duff News, Duff opened up about the joys of motherhood as well as getting back into the studio.

When asked about her son, Duff gushed, "He is my everything. He’s the sweetest little guy. He’s such a good, pure spirit. It’s just amazing to be with him every day. But I don’t want to just be a mom. I have so much more inside of me."

"Once I had him I thought I was going to want to get back into the studio again and it didn’t work out that way. I was just really happy being a mom and enjoying my time with him. Then I think when he was at 12 months it felt good enough for me to be away for a little bit and still feel like myself again."

Despite this freedom, she thinks it may be hard to go on tour without him. As she explained, "I can’t imagine not being with him. I think the longest I have been away was three days without him. I think it’s healthy to get away, have a little bit of separation and some Hilary time. I miss him so much, he is such a part of me. I’m a little worried about that, but I want to be on tour."

When asked what she has learned about herself while on hiatus, Duff replied, "When you are so busy, you have your whole day planned out for you, every day, and it’s all about work. It’s hard to really start figuring out 'this is what I want.' Your vision gets cloudy. Like, what do you like to do? Who do you like to hang out with? What do you really thrive on? What makes you happy? I think at one point I was just feeling pretty lost. I had to just shut it all down."

"When my tour was over, I fired my manager," she continued. "I was done with my label; I didn’t owe them anything else. I shut down my whole clothing line. I just shut it all down. And it was all really successful, so people were shocked. I just needed a breath. I needed space. I think in that time, I realized how to take care of myself, because there was so many people taking care of me."

"I learned to live alone," she revealed. "I learned that I loved cooking. I remodeled the house. I learned that I love interior design. And I had to cut out a bunch of friends that I realized weren’t good for me. I found my own group and it was a small one. But it’s people that I really, truly, care about and that care about me. It was just an all around cleanse," Duff said. "I learned how to be strong. I learned how to stand up for myself. Even to some of the closest people near me. It was a really empowering thing."

As for her interactions with the paparazzi, Duff admitted, "I try to be polite, but I’m not always smiling because they are always freaking there. One of them that I hadn’t seen before – I think he was some Russian guy, he was such a jerk – [was] just getting way too close to me and overstepping his boundaries and I just went off. Mama bear came out, and then I turn around and someone was filming it. I don’t like to lose it like that, it takes a lot for me to really get pushed there but I’m sure that people understand."

To read the full tell-all interview with Hilary here.

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