I've always had a heart that feels too big, aching with love
both unrequited and matched.
Life felt complete these past five or so years running this kick-ass business, loving Anthony and yet I wanted to have a baby more than anything
before Orion was born. There was the issue of getting Schmilly on board, bull-by-the-nose style:
sometimes he gets nervous about big changes.
It's safe to say he now knows that O's presence in our lives is the most magical of all the things we've experienced. Through becoming three where there was once two we've survived the absolute darkest patches of our marriage and now begin to see the fruits of these past seven months...
I just said the other night that I feel like his girlfriend again.
Hallelujah!
One does not sign up for baby-havin' if one cannot fathom growing. That's fancy talk for saying that we've both had to get our shit together and be big for each other and for our son. I've owned a lot and shed outmoded ideas and habits along the way and though this place is certainly not the mountain top, I see my way down to the lonely valley in which all was darkness when Orion was born.
In fact this Monday I had my last regular therapy appointment for postpartum depression. On my way out the door I saw the next client waiting: a beautiful mother with a sleeping baby in a carseat. Her eyes were rimmed in grey and her smile was weak and brave.
I wanted to reach out to her and squeeze tight, whisper in her ear that this does not last forever, that there is a light and it will shine and there'll be understanding
and deep breaths
at last.
That humor, gallows or otherwise will breeze into days and nights
lifting the curtain that separates a new mother from the world,
lonely, wandering and wondering where that comfortable previous self resides.
There are choices
there is grace
and there is God.
No matter how many times we descend into darkness and rise out again
it always feels somehow like this time it will end us,
obliterate everything we've worked for:
after all, we may never have met this aspect of our personality that seemingly takes the helm and directs the ship, the thoughts.
I learned over the last several months through talking and experimenting that healing takes diligence and discipline as much as it takes divine intervention and relationships.
Sometimes that discipline means saying "You WILL go buy yourself that sweater, soldier!!"
or
"This is your day off, do not touch that keyboard, sister!!"
and some days it means asserting that you WILL work out today and get the endorphins motoring,
that you MUST let go of comparisons and negative thinking
that being alone with only your mind is worth the courtship
because this new part is still you,
is still worthy of love.
And so you love
and you slog through moments
and you love and you trust
and you rage and fear and love and slog
until one day your steps are lighter
and understanding blooms like a rose in rich dung.
Beauty from utter shitty shit and surrender and spectacular grit:
that's the way of it all...
tomorrow I turn 35.
I've never felt more purpose before in my life,
in my work or in my heart.
Every time I look at my son a bow unties
and I can hear paper crinkling
Christmas
Valentine's day
church bells
confetti
train whistles
tin cans tied to bumpers
and the roar of the crowd....
'what do you want for your birthday?' friends and family ask on the phone
and I turn towards Orion and wink
while he giggles like we're in on something only the two of us know.
"Nothing," I say honestly.
Nothing.
A
