Begin Again, Again

I wrote this four years ago but apparently never posted it:

"I feel like God decided to teach me a lifetime of lessons all at once.  How to be a mother, how to grieve, how to live when such a huge part of me has died and another huge part of me has been born.  In a matter of months my identity and sense of self have changed in so many ways.  Not only am I new mom, I'm a stay-at-home mom.  Not only have I lost my Dad, I have lost one of my closest friends.  I have never known sadness like this."

Four years later, I once again feel like God is heaping my plate. Once again, I find myself surviving things I never thought I could survive, and it's only mildly empowering to discover I can. Yes, I'm surviving. Yes, I could be doing a lot worse. But that only goes so far in making me feel better.

Yes, I survived walking into my 12-week ultrasound appointment, alone, and finding that I really was actually totally alone. No tiny heartbeat to keep me company anymore. I survived the initial fear and uncertainty of what would have to happen next and what my body would do. I survived leaving the hospital, the same hospital where I gave birth and last saw my father alive, with a tear-stained face and walking to my car in the parking garage by myself and driving away without getting in an accident while sobbing guttural sobs. It's good to know I can survive those things, I suppose.

I can also survive a d&c procedure two days later and make it through Thanksgiving the very next day, and then hold myself up during my Godfather's funeral two days after that. I can do those things and still be a mom and graduate student somehow. The house is a mess and I am useless and barely can call myself a wife or partner, all of a sudden I'm back to drinking beer and eating sushi and consuming too much caffeine and sugar and oversleeping every morning, but yes, I'm surviving. I'm functional. Yay!

Just kidding. Not yay.

It's hard to know how to feel now. Mostly I feel a lot of nothing, except the desire to sleep. I feel angry sometimes. I say a lot of expletives in my head (and sometimes out loud). When I tell the story of November 2019 to myself, it is peppered with words I wouldn't have thought I'd choose, like, F**KING miscarriage, or F**KING funeral or F*** THIS SHIT.

So yeah, I guess I'm angry. Just a little. Just sometimes.

This morning, as Nina dragged her feet and took her sweet time putting on her boots and coat and hat and mittens, and it was already past the time I was "supposed" to be at my internship, and I 100% still planned to stop at Starbucks for caffeinated sugar, and hadn't packed a lunch for myself because I'm tired of having to feed myself, I realized... I've reached my limit. I think what I need is for someone to explain to me the parameters of the breakdown I'm allowed to have right now without inadvertently traumatizing Nina or dropping out of school. Any ideas, let me know.

Begin Again

November 15, 2019
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What a gift to be able to look back on my blog posts from five years ago, the last time I was pregnant! It's alarming to read such coherent, insightful, lovely, faith-filled words and realize I wrote them. I feel so endeared toward that 2014 part of me, so sweet, earnest, open-hearted and vulnerable. I wish I could talk to her, tell her how amazing and admirable she is, how blessed her child is and will be.

Life has certainly changed since 2014. In obvious, expected ways, and in completely unexpected ways that still leave my head spinning and trying to figure out what reality really is. Birth and death, death and birth. I guess there's nothing truer than that reality.

I can't help but think of all the ways I've changed internally as life has changed externally. My sense of spirituality has changed. That's one of the main things I noticed as I read my old blog entries. And while my initial impulse is to admonish myself, another part of me knows it makes more than plenty of sense that I have changed in this way, and I am not required to be ashamed of it. What is life for if not to evolve along with experiences? At this point in time, I view and interact with spirituality in a specific way, unique to how I have in the past. It's not indicative of how I will always engage spiritually, nor does it take away from or tarnish my past experiences of faith. I do believe I will always identify as a "spiritual" person, because that's just who I am. I continue to learn about grace and gratitude and deep, unconditional love and suffering and healing. God is still present. Now he is just alongside others with whom I identify and connect. Dad. I know Dad more than I know God, and that's just the truth. And now that he has merged with God and exists in that realm of Being, how can I not connect with him in a more profound, spiritual way that sometimes seems to overpower my experience of God? After all, I have known Dad on Earth, and gone from this Earth. He is the most real thing to me, and doesn't that absolutely make sense?

Throw in politics, misogyny, abuse of power and religious institutional betrayal and abandonment, and it's easy to understand my reasons for spiritually existing outside of "the church" - now, and perhaps forever. I am empowered to decide. I am empowered to love myself as God loves me.

In addition to my spiritual life, my intellectual life has changed drastically. I have both treasured and regretted my student status these past few years -- mostly treasured.  And now, I'm pregnant. Once again, I consciously (purposely?) place myself outside the norm. It's not that what I'm doing is so radical, just less common than perhaps it once was. I am in class with mostly 23-26 year olds. I'm already late to the party, and now my graduation present won't be a job, but another baby. Galo and I continue to play by our own rules, which I love about us. And I love about me, personally. And yet there's a part of me that questions my life choices and wonders if I've purposefully made things more complicated for myself while also being selfishly motivated. I've been living off my marriage since Nina was born, and now my self-sufficiency will continue to be delayed while I grow another human. And yes, another part of me does know how ridiculous that sounds. 

So far, this pregnancy has delivered its unique challenges while also delivering a unique sense of calm. I've dealt with anxiety, but I've also found some way to expect the best, which was not the case in my first pregnancy, at least not for a long time. I'm grateful I've come to this state of mind much earlier, and while I know I can't rely on it not changing, I will be thankful for it now. This time, I really miss alcohol and sushi (alcohol the most) and the loss of my coffee-based identity. I am less hyper-vigilant about my body "changing" since I am already far chunkier than I was when I began my previous pregnancy journey. I refuse to throw my back out in the second trimester and will guard with my very life against that happening again. I am less concerned with my skin, I got a fabulously easy haircut and some over-sized clothes, including a giant winter coat. I'm working out (sort of). I'm seeing a new therapist who is questionable at best, and not my beloved pregnancy-cheerleader, Amanda. Need to email her. 

I envision these next weeks and months with cautious optimism and enough experience to know that each step along the way is just that, a step: a period of time with symptoms and experiences unique to that moment. I will keep thinking of millions of baby names of all genders and allow myself to dream. I've been dreaming since I woke up this morning, except for the mind-numbing and soul-crushing moments of deadness that accompany the life of an intern.

I am a mother, a pregnant vessel, an intern, a writer of social work papers, a woman obsessed with Internal Family Systems Therapy and Self-energy who sings Indie Arie songs in her car, kitchen, and head at all times. I will eat ice cream sundaes when what I'm really craving is a beer. I will get through whatever lies ahead.