Where I've Been

They put her on my belly and I waited. I waited for the rush of love and peace and joy and the willingness to throw myself in front of a bus for her that they'd said would come. I watched her, held her, examined the place on her skull where she beat her head against my pelvic bone for an hour, and waited.

It didn't come.

I passed her around that night and the next day, watched family, friends holding her and treasuring her. I held her when she cried and did my best to feed her and help her sleep.

It didn't come.

I took her home, bundled in the precious fuzzy suit with bear ears we'd reserved for the day. I saw her, so small, in her car seat, and adjusted the straps so maybe it would hold her in if we hit something. I watched her sleep, changed her diapers, tried to convince her to eat like the doctors said she should. I bounced and rocked and sung, and felt nothing.

That's not entirely true. I felt more than enough anxiety. She was so small, so needful, so helpless, and I realized in waves of quiet panic that I didn't know what was best for her. I read and talked and tried but books couldn't tell me and neither could anyone else.

Afraid I'd make the wrong choice, I didn't want to be left alone with her. I was afraid I'd miss her cries, that she wouldn't eat, that something awful would happen and she'd get hurt and it'd be all my fault.

I sat with her in the hospital through her kidney infection, watched her learn to smile and laugh and coo, taught her to bat her toys and introduced her to books. I wrote her letters and kept her baby book and dreaded going back to work because I was afraid of what it would do to her, not because I couldn't get enough of her.

I couldn't talk about it, couldn't even find a voice for the waves inside. I kept waking up, walking, going, made it through the days and the weeks. I reached out, reached in, reached up, but the best I could do was tread water. I don't think I knew how hard it was until I'd started to come out. Until I remembered normal, I couldn't see how not-normal I'd been living.

The worst part: I knew I loved her. I could locate love in my soul, I just couldn't feel it. All I could feel was anxiety and dread and fear, and they loomed like an ocean between me and my mama-love.

And then.

And then.

Then it broke. I don't know how or why, just that. Maybe hormones stabilized, maybe I found perspective, maybe I learned she wouldn't break as easy as all that. But I prefer to think that He stepped in, that he intervened and held the waters back so I could cross over and find my love, like Israel crossed the Jordan.

**Find more Imperfect Prose here, on Emily's beautiful blog.**

Choose the Laughter

Last night, I remembered to laugh with him, to appreciate his trying to be funny through the tired that sometimes threatens to overwhelm us both in this crazy year. He made his joke and I felt the choice rise: to laugh, or push it away, too tired for funny to be funny and for him to reach me.

I chose the smile, let it grow into a little laugh, and watched his eyes. It held him, the reaching me. Humor let the souls touch where they hadn't been touching before. I chose him, in part, because he makes me laugh. And he chose my laugh, this whole-life through.

Little Things

I do mean to continue my series of thoughts on normal life, but updating here just isn't the priority it used to be. Giving thanks, on the other hand, is always a priority.

• The moment while watching BBC's Emma with Dave and Mirren playing on the couch between us, when I realized I was relaxed and happy. 
• Watching my water baby kick around in the pool while Daddy held her.
• The happy faces prunes bring (seriously, the child loves prunes . . . spurns just about everything else, but loves prunes. Go figure.)
• Sleeping through the night!
• Finding that it doesn't have to be perfect to be good.
• Anticipating vacation
• Finding out we're still loved by old friends
• Playing "Where's mama?" (over and over and over again)
• The sweet sensation of being held, body mind and soul
• Sun-dried skin

Thank you

31-40

Generous offers from people I barely know
Beads on a string
The ability to comfort her, and be comforted in the process
Happy morning smiles
Joyful banging
Morning coffee, when the smell is as good as the taste
How many people love her, and how much they love
Giving driving directions from out of state
A job for Isaac
Gentle light, easing through my windows

Pain

In my last post about sacred days, I mentioned pain. The pain that lies bring.

Several years ago, I spasmed one of the tiny muscles in my neck, and was in the most pain I’ve ever felt. Middle of the night, I’m screaming myself awake. Can’t move, just gasp and hope it goes away.

I had a friend who heard my cries and came, bearing little pills that helped. I swallowed, and the pain begin to ebb. Not gone, but less.

Believing lies is like that. I lay, knowing that it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, but not able to find relief. It takes another to bring truth, to lay open the thing that hurts so hurt can flow away.

When I believe that all “real life” must have adventure, excitement, or meaning that I comprehend and even create, I look at the life I’m actually living and feel pain.

My days, filled with working, caring for my home, loving on my husband and my baby, are a lot of things, but they aren’t exciting. And when I compare them with the life The Lie says I should be living, my days feel downright tawdry in comparison.

I wonder if I’m doing it right, and what’s wrong with me that my life isn’t filled with all of those things.

I feel pain.

I feel the pain of not being good enough, because if I was then I’d have that life I’m supposed to have.

I feel the pain of having, somehow, failed at something I don’t quite understand.

I feel the pain of being discontent, of not being comfortable in my own shoes or even my own home, of wanting more and more and more and never feeling full.

And I respond to that pain.

Sometime after I start wondering and usually while I’m still wandering through my thoughts, I stop inhabiting the life I have. I breathe in and out and I fulfill my tasks, but I hate every moment of it, and myself in all of it. I come to despise the things I have to do every day and the fact that I don’t have the time or the money to pursue everything that interests me.

I pull back, in, up, wherever I can to go protect myself and I look for the fulfillment other places. The life I have feels empty, so I look for a new one, look to fill that emptiness with something that will fill the space to overflowing.

I think some of the “soft” addictions that so many in our culture struggle with come from this sort of emptiness. Normal days don’t satisfy, so we look to supplement. The internet, the television, video games, and more can all serve to make this place feel more full.

But they can’t fill us.

Cognitively, we all know that. But still we try, because most of us don’t want to walk out on our lives entirely. Yet we feel pain, and we do what we can to alleviate that.

It’s a never-ending circle of unhappiness where discontent leads to pain leads to filling leads to more discontent. And we feel like we’ll never get off.

Starting Out with Thanks

21. Little 4th of July dresses.
22. The weight of her in my arms.
23. Grey mornings.
24. An extra day with them.
25. The joy of enough.
26. Peace in the tumult of our lives right now.
27. Writing again.
28. Leaving them both asleep.
29. The warmth and weight of his hands.
30. Half-way morning smiles.

A Lie

Fourth grade, just starting to notice boys as something more than objects to be avoided, and I get a note.

“You’re pretty. If you want to go out with me, raise your hand at 2:01.”

I looked around the room. Could it really be possible? Someone thought I, still the new kid even after a year and the crybaby, was pretty enough? Nice enough? Smart enough?

I showed it to the other girls. Not all friends, but the closest I had.

“Raise your hand,” they said at recess, and again as the clock struck 2. “Raise your hand.”

I caught the just-about titter before I put my hand in the air, but not before my heart broke. He didn’t think I was pretty enough, but they thought I was dumb enough. No one liked my hair or my eyes, they just wanted to see if I’d fall, if they could get me, again.
My vigilance saved me from humiliation, but not from pain.

That’s one of the problems with lies: they hurt.

Sometimes the pain is pins stuck into deep places, like it was for me that day. Other times, it ebbs out so slowly that we miss it unless we look at things from just the right angle.

I think there’s a lie around that’s causing pain like that, pain that’s not even pain until we touch it. Pain many of us get so used to that we don’t even notice the things we’re doing to fill up the holes it leaves behind.

The lie? That truly living means our days are filled with adventure, excitement, and meaning we create. That if we do anything other than follow our dreams / travel around the world / join a cause, we’re only putting in time. Or wasting our time.

It’s not that making our dreams come true and doing exciting things is wrong. It’s not. But most of us don’t have the money, time, or energy to live in those places all the time.

In fact, if we did, we’d wear out, flame out, or burn out.

But the lie tells us we must live this way, or we’ve failed. We’ll get to the end of things and wish we’d chosen differently, wish we’d made our days our own instead of letting them come and go, ebb and flow, bringing what they bring.

The lie ignores the fact that a day is a gift. Each day is a gift. Life itself is a gift, and not just when we feel like we’re really living.

So I propose the following thoughts, to counteract the lie and bring some healing to the pain: 

If the now is as much of a gift as the not yet, maybe our task is different than what we’ve learned it to be.

Maybe instead of creating experience and meaning, we’ll find the meaning of each day as we live it, whatever it brings.

Maybe life is less about how much we fit in and more about how open our hands are to receive.

Maybe these days we’re given are holy places, brimming with more than we’ve let ourselves see.

If the little girl who got that note can learn to look into eyes that say, “I love you,” and trust him, then healing is possible. We can learn to meet each day, no matter what it holds, and say, “These? These are sacred days.”