Musings of a Mum: 24.5 Weeks
Baby Star,
It has only this week occurred to me that you are an actual baby. I have felt you move in baby-like ways, and I have experienced my soul growing another soul - which may be why my soul feels especially depleted these days. Well, just as I nourish myself for the two of us via food, drink, and movement, so must I double-nourish our collective soul. It feels good to experience the reality of you for my excitement at this new life change is directly correlated. I am an excellent adjuster, but I am a rather terrible imagine-r. The anticipation of something hard is almost always worse than the actuality of enduring its reality. This is in part because we are simply not equipped at the pre-stages with tools to endure the changes. It is only when immersed in the reality of our situation that the universe grants us what we need to know. For instance, I doubt your Aunt Kelly would have thought she was strong enough to endure breast cancer, but she was. And she did. And now, she knows more about what she can endure than ever before. Oh how worry steals our ability to just BE.
When I was but a child, I asked my mother how I would ever possibly manage to pay all my bills. Cute, but indicative indeed of my tendency to worry about the future. She said the strangest thing back to me, "You don't need that ticket yet." Her mother passed down that phrase from a story of Corrie Ten Boom. Apparently, Corrie begged her mother to hold a train ticket weeks and weeks before their actual trip. It wasn't until they were standing on the platform of the railway station that her mother handed her the ticket. She simply didn't need it before that time. I remind myself of this constantly. I am sad to lose my current lifestyle, but eager to know how I will perform in the new one. I want to make future decisions NOW based upon the sad lack of information I have to actually make those choices. We have to wait for life to give us what we need, for it always does. We can plan and hope, but borrowing emotions from the future always results in an inability to enjoy life as it exists NOW - in this very moment. This includes accepting myself as a worrier - embracing and loving it while gently nudging it into its right place.
We are losing Jessica's mother very soon. This grieves me deeply for many reasons, but as it pertains to you, I am very sad that you will never meet her. She has been a magnificent example of motherhood to me. Every time I think of cooking, I think of pouring a cold glass of Chardonnay because of her. Every time I imagine an adult relationship with you, I imagine Jessica and Denise's relationship. She is fabulous, trusting, truly interested, wise, talented, serving, and beautiful. You will know her by legend and the turquoise ring Jessica gave me that I plan to bequeath you (it was Denise's mother's ring), but you may not know her indelible hospitality which immediately puts people at ease. I could begin now to mourn her passing, but it has not yet come. I will therefore discipline myself to stay in the moment, remember that each day she is still with us. I will not mourn what is not yet to be mourned. There is this moment, my sweet Scout. Only this moment.
I have a confession to make. I am usually a wayfarer for self-care and stomping out that ever-present internal voice of self-condemnation, but the physicality of pregnancy has uncovered another wellspring of self-hate I wasn't aware of. I've never liked that I am physically lethargic and fail to do much about it. Well, pregnancy has me confronting birth (hello physical toil!), which makes me confront myself as I anticipate and prepare my mind for the marathon. I know I can and will do it, but I am afraid of panic and losing my peace. I have discovered that I still really despise myself for giving up so easily, I hate that I feel physically weak and pathetic. I feel judged and incapable. and keep wishing I were someone else. This - to me - is the most blasphemous of all vices. The universe put so much time and history and thought into the making of me, how DARE I request a change. It is not for me to pine for something impossible, but rather I hope to find a way to love what is already existing. This is my deep wish for you this week, as your soul gathers energy from mine. May it be given the most generous portion of self-acceptance, self-love, and self-admiration possible. For it is within this that you will most deeply be able to love others. I was prideful that I had self-love figured out. I am humbled yet again by this life. How beautiful it is.
Have some fun in there, but please ease up on my low back.
The Voice
2 comments:
She will be the voice of hope of woman of wine that lights their way. Our way.
I love you.
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