She woke knee-deep in sadness on Saturday.  It was the day before Mother's Day, her first official celebrating as a mother.  Her house was destroyed from a party they hosted the night before, and after three cycles of the dishwasher, she threw up her hands in surrender.  Instead, she tightened her robe around her pajamas and retrieved the coffee grinder from the cupboard.  

Somewhere in the time between the first push of the grinder and the first sip of steaming black coffee, she managed to begin a fight with her husband, who was cooking her breakfast.  She didn't know why she was doing it, she only knew she was mad.  As she began to discuss the previous night's festivities, she stumbled into resentment and annoyances that he didn't help as much as she needed. Oh, and while she was at it, she laid into him about all the ways he wasn't helping with the baby.  How he always disagreed with what she did in a moment's criticism, how his timing was always off, and how she was tired of them both deciding that his sleep was somehow more precious than hers. 

It became obvious they needed to get some space, so she sat on the settee with her cup of coffee.  It wasn't long before tears started to flavor the brew.  She could all but taste the immense sadness and regret and weariness.

Though she loved her child with such an aching otherness, she has learned in this first year of her daughter's life that being a mother is perhaps the most thankless job she's ever done.  Yes, it's hard...but she's worked incredibly hard before.  All her previous hard work was performed to a recipient.  If it was a paper for school, someone would be reading it.  It if was serving a burger, someone would be tipping her.  For all other jobs, there is a easily-recognized goal and award.  Not so with motherhood. 

Does he even know all I do to keep this house semi-livable?  Does he even notice how full the refrigerator always is and how I keep refilling his whiskey?  Does he think toothpaste and toilet paper grows magically in the pantry?  Does he notice that the shoes he left out last night are now put away?  Does he know how much time and effort and emotional demand she exerts in order to relate to his daughter in a loving, present, and healthy way? Does he understand the angst she swallows daily as she pushes and pulls between her needs and the baby'?  Does he even get that she despises her body right now and could use a compliment here and there?  Does he understand that he is just as capable of arranging a date and a babysitter as she?

She realized that the three hours of sleep the night before (resentfully compared to his five!) were catapulting her into projecting her needs into his responsibilities.  He could never know everything she does for their child.  Her daughter, though the direct recipient of these resources, could never know all she does. Though other mom friends are perhaps the closest person to knowing all she does, they still only know the generics.  

It hit her like last night's Great Wall of dishes that the ONLY person who will ever know all she does for her daughter is her.

If it's true that the only person on this earth who knows all she does to be her daughter's best mother is, in fact, HERSELF...then the only person who can honor her as she needs to be honored is herself.

Even though tomorrow would most likely be filled with praise, a lot of help with chores and the baby, a reason to relax and let others spoil her with meals and cards and texts, she knew that they weren't what would make her feel most celebrated. To hear "thank you for all you do" would feel fake and ill-suited, though she would accept it graciously.

She would need to find a way to spoil herself...and not just with a new manicure or a long nap or a mimosa for breakfast.  This time, she would need to find a way to relish everything it is that she does, to take account of all that is required of her, to bring awareness to her tasks...tasks that are all at once impossible and annoying and joyful and fun and super unfun and praise them. Compliments and appreciations and deep regards said to her by her.  It's no one else's job to know and therefore love what can only be known and therefore loved by herself.

Apparently August has come and gone.  The traffic on the bridge can only be explained by the influx of students and parents back to the daily grind.  I've noticed myself looking back a lot these last few days, trying to assimlate new information, new faces, and new feelings into my daily doings.

I believe one of my greatest strengths is in analysis.  Also, as an introvert, my natural tendency is to look back and assess my and others' behaviors and words (read: obsess).  Both of these personality traits combined makes for an anxious aftermath to social events, and I often feel that I severely mirepresented myself, wish I would have not said ___, wish I would have done ___, etc...and suddently, that swift and severe axe of self-judgement comes swinging down upon my head.  Now, I'm bleeding and blind.  I wonder if other people do this?

It reminds me of a year or so ago after a particularly grueling ladies' night.  Lots of wine had us loosed-lipped and  unabashedly weepy.  I remember waking up the next morning not only nursing a nasty headache, but feeling particularly sheepish about my vulnerable behavior and spent a few hours replaying everything I said just in case I needed to apologize to someone.  I desperately wished to go back in time and regain the composure and control I then seemed so eager to rid myself of.  I comforted myself with the notion that the other girls were probably feeling the same way and wrote one of them a letter to that effect, encouraging her not to succumb to false insecurities, to not berate herself for something she may have said,  and to take all parts of the others into her being with willing acceptance, gracious forgiveness, and fierce loyalty.

In the end, there is nothing to do with my analysis of people other than to love them.  This includes myself.  I am human.  You are human.  We can be decidedly virtuous and altruistic. We can be atrociously maleficent and grotesque.  Even the most composed of people have hurt someone else with a flippant, impulsive comment.  Lord knows every single one of us has been hurt by the same.  We can spout off so much of our bull shit and soapbox about our arbitrary opinions that can crush others around us at worst, or (at best) keeps them from sharing their own opinions.  We do not listen well, we do not speak carefully.  We intimidate and dominate and in our eagerness to be known, bulldoze those in our company.

All of this to say that I feel this great need to analyze and obsess and ultimately forgive.  I also feel the need to assure myself of people's affections for me.  But in the end, my acceptance of Candace is what is really in decline.  I could easily demand assurances from others, but I know, oh dears, HOW I KNOW - this is my battle.   It is no one's job but my own to be confident and to trustingly accept people's words at face value without criticism or manipulative self-deprecation.

Speaking of insecurities, I have recently been stopped short by fear.  Many of you know I am working on a humble collection of poems for self-publishing.  I am in the editing stages, and I have to tell someone - the poems are total shit. They are simply not good enough to put out into the world; a world I love, a world of Plath and Rilke and Shakespeare and Donne.  I do not think the world needs another mediocre poet.  For the most part, I am a confident writer and care little about how my work is received (coming from someone who has received only positive feedback, so I realize I am lacking in the character formed by artistic rejection).  Now that I am really looking to put myself out there, fear is taking hold of my throat. I feel it very physcially.

One one hand, the fear makes me pissed and frustrated.  On the other, I see it as a necessary birth pang.  What mother wasn't afraid to give birth?  What artist wasn't terrified to put their canvas on display?  Fear is a right of passage, and I'm beginning to trust its presence and leave it alone.

"Oh hello Fear.  I forgot you were there.  You may go now."

(a small adaptation of Doc Holliday in Tombstone)

I am sick of the portayal of artists and designers and stylists online who chose to convey an overly-white, overly-simple, overly-amiable, overly-clear, and annoyingly overly-painless process to creating.  Even if it sometimes gets muddy for them, it seems they are unable to express the sheer disgusting ugliness that comes from birth.  Have you ever seen a woman deliver a baby?  It's completely violent and gross.  It's also the most naturally beautiful occurance.

What I am saying here is that creating is ugly. I am prepared to work hard on these poems and puke them up and be doubled over in labor pains and fight like holy hell to bring forth that which has been placed inside of me.  I am on the verge of something wanting out and it's gagging me and tearing me and I am not sure I will survive it.  

This morning, as I opened my eyes unto the relationships I've poured myself into, I realized how loved I feel and even more importantly, am.  The reality of why I feel that way has more to do with how I feel about myself these days than about how others feel.  The truth is, we can never know how anyone really feels about us, how much they love us, are committed to us, respect us, or want to be around us.  All we have is the words from their mouths assuring us of their love.  We can either believe it or not believe it.  Love is faith.

It does still amaze me however, this power we have of projection, of creating our own realities based on our psychological deficiencies.  I am in a strong period of self-doubt, even self-hate.  It surprises me, honestly.  I thought I was over this, that I had climbed my Everest of self-care.  Alas, it turns out there is more and more to uncover as we dig deeper and deeper into our souls.  I guess I turned a corner, found a rather big boulder, looked under it and found more self-hate cleverly hidden and set aside for later.  In this time, however long it lasts, I will engage myself honestly, but I admit that it's been a lot easier to blame my negative feelings on externals - family, friends, my husband.  In the end, I confess - it's me that dislikes me right now and the projection of that onto people who have committed to me isn't helpful or accurate.  Furthermore, not a single living person can love me enough to make up for my self-love deficit.  It is unfair and unhealthy to place that upon people.  This is a job for myself alone.  They do get to be a huge part of it (because honestly, I do believe that one needs to have a certain amount of love from others accrued in order to begin the process of loving self and loving others - and that without this, one cannot thrive), but they cannot be the sole source of my soul's love.

Therefore, I will open my eyes even more to see the love surrounding me...the thoughtfulness of friends, the chore-interrupting kisses of my husband, the emails from my family, and the cuddles from my feline.  I believe in the altruism of their gifts.  I will have faith that their love is true.

Today, I chose to believe that I am loved.  That I am thought of.  That I am desirable.  I chose to believe the words that come from those I love.  Perhaps then will I return to a place inside myself where I can hear my own words saying lovely things...and believe them. 

No, I am not relaying the phrases I utter to screaming children.  These are the phrases I've uttered to myself over the last week.  Quite unexpectedly, my body broke.  I've therefore had to practice being nice to it.

Many of you know that I am a wayfarer for self-care, for being gentle to one's soul, for quieting that nasty inner-judge.  Though I've grown in this area, I never really had to apply the theory to my physical-self.  I still hear unhealthy voices speaking badly about my body and have always ALWAYS struggled to combine the body-mind (to borrow yoga phraseology) and live holistically.  I've often described my head as my biggest muscle and I still value living cerebrally over athletically.  I continually feel surprised when I see my reflection - thinking that my soul and my body look nothing alike, are shockingly incongruous.  I would like to strike a more soulful balance regarding this.

One way I work on this is in self-portraits, taking photos not just of the parts I like, and not overly-focusing on the parts I dislike...but just letting a picture be a picture.  Letting Candace be Candace for all her guts and glory.

My body decided to give me this chance.  After I took two horrific falls while rollerskating a few weeks back, I had to gingerly tip-toe around my bruised tail-bone.  Once that cleared up, however, my neck decided it was its turn to scream for attention.  I have never experienced pain like that in my life, and the spasms kept me not only from work and sleep, but also from entertaining any other thoughts than figuring out how to alleviate the pain.  Oh, and I also had (have) a lingering chest/head cold.