Why Now?

Almost six years ago, I had the privilege of bringing Stella James Ihde into this world.  I remember driving home the night before I was going to be induced.  (My husband is 6’8” and I’m 5’6” and every sonographer on the planet freaks out when she imagines me carrying that man’s baby).  So the night before I was to be induced Josh and I were driving home in separate cars from my sisters house.  He stopped in front of me at a stoplight and I called him on the phone and said, “I think I’m out of room.”  And he was like, “No shit. You look ridiculous with that belly.” And I just started crying and said, “No. I mean I don’t think I can hold more love than I have right now.”  I love Josh like a brother and a lover and a like a best girlfriend because he is good at talking about his feelings and the meaningful parts of life and he’s been with me since I was just a kid and didn’t know any better and between him and what I could already feel for in-utero-Stella I thought I might have a nervous breakdown. The next day after about eight hours of labor, I looked at her and by the divine power of God, my heart grew and grew and grew and grew.  And my new best friend came into my life.  Over the next three years we just enjoyed the shit out of one another.  Stella is a “have kid, will travel” kind of girl. I never slowed down. I kept working, I kept playing, I kept having friends for dinner, and traveling.  And we did it all.  Together.  Happy, happy, happy.

Then Eli was born.  And I love that boy.  Like crazy love that boy.  But damn.  Life stopped.  Sleep stopped.  Going anywhere but my living room stopped. Work got really hard.  Life got really hard.  And I even felt the change in my time with Stella and I was just so frustrated.  And then Josh was forced into a buyout at his current company and became a stay at home dad (ish) for a year. And then my girlfriend from Bible study found out her baby, if she made it to term, would have a terminal illness. And then my best friend’s baby died.

So I started seeing a therapist.  Again.  And for the next eighteen months I spent real time thinking about myself. As women and especially as moms, we suck at that.  Our self-awareness is blurred by the chaos of work, kids, laundry, lunches, hormones, dog hair and sex.  And the other litany of things that we love and yet make us feel like we are on the verge of needing a serious mental health evaluation. 

I think there is a part of our lives as moms, and certainly I’ve understood in my spiritual life as well, that dies to self.  You put others first, you lay down your priorities and agendas and ego to serve your family, your friends, your church, your parents, your siblings and their kids, and then your kids and on and on and on.  This is a choice.  I chose this.

But then there was this other part of me that I felt was out of reach and desperate to be touched.  And it wasn’t buried under diapers or hidden in my closet underneath my yoga pants.  It was inside of me.  When I really stopped, got still, and had a free moment, which was usually around 1 am when I was feeding Eli and the rest of the house was finally quiet, in that moment I would breathe in this piece of my soul that I didn’t recognize and needed to get to know again.

So I wrote.  And wrote and wrote and wrote.  And prayed.  And asked other people for help.  Which meant I admitted that I needed help. And now I’m uncovering myself, my findings and making available the pieces of me I both lost and was hiding from.  Brené Brown said in this TED talk that, “Vulnerability is the birth place of creativity, innovation and change.” I believe her.