Used To

“Just a trace of your existence to grasp” – Mariah Carey Vanishing

I’m making this list so that I can be fully reminded how I got here and why.

You used to BRING me flowers.  You thought sending them was so impersonal.
You used to invite me to events to be with you / to be seen with you.
You used to see me several times a week because you wanted to.
You used to invite me to stay the night.
You used to marvel at the new things that you’d learn about me after knowing me so long.
You used to LOVE when I laid my head on your shoulder when we would drive – you decided to marry me one day while I did that.
You used to get goosebumps from my touch / kiss because it was special.  Now it happens because it’s rare.
You used to wear that rare cologne for me because you knew it would drive me crazy.
You used to ask me to dance in our living room.
You used to make a huge deal out of my birthday because you knew that my birthday was a huge deal for me.
You used to have stars in your eyes when you’d see me.
You used to wrap your hands around my waist and pull me close and kiss me and make me feel like a little girl in love
You used to light candles and put on music before we made love.
You used to make love to me.
You used to ask me what I liked and disliked.
You used to share decisions with me instead of making coming to a consensus so hard that I would just acquiesce.
You used to hold my hand walking down the street.
You used to hold my hand driving in the car.
You used to sneak peeks at my blog and my facebook to know what I was thinking and call me on it cause you cared.
You used to encourage my poetry and my singing.
You used to care profoundly when I cried.
You used to offer to pick me up / drop me off from or to anywhere.
You used to want to impress me.
You used to wake me with kisses.
You used to wake me with music.
You used to fear losing me.
You used to fight for us.
I used to have your name in a separate folder on my IM list called “My Love”
I used to melt when you’d say my name.
I used to feel extra giddy coming down Midwood to your house, knowing I’d be in your arms.
I used to get all turned on from the sight of those arms and chest and neck and back and legs…
I used to feel so good about how smooth your skin is and how privileged I was to touch it.
I used to feel that extra grace was shared with me to find a love this strong because I’d messed up so many other times that I’d be forsaken.
I used to be able to talk to you about anything.
I used to be amazed at your math skill.  I told you it was what turned me on about you from the beginning.
I used to feel that I was really a catch for you.
I used to think of you first for all the things I wanted to go out and do and see and experience.
I used to consider you before we even dated… just regarded you from afar and wondered if we could work.
I used to stare at you and it made you uncomfortable.  But you were just that beautiful to me… and I couldn’t believe you were mine.
We used to be the couple that everyone envied and I didn’t question their judgement.
We used to make plans together of the fun things we would do
We used to explore the world together and discover new things.
We used to have genuine fun together.
We used to make each other laugh hearty belly laughs.
We used to like being together and looking forward to it.
We used to fall asleep together on the couch and enjoy cuddling.
We used to dream about the family we’d make.
We used to want to grow old together.
*

The Need for My Care

<RANT>

Sometimes… it is all about me.

In my own head, it used to be.  I used to know that if I didn’t think of me, that no one else really would.  So I had to MAKE SURE that at the very least?  I thought about me.  It’s the libra in me.  I’m constantly caring about other… sometimes I’d love for someone else to know how I’m feeling.  How life is treating me.  What I want out of this life.  What are the things that make me happy.  What are the things that make me sad… you know… stuff like that.

But what I find is happening increasingly is this… general lack of concern about how I feel.  About where I fit in.  About my general place in the world.

I am very  much feeling myself disappear a la Back to the Future.   I am feeling myself really being defined as an ancillary character in someone else’s main plot when I most CERTAINLY was the main character in my own life.

I make it a habit to ask the people around me if they are happy…. and if there is anything I can do to be making them happier.  What shocks me most is the lack of reciprocation in said question.  On some “thanks for asking” and keep it moving.  Well… what ABOUT me??  who besides me will ever care about ME and what I’d like?

Me, I guess.

So I’ll list a few things here that I feel, care about, wish for, miss, hate, like very much and that pertain to me wholly.  Whether anyone else gives a shit or not at this point is beyond me.  I give a shit.

I adore my daughter.
No, it does NOT bring me joy to see thousands of pictures of her playing with other people while I work extremely hard to make sure that she wants for nothing.
Yes, I want DESPERATELY to be “brought home” so that I can be her MOTHER and everyone else a bit part player.  I AM NOT LOVING being a supporting role in her life.  A walk on.  An extra.
I hate the confusion at my job right now. It is upsetting me.  I don’t like uncertainty and I’m tired of going through these processes at the places I work.  I would like some stability please.  For at LEAST 3 years before boats go a-rocking
I don’t like the family car.  Having my own car gave me a sense of individuality. I was able to tailor it to what I wanted it to be.  With me being solely responsible for it, it felt like there was something in this world that was truly mine.  This family car sucks… the horn works intermittently and it’s always dusty.  I haven’t melded with it the way I did with Deez.  I miss her.  I miss the “road trip” feeling I got when I got into that car.  I fear it’ll never come back.
I miss being desired.  I miss feeling like the most wanted and beautiful person in SOMEONE’s life.  I miss being chased after.  I miss being caught.  I miss making LOVE.  I miss being fucked.  I miss feeling like a WOMAN.
I hate thinking I have to hate the way I look.  I like my body.  I understand that this world is built for skinny people.  But I love my fullness.  I don’t like that it means that I may potentially die before everyone else.  But I think I’m fierce when I see myself in the mirror in the mornings.  I wish other people felt that way instead of looking at me like they want to offer me some advice.
I miss my mom.  I miss my grandma.  I miss my dad. I miss that undeniable sense of family that I used to have all the time.  The knowing that there were some folks in this world that UNCONDITIONALLY were loving me back.  I miss there feeling like there is a forcefield of protection around me fostered by my family.  I hate that the family is so segmented.  I hate that they all want to blame me for why we don’t speak anymore.  Phones work two ways.  I can’t ALWAYS be the one reaching out.   I hate that in my mind I have to kill those people off so the thought of how they’re treating me without ever interacting with me won’t keep hurting me.
I miss the fun that used to be associated with my sorority.  I miss the TRUE fellowship.  I miss that deep sisterhood.  I hate that I pay them to stress me out yearly.  I hate that they act like they give me a paycheck for the things I do.  I hate that they’ve taken away the little silly stuff that meant a LOT.  I’m really glad that I milked my experience for all that I could while I could and have great memories because I don’t believe I’ll make anymore like that to keep me going for much longer.
I hate feeling like I am disappearing.  It is the feeling that makes me feel MOST like my mom.  I know she hated her life if it weren’t for a few things.  I LOVE LIFE… I have to get back to that everyday.
I miss discovering new music that made me wonder what else there was out in the world beyond what I know.  That made me want to travel and meet new people and explore new experiences.  Everything sounds the same these days
I hate feeling put upon.  Everyone WANTS something.  No one cares what I want.
I hate that I need to drink to feel high these days.  I used to get that feeling just by living my life. (and drinking LOL)
I never felt more beautiful than when I was pregnant with Athena.  It was the very first time in my life I didn’t have to worry about my tummy poking out of my clothes.  It was actually welcome.  It was a serious denoument after her birth to go back to being criticized instead of celebrated.
I hate that I think my baby doesn’t know me.  She takes time to recognize me still sometimes.  (mostly when she’s tired).  But still… I want to feel like… her MOTHER… no higher title. the word for God on the her lips until she can learn other wise.  Not because i want to control her or dominate her… but because I remember the comfort of having someone like that on earth with me.

Well… that’s it for now.  I think I’ve made space in my head for some new thoughts.  I would normally insert the promise here to blog more.  But I just don’t care right now.

And that’s real.

</RANT>

*

I am a Rock. I am an Island.

As I look at the happenings in my world these days I am understanding my dad more and more.  Strange that I should.  I’ve ALWAYS identified more with my mom than he.  But there are things that can only be reviewed by the adult mind of a parent when thinking back on ones childhood to make sense.   I remember not fully understanding my mother’s pain when my dad died.  This man who emotionally seemed to hold her down all our lives.  Made her feel bad about herself.  Dalliances with other women.  Never lending to the vision of them moving out of the “hood”.  I guess back then we saw it as being liberated.  Then I got married and lived with Earl.  It really was one thing to date him and see him often and what not.  Living with someone and calling that person your lifemate really changes things.  After only months of marrying and living together, I started to see him as an extension of me and I an extension of him.  There was a comfort-ability there I’d only achieved with blood family.  He saw the whole of me.  Not just the prettied up me that folks got to see when I came outside; but the dull, boring, possibly annoying, home body me.  And loved me anyway.  He became a better friend to me in marriage than we had been dating.   I thought on how I’d feel after a year of being married if he’d died… and my heart sunk so hard….  It’s only then I thought… well then… how about 38 years?  Even if it wasn’t all bliss all the time… the routine alone has something to say for missing a lost loved one.  Of course I only came to that realization after she too had gone… not too long after telling us she really didn’t have anything to live for.  That burnt a hole in my heart… and I’m not quite sure I’ll get to the point in my world where I’ll understand that commentary.  I hope I never do.

But back to understanding my dad.  All my life, Daddy was this… lofty ideal…  I couldn’t put a stamp on who he was or what he was.  He was there… he worked hard.  But he found so much more enjoyment outside the house.  So much so that he’d come home and I suppose be reminded of all the things he was running to the outside to get away from.  Family. Responsibility.  Rigamarole.  At least… that’s what I thought.  But living here now… the ONLY person in the whole edifice that doesn’t share a blood line with anyone else but the brand new baby… I’m understanding my father more.  Growing up, we were literally SURROUNDED by my mother’s family.  All the aunts and uncles we met and knew were my mom’s brothers and sister.  Grandma that raised us was her mom.   Only living Grandpa was her dad.  Countless cousins that surrounded us were from her side of the family – be it Grandpa Osmin’s family or Granny’s side.  I would sometimes wonder where Dad’s family was – but they were mostly all in Haiti still.  The ones that did come visit – my cousin Marlene and my uncle Gabriel – i remember with fondness.  Maybe mostly because they made an effort to come up and be a part of the family.  To get to know us in some way.  By the time his sister, my aunt Yvonne, moved up and lived with us for sometime, I was already grown – an adult so it didn’t really matter to me and I considered her presence more of an inconvenience because she got my room and I had to sleep in the living room for the length of her stay.  But while I was being raised I remember mom’s family coming to live with us for months at a time as they made their exodus to the Americas.  As a kid I thought nothing of it.  It was fun.  More family… more stuff to do and people to talk to.  But now I think about my dad…. cornered. In a house full of “family” that wasn’t his family.  His only relation was to those little rug rats running around.  No family in the city… state… country…  No one who knew him from before he was a husband or a dad or an American, even.  Just his wife’s family.  And their chatter.  And their ways.  And their togetherness, which you seem to be perpetually outside of.  None of them understand how stuff was done when he was growing up in his particular household.  His father had passed when he was just 11 and they had to make it happen w/o an adult male presence in the household.  Dad had to learn how to cook so he could help his mom.  Being the youngest and the only survivor between he and his twin, he loved his mom extra much.  Shit.  We barely felt it when his mom died and he traveled down to Haiti alone to bury her.   How alone he must’ve felt in that realm.

The lonesomeness wouldn’t be so bad if when I did reach out to family, it was well received.  But they all sit there on their high horses all talking about “YOU don’t call.  YOU don’t write. YOU don’t visit.”  I guess I’m the only one with a phone, a pen or email and a car.  Either that or all their avenues are incoming only.  These same people I mentioned above who were all about family when they lived with us… fell away when mom died.  And I’m not sure what they expected of me.  Folks get confused because I LOOK like my mom but I am not her.   We don’t do things the same.  We don’t really have the same mannerisms.  And her tolerance for BS was way higher than mine.  My tongue is sharper too.  And it was mostly silenced out of respect for HER.    But now that she’s gone — all of them can get it.  They want to NOT answer their phones when I try to invite them to the baby’s christening – then FUCK them.  They want to wait upon invite after invite after invite all to just NOT show up then criticize that I don’t try hard enough?  FUCK them.  They want to never act like their phones work going out.  FUCK THEM.  I have narrowed my circle significantly.  The only family that tries to keep the ties: Domi.  Tante Sisi.  Ollie and his mom.  Oncle Vava (and i know he doesn’t stay in touch because of that ugly BITCH wife of his). Even Ginette who is only a family member by marriage stays in touch more than supposed real blood relation.  That’s it.

The rest of the so-called family can heed this message:

The original nuclear died off with Mom and Dad.  All the nuclear i need is here.  Hubby.  Baby.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

-Simon & Garfunkel

*

She is not Me. She is not Mine.

So many things I’m learning and coming to terms with as I go through this motherhood journey.  I feel like I’m experiencing a whole new world.  And I am.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that this little girl isn’t me.  I look at her and instantly the memories of pictures of my mom holding me as an infant; me chillin in a crib with full winter regalia ready to go outside; rosy cheeked afroheaded baby new to this life.  I look at her and I see myself.  But really – I need to stop that.  She is not me.  She will be completely different from me.  As she’s a completely different person.  I can’t keep projecting me and my experiences on to her.  She’ll experience a world unlike the one I grew up in and that will make her different. better. stronger. more courageous. more ambitious. more action oriented.  I hope.  And my purpose is to help her build the foundation for that.  She isn’t here for my entertainment or to fulfill some gaping hole of a need in my soul.  I’m here to help her now.  Whatever my life was before shouldn’t really take precedence anymore.  It IS about her when it’s about HER.

This also means that she isn’t “Mine”.  Little voices in my head revolt when I hear about the experiences she has when I’m not around.  Being paraded around the block by her grandmother and coming into contact with various people that I may or may not know… may or may not approve of.   And this voice starts to rant on in a jealous tone.  “I didn’t ask for all that to happen.  Who said it was okay for her to be in so&so’s company?”  And I have to step back and remember – she isn’t MINE.  She doesn’t BELONG to me.  She belongs to the world.  As much as I am her mother – E is her father, MaCora is her granny, J is her uncle, etc.  And she’ll experience all of us differently – but she doesn’t BELONG to any of us.  She is her own spirit.  Her own entity.  I have to come into respecting and honoring that and somehow still making sure there are boundaries for her protection.  I guess I’ll get to figuring that part out as I go along.

There’s a whole lot of feeling around in the darkness on this.  I’m at a loss for my elders to ask advice.  The elders that are around (E’s, mostly) advise me not to go reading a 100 books on the subject of parenting and try to focus on having my own experience with her.  But as per yesterday’s blog… my own experience seems to have whittled down to 2 hours on weekdays and who knows how long on weekends pending on the weekend.

I might have to get some counseling.  There’s too much on my heart and in my mind.  I gotta get ahead of it all before it overruns me.

*

Bit Part

I’m confused about a lot of things lately.  My mind is constantly whirling around trying to answer MORE questions than I used to ask myself.  The majority of them were about my baby when I was at home alone with her – but the more baby books and articles I read, the better I felt about what I was doing and how competently I was handling the task.  Now that I’m back at work – all that knowledge has been turned on it’s ear because…. I’m not there all the time to implement all of these wonderful things to make her life better / happier / more fulfilling / more productive.

When I was growing up, through the majority of the child hood I could remember, my mother held two jobs to make the ends meet (daddy worked one job himself).  In the daytime – a nurse’s aide at a private hospital in Jackson Heights.  At night, a cleaning lady for an office building in the city (round abouts 48th street and Madison or so).  So her schedule from what I could tell and what I remember was as follows:

6:00AM – wake up / get dressed / eat / get mind right
6:45AM – get out the house to walk or take the bus or occasionally get a ride from dad to work
7:15AM – report to ICU for work
12:00PM – Lunch time / call kids / get food / rest feet
3:00PM – quitting time / walk home / catch bus / get a cab
3:30PM – eat / nap / watch General Hospital
4:30PM – get up / shower / change
5:00PM – get out the door / train to the city
5:30PM – report to office building and begin cleaning
12:00AM – quitting time / train home / get ride home from husband (sometimes with / sometimes without kids)
12:45AM – get home / eat / sleep

The only time I was home and sentinent was uring that 3:30 – 5:00 period.  I was home from elementary school so I got to see her for a few moments while she was awake; had to be quiet when she watched her stories; watched her sleep and followed her around the house while she prepared for the next job, catching whiffs of Yves Saint Laurent or L’Air Du Temps wafting in her wake as I did what I did best then – worshiped her and being in her presence.  Then 5:00PM would come and I’d do everything in my power to try  to convince her to stay home.  I wanted her to think that being home with me was the best thing she could possibly choose at that time.  Could I pretend to be sick?  Could I tell her we had really fun stuff lined up if she decided to stay home?  When all else failed I’d resort to crying.  Painful, terrible sobs.  The “i will literally die if you leave” style crying.  And when she walked out the door, I would crawl under a table so I didn’t have to see her go and finish my crying there.   Strange that as I type this, I tear up.  You’d think 30 years later – this would be a non issue.  I HATED to see her leave.  I always did.  But somehow – in those 2 1/2 hours per weekday and random weekends she had free – she was MOM.  No one could take her place.  She was my primary caregiver and my idol.  Stars in my eyes for her.  Even to this day at her memory.  Grandma pitched in 100% to raise us and she held an extremely high place in my heart.  2nd mother.  She was there when we got home from school – meals prepared – occupied house so we wouldn’t have to latchkey. She couldn’t help us with homework really because she spoke MUCH more French and Kreyol than she did English.  And I have extremely fond memories of her.  She was Granny.  My favorite girl.  But Mom? was MOMMY.  Period.

So why can’t this translate for me with my little girl?  I’m reading a book about sleep training that recommends that she gets 14 – 15 hours of sleep a day.  a 1 hour nap in the morning; a  2hour nap early afternoon and then putting her down for the night from 7P – 7A (or 8P – 8A / 9P – 9A).  And I stopped reading right then.   Most nights? I don’t get home till 7P on a good day from work.  If I put her down at 8… i get one hour of her?  In the morning it’s all hustle and bustle to get to work.  So would I only get the 1 – 2 hours to actually get to interact with her per weekday that my mom did?  The whole day she will be with Grandma.  And let me disclaim:  I know I am EXTREMELY LUCKY that E’s mom is retired and extremely spry for 72 years old – PLUS? has an insatiable love for her only grandchild as it stands.  So much so that she’s willing to watch her every day while we are at work for as long as we’ll let her.  I realize there are new moms out there SCRAMBLING to find daycare and hating it and in that aspect I am sincerely blessed.  I had that growing up – a Grandmother whenever I needed her.  I feel poorly that my dearest only has on grandparent that she’ll ever actually have met (at least I had 3 and met all of them).  But as the fates show it – this Grandmother will be her everything if she lets her.  I know I will work in tandem with Ma Cora to get Theeny to where she needs to be – developmentally, spiritually, emotionally.   I just hate that I feel like I’m doing it remotely.   I hate that it’s kind of a toss of the coin whether she’ll be happy to see me at the end of the day or if I’ll be left asking myself “does she even recognize me?”  I feel so distant from her that the bonding hours we do currently have are the ones where she is the most cranky and fussy.  I get a tiny glimpse of my sweet happy little girl in the morning before I have to rush off to work.  I just don’t know what to do.  This is normal, I suppose…  every mom goes through this – right?

How do I get THROUGH – because I am really stuck on this and I’m not sure where the light will come from.  Maybe after this move, things will even out for me and I’ll feel better but as for right now?  I am pretty much all the way miserable.  Miserable at work because I miss her so much.  Miserable when I come home because she doesn’t seem to want to be bothered with me and I get to watch her have a better conversation with the ceiling fan than she would like to have with me.

I wish my mom was here so I could ask her how she did it.

I wish i didn’t have to figure that out.

*

So much…

Man… there is so much going on.  I’m trying to hang on to the edge of the world whilst it spins around.

Of course the motherhood thing takes precedence.  What an abrupt change!  It really is literally overnight that your whole world changes.  And there’s NOTHING in the 9 – 10 months of gestation that prepares you for the rigors of the actual care and maintenance of the little one.  Actually, if you play your cards right the 9 – 10 months is probably the last bits of really restful sleep / “alone” time you’ll get before it all gets started and stabilized.  But it doesn’t matter.  It’s not like you can save up sleep from those days to carry you through the next few weeks / months that it takes to get a “schedule” going.  Thank God for maternity leave.  I was talking to a woman at work who back in the day had no maternity leave and she had her baby on a Tuesday and was back to work the following Monday.  I think my brain would have exploded if I had to do that.  It’s extremely good that you get those weeks to kind of ease into it all – so if the baby kept you up all night – you can manage to sleep it off the next day and not have to worry about deadlines and things needed from the thousand points of light that normally are always asking something of you.  I have about 5 more weeks to go of this “quiet” in the rest of my life.  But this part of my life is so noisy – I’m not sure it makes a difference.

We’re moving.  E’s mom has a rental property on the top floor of her brownstone and it’s twice the space that we currently have which would give the baby a room of her own and afford us a dining room in addition to the rooms we currently have.   Originally the set up was that she would charge us a discounted rate for the next year so that we could bank about 200 – 300 dollars so that the dream / aspiration of getting our own home could be closer in reach.  But after all the renovations, she is charging us so that we’ll only be able to bank 100 bucks.  So basically paying the same thing we pay now for twice the space.  There are several pros and cons to this whole situation.  The biggest con is that we’ll be living above his mother.  I can’t say I’ve ever seen ONE situation where this ends up with the mother and daughter in law being best of friends upon parting.  I thought it could be different with us.  But as the days pass… I see all the things creeping in that are going to make us fast enemies and put E in compromising situations.   Increasingly more comments about my parenting style… her deciding she wants to care for my daughter the way she wants to and not the way I asked her to…  constant referral to the property upstairs as “hers” (I mean… it is… and we know that… but our current landlady doesn’t show up every few times a week just to remind us that we live on HER property).  We asked her if we could paint the walls to which she responded “Yeah, you can – just don’t mess up my floors.”  Okay.  So I tarped the floors really good and we started getting busy – but E got wrapped up in being picasso for the baby’s room.  So i ended up painting a whole room by myself.  On one of my breaks downstairs to check on the baby and get a little air conditioning she asked me if I thought I was “overdoing it”….  No. I don’t.  When we moved into the current apartment we just started getting things into the house we never thought to paint it with all the furniture coming in.  The walls were and have been eggshell and white.  For four years.  I didn’t want to take the chance that should we be there for longer than 1 year that I’d be living in “heaven” again with all the white walls and ceilings.  But I’m taking it as her asking me if perhaps I can see that SHE perceives me to be going overboard with the painting by her standards.  I wonder if she would have asked a tenant off the street the same question.  This is just one example of MANY quick commentaries I’ve been fielding from her in the last few days that we’ve been at the house painting and preparing for the move.  There’s only so much button-lipdedness I can exercise before I say something……

Then there’s the family dynamic.  When you boil it all the way down and take the frills off of it and cut away the fluff?  I’m the only “stranger” moving into that complex when it goes down.  EVERYONE else in that building is family by blood.  Mother, Aunt, Brothers, Cousins.  I’m the only non-blood relation.  Even my daughter is their blood.  And boy – I’m really feeling it.  I understand that my family is really no where to be found because since I committed the cardinal sin of moving to brooklyn after getting married and away from my Queens based family that I no longer deserve their time / attention / travel to be around me and my family.  And there’s only so much reaching out in their direction I can do without any get back from them.  So decidedly, my little girl will know her father’s family better.  I guess it’s always one side more than the other.  Or at least in my experience.  My brother and I definitely knew my mother’s side of the family waaaay better than my dad’s side.  And that was for whatever reasons – they hadn’t traveled up to America – they didn’t really call a lot or make efforts to visit or ask for us to visit… so  Mom’s side DID – to the point where they lived with us for varied spans of time (which was good and bad) but we knew them.  I do truly feel that I’m all alone there.  I’m the only one not raised in THEIR way.  And so if I say something off color or kilter… I’m the one who’ll get the side eye like “who’s this bitch?”  I’ve never felt like more of an island.  I think that I won’t be able to be myself.  Sing loudly.  Have company.  Play my music on a Sunday morning.  Walk heavy – all for the fear of being reprimanded for… well… being myself.  Meanwhile – everyone else will be just fine.

The family dynamic brings another dimension – PRIVACY.  I believe that for the benefit of saving a whole $100 a month and for essentially living above Mommy-Day-Care for the baby, I am giving up every shred of my personal privacy and freedom.  I think that our apartment will be a veritable Grand Central Station for their family to just run up and down as they see fit.  I may never have time for me and my nuclear family alone.   I’m afraid to come out of the bathroom after a shower (bathroom is in the main hallway 2 doors down from what would be our bedroom) and find a family member of his wandering about.  And I think that enough of that? will be enough to destroy us.  We’re fighting as it is to make sure that we work every day – and that’s been in the vacuum of privacy that is our little apartment where it’s just us.   I am scared that moving in under the bright light of his family’s observance may break us.  I don’t want it to.  I just need to put it in writing to get it out of my head.

On top of ALL of that?  I’m having so much trouble bonding with my little one.  There were umpteen roadblocks stopping us from garnering this natural, ethereal connection that was supposed to be present at birth for her and I.  I couldn’t give birth vaginally.  I didn’t get to hold her in my arms for 6 hours.  I didn’t get to properly begin breastfeeding until 10 days later.   No one would believe that real bonafide side eye action that I get from this girl.  And I know it takes time for some folks.  I’m just worried that all this added “outside” interaction will water it down and I’ll ultimately become just a character in the background for her when she retells her life story.  Not that I wanted top billing?  But as this move draws nigh, I feel less like her mom and more like a glorified nanny who only gets occasional use.  Maybe a little more alone, quiet time together and that might change.  All the mothers I know assure me that this is 100% temporary and that I won’t feel this way for long.  All the articles I read told me that I really shouldn’t have taken on this many life changes post-partum.

I suppose it will all come out in the wash sooner or later.

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Lessons…

Little one?

I’ll just teach you to validate yourself.  And let that be the priority to you always.  No one else’s say so … should say so.

that alone will free you from many of the shackles I’ve already worn.

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Mortality

Once you’ve lost one loved one… and I mean a really close loved one – a parent, a sibling, a best friend – you become painfully aware that you are at risk of losing them all one day.  And it’s inevitable.

It changes how you look at everything in life.   How you react to folks and interact with them.  Nothing is ever interaction for the sake of living life.  You start to look at it (or… at least I do) as the memories you’ll look back on one day when this person isn’t around anymore.   And I try harder to hold on to these images in my mind so that I have something to keep me company in those times.  The memories for later that I create now.

I touch the madonna chain my mom… left to me – because she didn’t give it to me.  And my hand drifts down just a bit to touch my belly, now full with expectation.  And I find myself stuck in between.  Right in the middle passage of this strange cycle of life.  The loss of my mom’s life… the anticipation of a new one to start.  And I am living moments between them both.

Sidenote: Hindsight makes you examine things a little more carefully when you have new information.   Nightmares are sometimes harbingers of good tidings – but you place them in the frame of your current knowledge and they scare you because you don’t have all the information.  I look back at that dream and realize, they were mentally removing everything chemical… everything artificial… making way for the natural miracle that was about to take place.  I see that so clearly now.  But with lack of information and foresight… their presence and actions in my dreams scared me to death.

Grandma used to tell me that nothing is forever in this world.  And I heard her… but wasn’t listening.  I didn’t want to believe that good things weren’t forever too… wonderful people and happy experiences and the tangible personal warmth of bodily affection in the form of hugs and kisses and tender moments with your loved ones.  As good as all those things are – they HAVE to be forever…. right?

No.  But the memories of those things and the actual feeling of love created from those instances I sincerely believe transcend this existence and go with you… wherever your spirit is.

My heart is heavy and hurting right now as I observe a dear friend and sister go through what I went through.  I wouldn’t wish it on a mortal enemy.  And while we tell ourselves we know of the possibility of the outcomes – we’re NEVER prepared for the instance that takes the physical presence of our loved ones away.  There is a deep seated hurt / numbness / inconsolable void that takes over your function and while the words of comfort from the community swirl about your mind and soul – none of them can say what you want to hear.  “She’ll be back.  This is only temporary…”  or “Here’s a number to reach her while she’s gone”  or better yet – “this is just a nightmare – you’ll be waking up soon”.

I am trying to empty my head so my heart will function today.

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