“I will not teach or love or show you anything perfectly, but I will let you see me, and I will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you. Truly, deeply, seeing you.”
-Dr. Brene Brown
The other day I was at a birth… my client had decided to get an epidural and I was sent out of the room while the anesthesiologist placed it in her spine. I sat in one of two chairs in the center of the labor and delivery wing, and a strange woman who had been haunting the hallways for the past four hours plopped down beside me. She informed me that she was waiting for her surrogate to have her baby, a moment she had been waiting for her entire life. She was wringing her hands, her anxiety palpable.
“Are you a mom?” she asked.
“Three little girls,” I said, smiling warmly, I tried to surround her in my calm energy, bring down her distress with my own breath.
“Is it hard?” she asked a few quiet minutes later.
“Labor?”
“No, being a mom.”
I squeezed her quaking hand. I told her it was hard. And marvelous.
“How? How is it hard?” she persisted, trying to gather her motherhood in her arms so she could greet her new babe with all of the secrets in hand.
I was called in to my client again before I could give her an answer.
“What I’ve started I must finish. I’ve gone too far to turn back. Regardless of what may happen, I have to go forward.”
― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
I’ve been MIA, I know. I have a million legitimate excuses for you. I have three kids, and it’s summer. We’re making memories. Building castles.
Finding treasures.
Having sleepovers, with serious bedhead consequences.
Letting watermelon drip from our chins.
You know, summer stuff.
Also, I witnessed a woman birth a beautiful baby boy, and become a mom (wipes tears). I had to recover for a week after skipping a night of sleep to see this baby born.
AND… I had a birthday, and turned (gasp) 35. Yep. And my hubs had a birthday two days later, and he turned (much bigger gasp) 38. And we went to the beach. Twice. Which was marvelous, because it helps me appreciate the beauty in where we live now, rather than shrivel with homesickness.
And we rearranged the bedrooms in our home to give each girl their own bedroom…Carly and Lydia have their individual space now, and my creative haven has been dumped into a massive pile of plastic bins in the attic (sob) and replaced by Stella’s Minnie Mouse action figures.
But.
Also.
I posted about the magical underwear, and have been waiting to be struck down. I have been going through some sort of big, dramatic, face-your-fears panic. I had an excruciatingly awkward, heart-beat-through-your-chest phone call with my mom. Where she really stepped up and tried to be understanding. And said in not so many words, “If you must, you must.” And. “But its so sacred.” And “What is coming next?” And that question has me curling up in the fetal position right now.
It is a moment of true recognition, how hard this is going to be. It certainly is not unreasonable, my mother’s fear. Her hesitation. And my parents are trying so hard to love and support me. But I know that I may cause them pain, create tension in their lives, make things even more challenging in their family relationships, point out parts of my life that were not-so-great and stir up guilt or anger in them. It’s big…a huge, life-swallowing , monstrous FEAR in me. And it’s so… public. Surely this crippling fear is not original to anyone setting out to write memoir. But whew.
On the way home from the beach, on my 35th birthday, my kids watched The Never Ending Story in the car.
A movie I could recite almost word for word. The Rock Biter. The secret place in the elementary school attic. Morla. The swamp of sadness. Is the sound track playing in your head right now too?
Rick was driving, and I stared at the road ahead, grappling with the demons that have me in this dead stall.
The fears that threaten my ability to just keep moving.
And in the midst of my reverie, Lydia calls out from the back seat, “What did she say? What? I can’t understand her!”
Immediately, my mind brings up the scene… I see the Empress, sitting on her broken rock, floating in oblivion, her pearl quaking against her forehead delicately, her eyes red rimmed…
“Bastian? Why don’t you do what you dream, Bastian?”
I paused the movie, and translated her rung out cry for my eight year old, then backed the movie up one scene so she could watch it again, and hear her plea.
“Bastian? What don’t you do what you dream, Bastian?”
Go ahead. Play out that scene in your mind. Any child of the 80s can.
There’s nothing like a giant flying cockerspaniel-dragon to snap you back into your life. Bring you back your dreams.
I won’t be chasing anyone into a dumpster anytime soon, but I will continue, despite my serious anxiety.
Because the Dream is so much better than the Nothing.
