To Share

I wrote out my first birthing experience last week.
And I wasn't expecting so many emotions.
I don't know why! 

Processing:

I am...

I am both becoming and falling apart.

I am...

I am both new and old.

I am...

I am both refreshed -- aired out, and yet still stored away -- getting attic rot.

I am...

I am still hoping, 

yet fulfilled, 

regardless still yearning.

I opened up

to find that my scar was only scabbed

and it hurts still to touch and pull at, 

tug, smooth, press the pillow against

at least in my heart.

Its not ugly to me now.

But

it is not 

how I was formed 

at first.

To open up  -- not open up, like share with the room,

but open up like, open a door that got shut years ago because the room means too much to look at.

via

To open up this past week,

I thought I was ready.

And I guess I was.

But I'm questioning why.

Why did I want to share it?

What was it for?

And why does it matter 

when other people have so many hurts too?

I've looked back now 

and part of me gets a thrill to have been where I was and be able to be where I am.

But another part of me just gets tired.

Achey and Sore.

So many VBACers seem to feel high off of it.

At least in the stories on blogs.

And I'm sure we are all just too multi-demential to really ever get everything said.

But I find that I am not high off my experience.

Just relieved.

But sometimes still pained.

Sometimes still grieved that it was a VBAC and not just a birth.

To look back on how hard the day was, the day that changed how medical people would address me forever, just sorta overwhelmed me.

I ate a lot of cookies.

Blake came home from grocery shopping with Jasmine in tow. 

And she had six red roses in her hand.

And he had 12 chocolate chip cookies in his.

They are my family.

I'd do it all again.

But to do it again, in words, it did hurt.

And those cookies, they got eaten real fast.

As I typed, and sweat, and fell apart.

Then I had some really good days.

Days where I seriously couldn't figure out why they went so smoothly. How I got, what I got, done. How I felt so at peace.

But then I go and try to continue on with life. Because life is not just birth.

And I feel so lost.

I want to be a good mom.

And I want to have at least some of it figured out.

I know we can't figure it all.

And I just don't know where to start.

And there are so many options.

And so many opinions.

And so many ways to fail.

I keep feeling like I come up short.

Today was so tiring.

I want to work towards some traditions to have and hold.

And I keep telling myself that when you start from stretch the first time it feels like lifting boulders. But if you keep baking from scratch it comes easy.

But today was hard, as the baby wanted to talk instead of listen in church, so I missed the sermon I wanted to hear.

And I wore a sweater because it's December, but its 60 degrees, and the extra layer of my tummy-sucker-in-er tank top just was too hot.
And I was sweating while rocking my baby in the too bright sun, hoping to get back in the room to hear. To learn.
Maybe I was learning, but not the way I wanted to.

And I keep telling myself that we all end up with old bellies one day. But its just hard to remember when the only bellies they show me are 20 years old and lucky.

And lunch didn't taste as good as the effort to make it.

Later

I saw my computer was open, 

and I saw my photo,

with a purple tank top hosting a beautiful roundness

and I clicked

I started to read, and was drawn in to my own story,

like I hadn't lived it.

And I read it in disbelief of how I could make it through my fears.

The post I opened, where I had contractions from an infection, and I remember how terrified I was to hear that.

I kept reading.

And I just got more and more bogged down by my old fears.

Its so weird.

I still have a hard time getting them to be quiet.

I showed them they were wrong.

But the scars they gave me 

they need to heal too.

How long do scars take to get better?

Will they always have the ability to shock me with a jolt of pain out of the blue?

And I bare a new scar

too.

And I don't want to be bitter.

Twice scared.

But that scar is new,

and it hurts still.

To be loved is to feel in the face of a single split second which is lingering for months.

Is that the new me too?

Someday I know that will also calm.

But I'm a different person now.

And some days that's wonderful.

And some days I just have a hard time.

Anyway.

I am full of tons of thoughts.

Like what do I do with this blog now?

One post has blown up on pinterest -- "How to look good while pregnant"

So funny,

because I didn't care about that post.

I wanted all How to be pregnant, and How to have a baby posts.

But people flock.

And I wonder,

how should I respond.

I can't blog about pregnancy forever.

And I have some thoughts I still need to get out about it.

But I have this strange pressure on myself now.

How to point.

How to aim.

Who am I now?

And its not just because someone is looking.

Its just what happens when, for two years, you work solely for something that takes 6 hours and is over.

I don't know how to fully release.

And I think that's some of my post traumatic stress. 

And I think that's some of how I am.

And I think that's some of how life just feels.

AND 

then the weekly weigh-ins...

I think I have annoyed people.

Or at least I interpret your silence as annoyance.

And I understand.

I never want to hear about that kinda thing.

I just had to do it.

In the place I was, I was about to LIVE off cookies without it. (Not really exaggerating here either.) 

But this week.

With my heart opening up with aged nuances,

food was 

not calculated

but consumed.

And I've started to wonder if instead of a weigh in of my body,

I should be doing a weigh in of my heart.

(And for full disclosure, I didn't get off my last pound. And some days (it waivers) I have two pounds to get off now -- cookies.) 

I need to eat well, but I think the picture I post of the scale and the feet have started to feel like last time -- with the guilt and the pressure and the pain.

HERE I AM.

A mess.

Someone who can try with strength.

But someone who cannot make herself whole.

I need to lay down.

And all those naps,

they help.

But they aren't it.

You've watched me wonder,

and you even took me

on a journey.

And

I don't understand exactly what you where doing,

and

it makes me hesitant,

but I know the only way to 

Whole

is you.

I need to lay myself down

as yours

again.

Thank you for letting me take such a long time to say so.

Thank you for holding my hand while I kick you tantrum style (like Jasmine.)

Thank you for clear images of you and me, over and over, in my days.

I'm gonna need you to start talking.

Because I'm about to start making up some craziness to fill up the emptinesses.

I'll look for your words,

but you are going to have to say them.

I'll need to hear you again.

Help me set everything down,

so you can put it in order for me.

Show me what to do now.

(I'm not sure I make the best Dread Pirate Roberts.)