On...Moving...On...

Moving is so strange.
Some people crave it, and crave change. I, on the other hand, am the opposite -- craving consistency, struggling with change. Moving is one of the biggest change you can make, because its changes almost everything in your whole world and life.


I thought since I was moving to somewhere I used to live, it wouldn't feel like moving at all.
But I was wrong.
I was gone from here for two years.
And they were a couple of really hard, intense, and strong years.


I thought it would feel like Iowa didn't happen. That it would just fade away like a dream.
But so far, it hasn't.
And at any given moment in the day I will stop seeing what I am in the middle of doing and I will be back in Iowa, hands still moving in Illinois, eyes seeing nothing but places I can't see. Most of them are pregnancy memories. Fighting for what I felt I needed most in the world.


It's an odd feeling.


We live in a new house.
But we still own our old house.
Our old house is rented out.
Until we were back here I didn't really face where I was.

We live across town from our old house, so for awhile I didn't see it. But then one night we had to go back to it to check on some appliances for our renters. We had the girls with us, so I waited in the van with them while Blake went inside. They longer we sat there the harder my life-worlds collided.

In front of our old house for Blake's PhD Graduation

So weird to be outside my home that's not mine.
So weird that the last time we were living there Jasmine was Ruby's age.
So weird that as much as I loved living there, loved becoming a mom, and missed things about that time and place...
that I was recoiling from it all.
It was like opening an ache I thought I was over.

You'd think after all my blogging, I would be totally in touch with my c-section aches. But I guess I wasn't fully.  I was starting to think they were healed up. But being in the places where the aches onced ached, I was bowled over. All I could think was "this is where I did this, because I hurt." over and over again about all sorts of different things.
When I wasn't in that location I could remember the actual parts of motherhood -- baby snuggles, crawling and stumbling steps. But when I was back there, I just felt the ouches of things I fought. It was disappointing to know how weak that made me feel.

I've been back in that area a few times now since moving, and when I am there I face streets I walked I so I could lose the baby weight --- because somehow I blamed my weight on not going into labor. I spent all my time after having a baby becoming healthy, not for healthy sake, but for beating what beat me. All my time learning, not to know, but to overcome. And not in a sane healthy way. Out of maniacal desperation. And all my memories from that places are laced with the allconsumingness of that. And it disappoints me.

And surprises me.

I had started to think maybe I was over thinking it, and over talking it, here on the blog. That maybe I was confused and that it wasn't such a big deal. And that maybe I needed to back off it a bit, because maybe its not real for anyone. But the good thing about facing it down again, is that it reminds me how real it is. And it renews my desire to minister to other women who fight the fight of birth trauma. Because it really is a very real thing, and it really does change you forever.

{I mean, it's not always for the worst. But it does change you. And once you are changed, you can't be the original.
And to be very honest with you, I don't want to be the Lydia I was before.
And to be honest, I like this Lydia a lot better. Especially the Lydia I am now, after two kids. Not just because I VBACed, but more because having two kids has knocked tons of my pointy edges off. I still have pleanty, and I still need way more refining. But I like who I am now more than who I was before. Even if a lot of what I went through and what I go through (the c-section, and more, like never sleeping - ever) are not what I would choose for myself -- I like what they eventually do to me. Make me more real and more accessible. It hurts. It hurts over and over. And the work seems to get harder and harder all the time. But I can see progress. And I like where it brings me.}

But anyway.
Moving.
Its hard.
Even when you move back to where you were.
Because you can't be who you were before.
And now you have to fit into a space differently and be ok with it.