April 6, 2015 · 9:32 am

The How

I ruminate.  A sort of self-imprisonment, made up of “what ifs”, “I coulds” and “maybe I should haves”. The problem with such introspection is not really the questions we ask ourselves, but rather where we think the answers can be found. My emotional state, like a pendulum, swings between feeling good, and feeling not so good. I don’t hang out for long in the middle, but rather spend most of my time on either side of neutral. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned how to maximize the time spent feeling good, and to minimize the intensity and length of time I spend feeling bad. Despite these strides, it’s a two steps forward one step back kind of thing. For me, sometimes the one step back is a pretty big one. Rather, it feels big when I’m not feeling my best. A younger version of myself eclipses the self-assured woman I’ve grown to be. This younger me rarely knows what she wants or how she feels. Her sense of self-worth determined by the opinions and affections of others. Confident, even sassy, 40 year old me, gets so swallowed up by the whys and the whats of my unhappiness, that I forget the how of feeling good.

About a month ago, I was feeling pretty low. It was as though my pendulum had become securely latched to some imaginary wall behind me, cemented in my hopelessness. It felt as though things were not going to change…. Unless of course someone, or something changed it for me. In a funk, instead of reaching out, I turned inwards, stuck in that loop of rumination. I decathected, pulling away from the people and things that matter most.  I’d get it together, and feel ok while I was busying myself with work, or the kids, but the second I stopped, or slowed the pace, my despair would seep back in. My fuse was short, and my words were curt. I began to see concern in my children’s eyes. “Are you happy Mama?” Argh that question… It killed me that my unhappiness had become obvious to the two little people who I most wanted to protect from it, but children see what others don’t. They feel what we do not say. The more we try and hide some part of ourselves, the more energy we end up lending to it, making it impossible for our children not to pick up on. They read energy. Kids understand anger, sadness, and tension in ways that adults don’t. They may not have words for these complicated emotions. But they know the texture, rhythm, and vibration of our pain. They are our mirrors. In their faces, I saw how ugly my impatience was. I saw the dread of my mounting irritability. I knew, that they might blame themselves for my unhappiness (because that’s what kids do), or worse yet, see it as their job to fix me. Despite knowing all of this, I remained stuck, as though paralyzed by the noise in my head, and the ache in my heart.

Until one night, I sat long-faced on the couch, staring blankly at my phone, desperate for their bedtime so that I could be alone with my misery. “Mama, I want to tell you a story. I’ve been waiting for the right time, and I think you need to hear it”, Maya said gingerly as though testing to see whether I was ready to listen. This is how her story went:   “One day I was walking down a road, and there was a hole, and I fell in, and I said to myself, “Its not my fault”. The next day I walked down the same road, and there was a hole, and I fell in, and I said, “Its not my fault”. On the third day, I walked down the road, and there was a hole, and I fell in, and I said, “Its not my fault”. She went on to tell me about days 4-9, same road, and same result. “On the 10th day I walked down the road, there was a hole, but this time, I did NOT fall in. It WAS my fault!” she said emphatically, looking at me as though checking for understanding. Her gaze made me catch my breath. “On the 11th day, I went down a different road. There was no hole.” She stood there in silence, as the words of the last bit of her story hung in the air. “I learned this in my Mindfulness class Mama. It made me think of you”. After weeks of feeling as though I was breathing under water, I took a long deep breath. I waited for her to go on. “You see Mama, we decide. It’s the choices we make.” Marisol, who’d stilled to listen to her sister’s story, watched us both so intently, as though understanding that more was being said between Maya’s words. There was a buzz in the room. An energy that I’d not felt in weeks rippled through me. I was broken open…  The thick, and crusty shell that had encased me turned to dust. It all shifted into laser focus. As long as I thought the answer to my feeling better could be found outside of myself, I would stay locked in my unhappiness. I needed to be accountable for how far back my pendulum had swung, and how long I’d sat in the dark. I needed to acknowledge the darkness, I’d let cast a shadow in my home, and on my children. I knew what I needed to do to start feeling better. I knew. I just needed reminding, that it really was up to me. I’d been waiting for someone or something to fix me. Waiting for all of the holes that lined my road to be filled. Furthermore, I’d focused on the wrong thing. I’d examined and re-examined the problems in my life as though the answers would come from such careful study, despite having learned and re-learned that they rarely do. What I know: My mood improves when my how changes. When I move to action, vs. reaction. When I start doing the things that make me feel better, vs. focusing on the very things that don’t. In my case this means, getting out of my head, and getting back into my life, by doing what brings me joy, like spending time with loved ones, having a little fun, making space for me, and writing this blog. But like most of the big lessons that have helped shape me, I know all of this when I’m feeling good, yet seem to forget when I’m feeling bad. Its like my logical brain gets overridden by my emotional brain in periods of vulnerability. The thing is, the how of feeling good is far less complicated than the what. I complicate it! I lose sight of the fact that all of the issues that need tackling, or decisions that need making, are so much easier to make when you’re feeling better. We all think we’ll feel better when things get sorted out. The truth is we have it backwards.

Before I said a word, I could read the satisfaction on Maya’s face. She knew she’d made her point. She knew her story had unlocked something in me. I mouthed the words, “thank you”, and motioned for her to come in for a hug. Marisol matched her step, and the three of us enveloped one another.   Our long embrace soothed my swollen heart. This moment, these two souls, untangled me. Little mirrors, not responsible for making me happy, but rather are happy, because I am responsible.

Pendulum

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March 1, 2015 · 4:44 pm

Dear Dad

I have thought about writing this for some time now, but the timing just wasn’t right. There is so much in my heart that I want to share, and that I want you to know. I am so glad you are my dad.  You are everything that I needed you to be.  You are the first man I ever loved, and the first man who ever loved me back. While our relationship was not always perfect, I never doubted the two most important things: That you loved me, and that you were proud of me.  We’d lost each other for a while there, in my adolescence and early adulthood. We’d become strangers. I felt you knew very little about me, and my life. I knew very little about you, and your inner world, or what went through your head. We’d spend years exchanging only a few words each day, and reserving our I love yous for birthdays and special occasions. I’d always felt that somehow you were like a little boy that never quite knew the right thing to say or do when it came to us kids. You seemed uncomfortable with my emotionality, and the sensitive, and temperamental teenage girl I grew to be. I resented the distance between us. I resented how unhappy you seemed. I wondered if it was my fault. I didn’t know how to access you. I didn’t know how to connect.  These growing pains, were not without gifts.  Ultimately the longing we both felt for connection helped forge the strong tie we are now blessed to share. Slowly, things began to change… We talked a bit more; we paid closer attention to each other, and what was going on in our respective lives. I imagine you’d always been there paying attention to what was going on with me, and that perhaps my close relationship with mom clouded your presence. I think, with time, mom saw that she needed to make more room for you. To step back a little, so that you could take your rightful place. The turning point for me was the conversation we had that day in the kitchen. You know the one… It was just you and I.  I stood before you broken.  I’d experienced my first real heartache. I looked up at you, like a little girl, eyes wet with tears. You asked me how I was, and when I tried to answer, but just couldn’t get the words out, you did something I’d only ever seen you do when your mother passed away. You began to cry… You held me, and cried with me.  That moment, in all its grief, is one of my most cherished memories.  I felt so completely loved, and so completely understood by you. Something I’d craved for so long. I wonder now if you have any idea what that meant to me, or if you can appreciate the impact it had on shaping the woman I’d become?  You see dad, because of you, I realized then and there, that no matter what happened to me in my life, that I’d be ok.  A lesson earned through hardship that shifted something deep within me.  Since then there have been many more moments, and I love yous.  Many more memories etched in my heart. You’ve done so much for me.  Little things, and big things, I have only to look around my home to be reminded of the dozens and dozens of projects you’ve had a hand in. You became our go-to guy. Every time I look at the crib that held my two baby girls I think about how you put it together, and took it apart, and put it together again.  Each memory attached to so much feeling.  The first time, it was the anticipation of setting up the crib for the little baby who was still happily living in my belly, knowing that I’d soon become a mom.  When we finally did move Maya out of her crib, and you came over to take the bed apart, I remember the warmth and compassion you showed when I couldn’t fight the tears as the reality set in that my baby girl was growing up. Perhaps this moment sweetened for you, as you watched yours do the same. When you put it back together four years later, as we awaited Marisol’s arrival, you were there again tolling away. We’d prayed so hard for her.  It was as though, after so much longing, she was not only sent to us, but also to you. Two kindred spirits, witnessing your special bond has mended every hurt I ever felt as a result of our period of disconnection in my teen years. You are a part of her. Watching you love my daughters is like watching firsthand how you loved me as a little girl.  Unfortunately when it came time to take the crib apart again just a few months ago, as Marisol moved into her big girl bed, you were not able to help as you had before. It made me sad to do it alone; that the cancer had robbed you of one of your greatest pleasures- helping your kids with stuff they needed done. I know you embraced this role, wearing it like a badge of honor. I am so grateful that you’ve seen Maya and Marisol grow, and me too, into a mother and a woman.  While you may not be able to put together cribs anymore, you can still make new memories with your grand-babies. Every visit with them, another precious page in our story. Keep fighting the good fight dad. May I be blessed to inherit even an ounce of your fortitude. Know that I am forever in your corner, as you have been in mine.  I pray that more good days lay ahead, so that you might sit happily in all the love you have helped foster. Thank you for being everything that I needed you to be… Your little girl, Shannon.

 

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January 18, 2015 · 11:15 pm

Porcelain

“Suddenly our kids are made of porcelain?”, he mutters under his breath. Sounded like a question, felt like a statement. It’s ME that’s made of porcelain, I wanted to fire back! I felt the anxiety rush through me, like electricity surging through my veins. My husband’s comment was not directed at me, yet it felt very personal. Old issues rushed to the surface. Not just because we were talking about our kids, and because I do this thing (maybe all mothers do), where he says something about one of the kids, and I get defensive. Like I am doing something wrong. More than once, since we became parents 7 years ago, he has said to me, “I’m not blaming you. Why do you take it so personally?” Oh where do I begin? I lack ambivalence.  I am void of it. I care too much. I feel too deeply. My membrane is too permeable. I take things personally.

My childhood: I was well loved, but learned that I was most lovable when I was quiet, not bold, or silly. I learned to keep my voice down. I lived in a relatively quiet house (most of the time). I was overly attuned to my mother’s sadness, and my father’s pain, while they both tried very hard to mask this. I knew when there was tension. I knew when there was struggle.  I wanted to please, and ease, and so I learned to push down the energy bubbling within me. I also learned to take on their worries, and struggles as though they were my own. No one asked me to do this. They would never have wanted me to feel for them. In hindsight, maybe if they’d been a bit better at feeling for themselves, instead of hiding, I would not have taken on the task. Who knows? What I do know, is that the attunement to others was adaptive- a function of living in a somewhat chaotic environment that was outwardly very quiet. Kind of like me…

And so my kids are sensitive (each in their own way). Maybe I’ve taught it to them. Maybe I’ve passed it down in their genetic make-up.  Likely both. This piece of me, which I share with them, I have spent my life trying to disown. Why?  Because I stood out. My inner world always seemed vastly more complicated than that of my peers. Over thinking, and over feeling… Not easy when you’re a kid. Hell not easy, when you’re an adult.  The one wish I had when I was pregnant (aside from healthy baby), was please don’t let him or her be sensitive like me. It breaks my heart now to type these words. It brings me to tears… To have felt this way about myself, now seeing this shining quality in my girls’ hearts and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this bit of them may well be their greatest strength. So hard to believe that as recently as 7 years ago, I still saw this part of me as a character flaw. Now I find myself, believe it or not, almost protective of this part of my girls. Of course I don’t want them to struggle as I did. But the struggle was never really with “being sensitive”. It was with thinking that there was something wrong with me because I was. I don’t ever want them to feel less than for feeling deeply. My hope is that they will learn early to see the gift of vulnerability- the only door to connection, and that they will understand that strength and openness are not mutually exclusive.

Porcelain…  This seemingly benign word stung as it reached my ears because of all that it implied. It triggered old issues. We don’t want them to be sensitive. Sensitive is bad. It’s taken me nearly 40 years to realize that sensitive does not mean weak. While soft-hearted, I am also a fierce, confident, “watch-out world, here I come me”. The work has been balancing all of this, with my tender heart, and stepping into who I am with all of its contradictions, unapologetically.

May my children see their tenderness as a gift, and not as something that holds them back. What holds us back is seeing only the challenges, instead of the gifts, even our challenges bring. I would not be who I am today, love the way that I love, or do what I do, if it weren’t for seeing the “good” in being sensitive. Porcelain… Maybe, but underneath that veneer, lies the heart of a lion.

 “When you are who you should be, then you will set the world on fire.” 

-St. Catherine of Siena

A special word here to my mom and dad, whose tender hearts helped shape my own, and to my grandmother, Granny Mary, aka Grandma Dynamite. Thank you for reminding me that you see that lion, and encouraging me to embrace all of the bits we inherit, for they make up who we are.

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December 13, 2014 · 9:58 am

An Inside Job

My thoughts on motherhood, and the mother I envisioned myself being, in no way matched my early experiences as a mom. This dissonance derailed me for a time. I had a great mom, who loved and nurtured me. I assumed I was cut from the same cloth, and would model myself accordingly. I never doubted that I would be a good mother before I had kids. I’ve doubted it many times since… I felt completely overwhelmed most of the time in the first year of Maya’s life. I thought I knew what it would be like. I thought, if exhaustion is the worst of it, I could surely handle that! I thought, yes babies cry. So what? I won’t mind sitting, and cradling her until she falls asleep. I pictured myself as an endlessly giving, forever nurturing, and never-impatient parent. Seven years in, mom to two daughters, I can assuredly say, that isn’t me.

In that first year I cried a lot… Like maybe as much as Maya did. I walked with her in her stroller through all 4 seasons, and I cried. I cried because I felt like a failure. I wasn’t the mother I thought I would be. I cried because I didn’t feel the way I thought I was going to feel- you know all warm and fuzzy, and madly in love at first sight with my precious newborn daughter. We tell moms-to-be that they will automatically fall in love. While motherhood can have its blissful parts, we exercise selective memory when we tell only the good parts of our stories. We unintentionally set women up to feel inadequate right out of the gate, when we paint the picture that they will not mind being selfless, exhausted and depleted. Think about it.

I knew when my first-born was still living inside of me that I loved her, and that I would care for her with all of my heart. When I held her, and my husband and I looked down at her together, I felt an indescribable connection with this little stranger. But she was just that, a stranger. I understood that she was part of me, of us. I loved and worried for her, but it took me a while to fall in love.

Despite all of the support I had early into motherhood, I felt incredibly alone. I hated the solitude; I was angry, tired, and frustrated. I ached for freedom. Do I have time to shower? Will I ever leave the house alone again? Can I make time for me? When will she stop crying? When will she sleep? For how long? I never could have imagined the impact of sleep deprivation on a person’s wellbeing and stability, and how I would obsess over how to get just a little bit more. Tippy-toeing around, crawling out of her room on all fours, and planning life, as I knew it, around nap time. I need to say here, that what fed my frustration was all of the well-intentioned, one-size-fits-all-advice I got about sleep. The only advice I really needed to heed was do what keeps you sane. Simple. I needed to quiet the noise in my head, so that I could listen to what my instincts were telling me. It came down to- if it soothes her, and gives you a little peace, do it.

Being a mom is the hardest, and best thing I’ve ever done. In time I did fall in love with that little stranger. Worrying for her safety, and welfare became the new normal, and I learned to appreciate the weight of responsibility attached to parenthood. She has taught me more than she will ever know about letting go of preconceived notions, and listening to my inner voice. There is a depth to my love for her that words cannot capture. But, it’s still hard… I imagine it always will be. From the moment our children are born we sit on the sideline of their lives, moving our chair as the game changes. At first we are intimately involved in the game, we shadow the play, and attend to every need. As they grow, and the challenges change, so too does the sideline. I realize now that I will spend the rest of my life negotiating and renegotiating that sideline. I’ve learned that the weight of parental worry is more manageable when shared, and that navigating all of this, is not quite so ominous when I’m taking care of myself.

There is nothing wrong with needing time to adjust. There is nothing wrong with loving so much of what motherhood brings, while not loving all of it. We don’t need to be ok with being selfless, exhausted and depleted. That doesn’t make us good mothers. What makes us good mothers is leaning into the hard stuff, instead of backing out, and making space for our joy and humanity in the process. It is our responsibility to make time to recharge when needed, so that we can get back to the work of being a parent. It’s ok that we see it as work. My expectations of being a mom needed to shift, in order to align with my new reality, thus softening the edges of my previously held rigid beliefs.

My kids don’t need me to be selfless or perfect, they need me to be happy. We sit on the sideline, preoccupied with our children’s wellbeing. We forget our own. With a little nudge, and some encouragement, I am reminded that I foster joy in my children by emanating my own. Cultivating happiness is an inside job. I want my children to learn by example, that exercising self-care is essential. Not only incredibly restorative, and good for the soul, but good for all the souls it’s connected to.

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November 16, 2014 · 2:34 am

Silver Lining

I can remember feeling so conflicted when I headed back to work following my first maternity leave. I was out of sorts… I felt like the old me, and the new me were not the same person, especially with regards to my career. Don’t misunderstand. I love what I do. Did then. Do now. At that time though, I felt like an imposter, trying to squeeze into a skin that used to fit. I went through a sort of re-evaluation of my priorities. A professional existential crisis if you will. Examining choices I’d made, and what direction I wanted to take, I grappled with things like: Is this really what I want do? Is this all there is for me? And if so, is “this” enough?  After all, now my time was divided. Everything felt more precious, more important. I kept waiting for some clarity, as though there would be a sign that I was on the right path. The harder I tried to figure things out, the more confused I grew. Then it hit me… What I was really asking was: Am I enough? And do I still matter (am I relevant)? After all, I was no longer really an “I”. I grew another human being in my body, in this skin! I birthed a baby. Part of me, literally, was now walking around in the world, separate from me, yet still so strongly connected. I, as an individual person, moved to the very bottom of my “to do” list. Taking any time to invest in myself, and carve out some space for self-actualization seemed, well… selfish. Yet I couldn’t escape my questions.

I was lost. Lost in a world I used to feel so adept in. My brain was foggy, my energy was low, and no matter how hard I tried, I simply could not give as much of myself as I once had. Worse yet, I felt guilty that I missed the old me. I was searching for my very own missing person- the person I was before I became a mom. Until one day, I sat telling a friend about a parent session I’d just given at work, and she said something that changed my whole perspective. “I used to love giving talks”, I told her.   “I used to be so good at it.” I explained how I’d fumbled through my speech, lamented that I’d kept losing my train of thought, and concluded that I’d surely disappointed my audience. I was convinced that I was less than I once was. Her response shook me to my core. She said, “Well congratulations! You’ve done it. You’ve made yourself more relatable…more human. Humans aren’t perfect. Your audience was relieved. They see now that you are just like them.” I stared at her blankly, trying to assimilate what she had just told me.  Her words echoed in my mind, until the weight of my realization pulled me back into the room. I’d missed the silver lining! Now, I could be me. Not just the polished, professional me, orphaning off all of the messy, creative, flawed and tender parts, but rather a complete me.  New skin just meant new beginnings.

My kids have stretched me in ways not measured on a scale. This stretching has transformed every area of my life, from the personal to the professional, starting with the lens through which I saw myself. While at first I felt like an imposter, I now know that I am more me than I ever was. The glow of this silver lining has lit the path to this moment, and to my sharing a piece of me with you. Our stories, and the lessons we learn, complete with the highlights and the lowlights, are what connects us.

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