Month: August 2016

Entertainment Holds Emotional Space

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I love how entertainment in pretty much all it’s guises holds space for feeling emotions that aren’t always easy to hold, or for feelings that you want more of. I have been grieving a bit of my old life where I was completely a stay at home mum and the primary carer of my son. It’s been small steps but nonetheless I can feel the heaviness of it all. Along with that I heard some information about myself and my parents from when I was very small which just confirmed that my parents always had another agenda other than being parents, and it hurt me. The combination of all of this has created a very heavy heart. I have cried, I have been a bit distraught. I have sought out music to soothe, and movies to cry along with.

Most recently I have found that the movie Me Before You just makes me bawl, I mean full on sobbing, chin quivering kind of crying. It follows a storyline of a pretty happy go lucky guy who then becomes a paraplegic from the neck down who then gets a carer who wants to convince him not to end his life in six months which is his plan. It’s sad. I mean it’s a really sad story. A good guy who gets hit by a motorcycle while he’s walking around town and his life is changed forever. I know how things can change in an instant and I’m thankful consistently that in my head on collision, I came out relatively unscathed, with just a scar across my face to show of it physically. This poor guy is in pain and doesn’t accept that this is his new life, and I get that, I totally get that and there isn’t a way for him to get better, it’s irreversible. Then comes this lovely, quirky carer who brings another layer of emotion and in the end he still makes his decision. She is so sad that he would choose euthanasia, but I understand his part as well. He talks about how he will never be able to give her the life she deserves, and that he never wants her to ever have a regret that she chose a life caring for him like that. In the end he reminds her via a letter he wrote before, that when she is ever sad, to live well, and just live. Oh it’s so sad and it ends with a feeling of the importance of living life fully right now.

I feel like I have used this movie as a safe space for me to really experience the deep emotions that are surrounding my own life transitions right now. I can feel that I need to let it out, and I really appreciate that I have the option of using media to help me let this go.

From my own experience with grief, after my father passed away last year, I came to realise that all of my emotions are like their own little wells. That each well has a spring and maybe another little pool of water. At first it’s just the top of the spring that is experienced, but as the emotion goes deeper it’s like I come to one of the pools, but if I keep going, I notice that all of the memories where I have experienced that feeling, all seem to be held in that bottom well, that super deep space within myself. It’s almost by accessing one of those memories I can then use that to dive deeper into that feeling and explore more. It’s actually really fascinating.

So by having a safe guided experience, that is totally normal in society, like sitting in the dark watching something like a dream on the big screen while we feel everything, I am allowed to fully express my emotions there. I can scream if I feel scared, I can cover my eyes and my ears, I can laugh a hearty laugh with my head tiled back, I can cry and cry like a big baby, and it’s all so very okay.

Navigating the Waters

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In the last week, I have turned a corner, a major corner. I have started to allow someone else to look after my child in a maximum of 2 hour increments. This is a big deal. He’s now almost 22 months, and prior to now, I pretty much count on one hand the number of times someone else has looked after him besides my husband or myself.

I have so many feelings that are arising from this. Perhaps this is what primary carers of little people go through with this transition. Simultaneously wanting to have freedom and independence, but at the same time wanting to make sure that my little person is completely taken care of. The feeling of, YES FINALLY, I’m Doing Something For Myself, AND the feeling of guilt that someone else is looking after my most precious being, who is completely defenceless, completely incapable of articulating with words anything that goes on.

Exhale. I am doing that a lot, deep breathing. He is going to the day care option that is available at the gym I have joined. It’s all super new, totally customer oriented, and really top of the line. The classes are incredible, the machines are the newest available, the instructors are top notch, the child care is incredible. Even in the baby area, they have a huge play section that rivals the places you have to pay to go into for $12 for 2 hours where you have to buy an obligatory coffee as well. The carers are so lovely, so friendly, so very obviously kid people with big hearts and huge smiles.

All of this is good, I know it. I do. Me progressing forward by moving my body and getting back into shape, along with allowing the next stage of our lives to happen by me letting go and accepting help with my child. I know all of this, I know it’s truly all good. There is still a fountain of feelings coming up and I can’t ignore them. I even invited a fellow Mum from my mum and bub group to come over and watch a tear jerking movie that left us both sobbing, just so we could let the emotions out in a safe place.

The new chapter is beginning and I am grieving the last one. It’s normal, and it’s okay. I have loads of self compassion for myself and am being as gentle with me as I possibly can in this transition. I am also doing my best to be there for my son while he transitions, because it’s also a major shift for him as well. Such a big deal.

Sixth of August

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Five years ago today, my now husband and I had a very important conversation that changed both of our lives forever. We gently and vulnerably spoke about being exclusive in our relationship, being just with one another. This was a huge deal, we had been dating for a couple of months, and it was a wild first stretch. The thing is I knew from the moment I saw him at that little community theatre, that he was someone I had to know more, that I knew I would love, I just knew it.

So having the conversion, is almost like putting yourself out there big time, it could have gone another way. Sometimes people are not ready, sometimes it’s just not the right time, and that opportunity is missed. It would have been tragic and I would have been heartbroken if it went the other way. I knew if we verbally committed to one another right then, that he would be my partner for life. I just knew it. I hadn’t thought about marriage and having a child, that was the furthest from my mind, I just knew I needed to be with him and that we had exploring within ourselves and with each other that needed to happen, together.

How lucky that we both were open to the possibility and open to being committed, and open to taking that next step. To me, at that stage, it was essentially like getting married, or at minimum getting engaged if we were to put it in mainstream terms. To me, to commit my love, my attention, my life with him all started on that day, that evening rather. Such a big deal. So life changing. I am so lucky.

So when people count their marriage anniversary, sure I’ll celebrate that too, but this day, to me, is the most important one. The sixth of August is the day that changed my life forever, and I am so amazingly grateful.

How could they?

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My stomach is turning, my throat is tight, my brow is furrowed. I have blocked out the majority of my childhood, only a glimpse or two remain from before I was in my teens. Recently, as in about 20 minutes ago, I learned from a close relative, whom I trust, that when I was 4 or 6 weeks old, that my parents asked this relative to look after me for a couple of hours, so they could go on a motorcycle ride, and did not come back for 3 days. THREE DAYS! Three days they left me, their premature baby of 6 weeks, with someone else.

My relative only brought this up after asking if I had put my own child into preschool or daycare yet. I said I hadn’t, and that I honestly didn’t really trust it, at least not until he is old enough to speak. This is a deep untrusting level I have, and maybe this is where it comes from. She said that I was so different, like the opposite of my own parents, and told me that story jokingly. She of course didn’t realise how it would effect me, neither did I.

I feel so disappointed. I feel so sad. I feel so very angry and pissed off. How could they do this to me? Why have children if you aren’t going to take care of them? Really, and me? How selfish of them, it really is the opposite of how I am with my own child. No wonder I was reluctant to have children.

This all shows that even from the beginning they didn’t want to be parents. I had this rosey view now that I have my own child, that maybe in their early days they did care, that we really did have a family atmosphere, but clearly that is a fantasy, and certainly not one based on any memories, just hope.

External, internal talk: I love you Jennifer. I know this is hard for you. It is so very unlike what you would do. Try to have compassion. You are special, you have gone through so very much and look how far you have come. I know it hurts. I know it hurts to feel like someone doesn’t care, I know it must be devastating to feel like your parents didn’t care, but they did their best. You are highly resilient, and no matter what happened as a child, you are not destined to repeat their lives nor their mistakes. You are better than that. You are a beautiful, thoughtful human being, and you get to choose every single day how you operate in the world. Let this be fuel to make you better. Let this be fuel to understand your own self reliance, your own self worth that you have developed because of you.

I really feel gutted right now. NO wonder I’ve had self worth issues. NO wonder I’ve had issues with security. No wonder. Without a solid base, everything else is hard to build. I am so lucky that I have chosen this conscious route and have rebuilt myself as an adult. It still hurts though, uncovering a bit of the truth that is so utterly revealing.

Also just from a baby’s perspective, not having your parents there, for days on end. Not having the security of your parents for days on end. I know that can be overcome, like it has with Abraham after him being in the NICU, something I did not choose. However, it has taken conscious effort to rebuild that trust, no wonder I never really trusted my parents.