Falling for the Old Tricks isn't like it Used to Be.

It's funny to look back a week and a half ago and see how upset i was in that last post.
It's funny to look back a few months ago to when my Refinery 29 article came out and I was getting a hundred+ views on this blog, and now, I get 1 or 2 views.
It's funny because things change, and things stay the same.

My first instinct is to judge myself harshly.
I want to accuse myself of writing too honestly, too emotionally, of putting myself out there too unfiltered and frightening people away. It's something I've always done. I have many memories of various authority figures, especially in my childhood, in whom I felt safe enough to confide something my anxious little heart had been turning over and over, only to have them look at me with this expression of mixed pity and incredulity and say (in various formats), "that's a very strange way to think, young lady."

It taught me to cloak all my deep thoughts, all my true feelings in humor, or shove them down into a deep, silent place in my soul and replace the catharsis I was looking for in human understanding with the acceptance that was more readily available, for example, managing my eating and exercising habits so that I became acceptably attractive, or overloading my courses and extracurricular activities so that I would be too busy overachieving and impressing everyone to feel those feelings. If I was too busy to sleep, then I couldn't feel things as deeply, good solution, no?

I think about how this still effects the way I think and take action as an adult sometimes, about how I want to post nothing but pictures of my perfect life on instagram, myself with a super cute messy mom bun and Bastian babbling away delightedly at one of his wooden, learning toys from a small shop in Maine that gets all its toys from Europe. I think about how my reflex is to feel embarrassed that I have no bloody idea how to make the "cute" messy mom bun, and my hair, more often then not is wound into these super tight, British head mistress buns, because if there were any flyaways, the babe would find away to yank them right out of my head.  I think about how the baby's favorite toy is actually is horrendous robotic dog that his grandparents got him, and the reason he loves it is because it has light up buttons he can press, and it mechanically chirps at him, and because he can pick it up by its tail and bash it around and then it still sings a silly song to him. I'm fairly certain this is teaching him awful things.

My instinct is always to read mom blogs, compare and contrast. How is Bastian's development against these arbitrary measurements? Is he teething again, and is that normal? He's gone from picking at food with a cursory interest to snarfing entire bowls of things in one sitting which used to last for a week. Measure measure compare compare.
It's all bullshit.

I've forbidden myself from doing it anymore.
My caveats are of course, if I'm terrified the baby has some kind of medical issue and I need to look it up...well...I'm probably going to fall into an internet wormhole, and I allow myself to go to one or two very specific mama sites where the writers are very honest about their struggles and coping mechanisms (cough cough wine cough). These exceptions make me feel less like a shoddy failure, and more like a person surviving if not thriving.

I am now taking it further.

There is a faction of my friends, slightly long distance friends, so our relationships are maintained solely through social media, who have recently become representatives for a couple of different "Beauty" brands. I put the quotes around beauty, because at least one of these brands is actually a weight loss program.

I have nothing but respect for these women. They are working their side hustle so they can stay home and take care of their babies, and that is totally legit.

I do, however, need to self protect, so I don't fall into the trap of the product they are selling.
Because, whether they realize it or not, the product they are selling is dissatisfaction with the self, and a shift of focus on changing one's body shape over changing something that might be causing real stress.

I realized this when i was scrolling through a feed, and one of these women posted a picture of a slim pair of legs in athletic looking leggings with the caption:
Recruiting for a 90 day weight loss group! PM more details on how for ____ dollars a month you can join us in a quest for health and fitness! Blah, positive thing, sales pitch, blah.

My reflex, upon looking at this picture and the caption was to think, and I'm not joking.
I bet I'd be good at that.
I bet if I joined that group I'd totally lose the most weight out of everybody.

It actually hurts to admit that those were my thoughts.

Because I am in recovery though, and it is part of my process to share, because disorders, eating disorders, self esteem disorders, body morphia disorders, and everything else that is wrong with the way we make women think about themselves in this country, thrive when they are kept secret and shameful.

So I am purposefully thrusting my vulnerability into the light.

I, a person, who is currently trying to GAIN WEIGHT TO BE HEALTHY, still fall prey to the insidious thought processes of the weight loss industry.
My disorder told me that I would be the best at losing weight because that would mean bringing it back into the forefront of my life. It would mean putting it above all else in my life as a priority. That's right, above my son, above my career, above my marriage, my friends, my hobbies, my family. That's what disorders do!
They override your logic, your reason, they warp your priorities and make it seem like nothing else matters except managing your physical shape.

IT'S SICK.

Again, I want to say that I can't pass judgement on the women who are using this as their job. I really understand that you need to make money however you can to support your family and maybe this is the only way that makes sense right now, and I support you.

I would like to say, however, that as someone who cannot take part in your business, because it would be harmful both to my physical and mental health, I am probably going to block your feed for a little while.
At least 90 days.

I'm probably going to miss out on awesome pictures of your kids doing cool stuff.
I'm going to miss out on little fun things, and big life things you post about, and I hope you'll forgive me my absence, but I am making this decision based on what's best for my family, which i'm hoping you'll understand.

Because part of being the best mother I can possibly be is being the best version of myself, and teaching my child, that he is not his appearance, that his focus need never be on what he looks like, but what he believes, does, and is.

I can't do that, if I'm not setting the example by doing it myself.

So if I only have two views on this blog from now until the end of time, it's fine by me, because I don't do this for anyone else. I do this because transparency is part of my process.
If you are reading this, and it helps you stop feeling shameful about your own ED past or current disordered habits and rituals, that would make me very happy, and I would encourage you to reach out, talk to someone. It can be someone you trust not to tell you you're weird or stupid for having these thoughts, and if you can't think of anybody who would have that reaction then think of me, because I will never judge you.

It's part of the wonderful thing that is recovery.

Backslider

Today I'm going to talk about something that is very difficult for me to admit.
Hold on to your hats everyone.

I am not perfect.

Haha...jk, we already knew that, but it plays into the real point of this blog which is,

Recovery is not a straight line.

Thanks to that shitty little algorithm built into facebook right now, we are bombarded with our, "What you were doing a year ago" pictures and statuses, which, while a cute nostalgic little touchstone for some, can also be hella triggering for others forcing us to compare where we were to where we are now for better or worse.

I'm not saying that this is the sole source of backsliding, but it certainly contributes. Comparison of ourselves, our bodies, our progress, our process to anyone, and that includes older versions of ourselves, can be very detrimental to our recovery.

Anyway, all this to introduce the this very uncomfortable admittance.
I have backslid.

The holiday season is stressful. This is just a fact. It's stressful financially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Coupled with the pressures of being a new parent who wants to fulfill all the dreams of their little creature (and -let's be honest- relive a bit of our own childhood through them), the stresses of the season compound and we fall back on unhealthy habits to survive.

Oh goddamn.
Okay.
Why is this so hard to say?

I lost too much weight.

If anybody wants to be mad at me for "complaining" about losing weight during the holiday season when they might have gained a pound or two over the season, I want to reiterate that this blog is a document of my personal experiences, and I would never pass judgement on anybody else's struggle. Believe me, in years past, I have put on ten pounds during December and then another in January and made myself feel like shit about it, and that was just as unhealthy, not the weight gain, but the feeling like shit part, the beating myself up part, the not taking care of myself part, and that's how we end up here. Backsliding.

I have struggled both with anorexia and exercise addiction and with BED and compulsive restricting and binging cycles. Believe me, I have swung on this pendulum back and forth many times in my fifteen year struggle with Disordered Eating.

This year, it swung this way.

I used my pediatrician's recommendation that I cut wheat out of my diet to help my son's colic as a jumping off point to restricting again.

Even after the doctor said I needed to introduce wheat back into my diet to see if it made any impact through my breastmilk, and if it didn't, then I could let the baby try wheat, even then, I smiled virtuously and refused the passed plate of holiday cookies. I shrugged at the stuffing on the table, and shook my head at the Christmas pudding with custard (my absolute favorite holiday dessert).
All the while, I told myself I was being cautious, a good mother. I ate one item with wheat in it every day, a cracker, a bite of dry toast, a half the crust on a piece of pumpkin pie, taking my wheat almost medicinally and refusing to enjoy it.
I kept telling myself that I was being a good mother.
That I was just making sure I didn't flood my system with wheat and hurt the baby.

It was total bullshit.

I was losing weight.
And I liked it.

I watched the numbers get lower.

I watched the numbers on the scale get to places they hadn't been since high school, and then I watched them get to the place where they had only ever been before when I'd been disordered.

Then something totally stupid happened.

After the holidays, we traveled to Virginia to see my in-laws and let them spoil the baby.
We traveled, stayed two days, and traveled again, and I woke up five days ago sick as a dog with a head cold.

But not the way I usually get sick.

I am usually the girl who skips the flu shot.
I don't use anti bacterial wipes, and I always eat a piece of something if I drop it on the floor. I firmly believe we live in a germphobic society that will ultimately lead us to get wiped out by some virus we should have antibodies for. Well, not that extreme, but I do think that the whole obsession with cleanliness is both a symptom of privilege separation, and very American. Europeans are shaking their heads as so called Beauty-Gurus pound their vanities and deliver sermons about the virtues of not washing your hair every day because DUH. Sebum is nature's way of caring for your hair.

Whew...see how eager I am to get off topic?

I fucking hate talking about this.

Yes,
and that is why I need to.

So I got my flu shot this year. I brought antibacterial wipes on the trip. I wiped everything down before letting the baby touch it. I was a psycho about cleanliness.
And Beard was fine.
Baby was fine.
Me?

I DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH FAT ON MY BODY TO FIGHT OFF THE FUCKING COLD SO I CAME DOWN WITH IT LIKE A MONSTER.

I have spent the last four days in my house, unable to exercise, unable to do much more than drag my carcass back and forth between bedroom and living room. I don't have the energy to play with my son. I am dizzy anytime I stand for longer than five minutes. It feels like an entire beehive is inside my skull and that the bees are using my sinuses as a major highway system.
I can't sleep, and my throat feels like it's coated in broken glass.

All this, because I didn't eat enough for the last month.

SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES COME FROM BACKSLIDING.

I had a come to jesus with myself in the bathroom the other day.
It was in the worst of the cold.
I had a hot shower that lasted about twenty minutes. Bob looked after the baby, and I let the steam work on my lungs and nose. I let the hot water soothe my shivery muscles and bones.

Then I looked at my body in the mirror.

I'd been telling myself that getting thinner wasn't important, but it was a nice bi-product of the no wheat thing, but that was another lie.

I liked seeing my body get smaller this year after watching it get so big the year previous.
I liked seeing it return to dimensions I thought maybe it would never see again.

Then I pushed it.

I couldn't just listen to my body.

My body wanted a sandwich, but I couldn't have the bread, I told it. Even if it could.

My body is now, when you look at it, not unhealthily thin. I look fit for my size. I look HEALTHY.
But I am not.


I am legitimately at an unhealthy weight for my body because if I had weighed more a week ago, I would not have gotten this bloody cold! My husband and my son are healthy, and they did not get the cold. Conclusion: I am not healthy.

This is the fucked up beauty industry bullshit telling us that the thinner you are the healthier you are.
I am here to tell you it's not true!
If I'd had just five pounds, ten pounds more on my frame, I could have battled off this bug and not spent the last four days hobbling around my house like a useless pile of misery!

But here's the thing...

you have to forgive yourself when you backslide.

No matter what it looks like.
No matter how scary it is.

You have to say,
I love you body.
I'm sorry I stopped listening to you.

And you have to work to tune back in to your body's needs.
You have to praise it for pushing those numbers back up on the scale.
You have to recognize that you got here, but you can get back again, and that recovery is not a straight line, and that's okay.

You are not a fuck up.

You are a human being.

And you are struggling.

And that's okay.

Why I'm Not Vegan...and I'm not Guilty.

Dear friends,

This is not going to be one of those rants about meat eating being better than being vegan. This is also not a secret way of drawing meat eaters in with a subject title and then trying to convert them to a vegan lifestyle.

This is my, extremely specific story, and I just wonder if it resonates with others.

This morning, I was noodling around on youtube, and this video by Mayim Bialik (Yes, I still think of her as Blossom) came up in my suggested feed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofcUGuMhGGo

Because I'm a technological idiot, that link is to a video where she explains, very honestly, and diplomatically, the reasons she is vegan. I do think it's interesting that she doesn't bring in whether or not she feeds her children a vegan diet, but I suspect that perhaps she doesn't, and discussing her reasons why might cloud her message. I pass absolutely no judgement on her if that's the case, if nothing else, having a baby has taught me that I can make decisions with my own ethical principals in mind, but I have no right to force those decisions on my baby. I have to make decisions for him with his health and safety as the deciding factors first and foremost.

But I digress...

So, back in 2001, when I first entered the world of disordered eating, going vegan was actually my first foray into anorexia.
Of course, that's not how it started at all.
It started with an expose in the October 2001 issue of Adbusters magazine.
I had already started my "project", which is what I called the calories counting and restricting I was using to lose weight, but yogurt was a fundamental part of my breakfasts, and cheese was a large part of my dinners. I had started skipping the meat they served in my school cafeteria because it was pretty nasty, but I got a lot of protein from dairy and eggs, so even though I wasn't eating as much as before, and the approach to eating was still unhealthy, I wasn't depriving myself of vital nutrients.
I was blown away by the expose. It showed unflinching photographs of meat factory farm conditions, and showcased the conditions in other countries where food was either scarce or hunted, and I remember very clearly, it was the first time I felt guilt, horrible, all-consuming guilt, about food. I felt like I could never let meat, dairy, or eggs ever pass my lips again otherwise I might as well be force-feeding piglets or trapping chickens in cages with my own two hands.
I went vegan, then and there.
Immediately, my diet changed radically. Instead of a big bowl of yogurt and granola for breakfast, which kept me relatively full until the afternoon, I suddenly started eating a bowl of grapenuts cereal with soymilk.
I stopped loading my dinner time salads with cheese and eggs and I skipped the hot and buttery garlic bread I'd been eating on the side and started eating salads sprinkled with cubed tofu (this was before tempeh, seitan, quorn, and all those fun meatless products had debuted in grocery stores, let alone college dining halls), and since the only dairy free option for dressing was vinaigrette that's what I used. I also subbed a piece of dry, multigrain toast for my garlic bread.
I remember carrying my tray through the milling crowds of students with their hamsteaks and tator tots. Their cheesy nachos and plates of spaghetti and meatballs. I felt virtuous. I felt like an activist.
I felt like I was not contributing to the horror that my peers were, and that made me feel less guilty.

But I also started losing a lot more weight.

As my weight plummeted, my feelings of virtue increased so that my will power wouldn't crumble. I firmly planted associations of morality to food that still plague me to this day. I had no idea that they weren't about me rescuing pigs and chickens. Those feelings might have been there, but larger than that was the classic anorexic's feeling of mental strength and superiority.

I won't go into the rest of my ED story, since I've already chronicled it here, but I'll talk about how after I started to get help, I still refused to eat meat, not for another 7 years would I begin to be the mindful omnivore I am now.

Now let's talk about the video...

See, I still feel as strongly about the factory farm industry as I did at that first moment of revelation.
In fact, I don't see how anyone, once they know what's going on to get that burger on their plate could be complicit in the industry, however, I would now like to talk about privilege.

Mayim Bialik is a successful actress. She is a scientist, a mother, and many other very cool things, but economically, she's a very well paid actress. Compared to the millions of dollars Brad Pitt gets for sneezing onscreen, I'm sure she makes peanuts, but compared to me, she's doing pretty good.

Unfortunately economic hardship is what determines how parents feed their families.
This is what drives the factory farm industry. The average American family cannot afford to ethically feed themselves because the price of doing so is impossible. The industry has created its own need by using such horrible shortcuts to mass produce meat that they can afford charge cut rates for their products. It's easy any time you go into a grocery store.
I stand next to the eggs and it's 99 cents for a dozen white factory eggs. A dozen farm fresh eggs from a chicken that got to eat regular old corn instead of gmo "feed" is $3.29.
Are you kidding?

I can't afford three bucks for eggs, and I'm guessing neither can the majority of poverty level Americans.

So here we are.

I don't skip buying the eggs.
I hate myself a little, and I promise myself that as soon as we're financially able, I will be buying the free chicken eggs, but my priority right now is to feed my family the most nutritious food I am able.

This is where I use the term mindful omnivore, because, yes, as a society, we do rely far too heavily on meat and animal products. They make up way more of our diet than is necessary.

So I feed my baby eggs, but I also feed him beans.
If I can, I buy the non-antibiotic chicken, and I feed him little bits.
I make as much food as I can myself to cut down on additives, chemicals, and processes which condition our palettes to prefer the industrially produced food, but I do not flog myself with guilt if my budget doesn't give me wiggle room enough to buy organic produce, because the thing I've learned is that I have to feed my baby andI have to feed him well. Everything else is details.

So I guess I will close this by saying, as long as you're trying, as long as you're thinking, and actively making the healthiest choices for yourself, your family, and your babies, don't let anyone, especially a wealthy celebrity make you feel guilty for not being able to support her cause.

I love Mayim Bialik. I love Kat Von D. I love a lot of actively vegan celebrities, and I fully support them and their motives. I am, however, not privileged enough to maintain their lifestyle, and that doesn't make me a bad person or a bad mother, quite the opposite actually. Doing what's best for us, and however that has to be, is what makes me a great mum.

What are you doing?

On Monday my baby turned one.

He celebrated his first revolution around the sun by hanging out with his Mama.
Everybody who was there when he was born was busy.
I got one text from a good friend. After I posted on facebook I got a few hearty
"Happy Birthday Baz"s in the comments, but altogether it felt like the world did what the world does. It looked at the individual and said, "Yeah, so what?"

Something I never anticipated about becoming a mother is how acutely I feel the loss of the love between people. The community has gone extinct at the time that we need it the most. Perhaps more than anything, that is what this recent election has taught me as well.
We are only looking out for our own interests.
Our mouths shape the words of love and commonality, but when it comes time to make those words take shape with their fingers, the action is left undone and incomplete. The arm falters halfway through the swing, and the ball never leaves the hand. The wrist goes limp. There is no follow through.

I too fall prey to this.
I made declarations that I was going to donate to Planned Parenthood right after the election. I was waiting for my check from Refinery 29 so I didn't feel like I was taking money from the family to do so, but the check has yet to arrive, and so I have yet to give money to anyone.

The plight of the stay at home parent is the feeling that none of the money brought in actually belongs to you. You can use it to buy groceries, pay bills, and treat the baby, but you can't bring yourself to spend it on yourself.
You don't feel like you deserve to.
And charity becomes another luxury, like a haircut, or a new pair of boots, or a couple of fancy cocktails.
Tragedy.

I see the images from Aleppo.
Men carrying babies the same size as my son out of bombed out buildings.
I can't bring myself to read the text beneath the pictures.
I can't know if those babies didn't make it.

And even that fear and shock and horror brings with it horrible waves of guilt.

Who am I?

Why should my child be safe in my arms, in this neighborhood, and those men's children not safe at all?

What makes my life so blessed?

And it isn't.
We're always only five years away from complete disaster
or ultimate glory.
The scale can go either way. And we have much less influence over it than we'd like to think.

The only thing we have control over is how we treat each other, especially when it gets difficult.
I see other people.
People better than me, who have less, or the same, and they donate. They give. They go forth with courage and hope.

I want to be them, but my cautious nature trips me up.
My desire to burrow into the ground and hide from the madness is constantly at war with my guilt that I have that as an option. Again, I have to ask, Who am I?

What does it make me if I wait and wait and wait for things to get better, but this is actually the high point before the fall?

I couldn't sleep last night.

I kept thinking about how powerless I feel. Perhaps that's the biggest fuck you of motherhood of all, that by committing the most radical act of creation, you are accepting the horrible knowledge that you have no control over the events that shape your child. You have no control over the things that happen to him or the injuries and injustices done to him. Even while he still lives in your arms and nurses from you, you are moving, daily, away from the ability to protect him.

Are you protecting him when you send twenty dollars to the ACLU?
Are you protecting him when you vote?
Are you protecting him when you decide to leave the country?
Are you protecting him when you move far away from the city, build a farm, and begin to foster chickens?
What are you doing if you're not protecting him?

If you aren't earning money,
If you aren't taking action,
If you aren't giving to the people meant to protect you,
if you aren't supporting the people you love,
if you aren't doing anything except getting from sunrise to sunrise the best you can and praying that as soon as you can you will be able to do more than you can do now,
What are you doing?

The Great White Winter Of Our Discontent

A couple of years ago, I remember the meteorologists warned the upcoming winter was going to be brutal.
They talked about the now notorious "Polar Vortex" and record breaking cold.
I looked at the temperature every morning before I walked my 2.7 miles to work, and I steeled myself, but it was awful.
See, the route between Beverly and Salem includes a bridge, and not just any bridge, a big ass, almost 3/4 of a mile long bridge with some serious elevation.
In the summer it's a gorgeous way to see the harbor. In the early mornings, you can pause there and watch fishing boats bring in their hauls. In the winter time, no joke, I've seen birds fly into the railings and die.
The meteorologists are predicting this winter will see New England suffer another Polar Vortex.
It's not even solstice yet, and today the temperature never got higher than 26 degrees. It's going to be brutal.
And in some ways, I dread this.
I dread this because I already know, I bloody hate winter.
I hate the cold, the dry air, the slight scent of burnt metal in the air from the furnace.
I hate the static electricity that shocks me every time I touch a doorknob, but more than anything, I hate being stuck indoors. If I ever go on a murderous rampage, you can blame cabin fever and boredom for the bloodlust.
With all that being said, it is coming (insert Game of Thrones joke here), and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I have some idea of how miserable it will be. I know already there will be times that I can't stand it and think I am going crazy. There will be times that I want to move to Vanuatu and never see another snowflake again, but I will endure.

I am steeling myself.

Do you see where I'm going with this people?

There is something else we will have to steel ourself to endure for the next four years. A kind of "winter" if you will. We already know it's going to suck. Maybe we don't know the particulars, but we don't have to. The evidence is there, the predictions are in, and no matter how badly I want this winter to just skip us altogether, I don't think it's healthy to delude myself into thinking it will just miss us.

The thing is, I'm lucky.
I'm lucky as hell.
I don't have to walk across the bridge to get to work every day.
In fact, I don't have to be anywhere if I don't want to.
I can just stay inside and be safe and toasty warm with my baby.
I can pull the blinds and plug up all the drafts and turn up the heat pretending the cold won't touch me.
But that's cowardice.

And I don't want to teach my kid to be a coward.

I want to teach my kid to suit up, and step out the door, even when he knows it's brutal out.
And if I want him to do that, then I have to lead by example.

I need to cross that bridge at least a few times this winter.
I need to have difficult conversations and donate money to worthy causes, and stop letting people get away with casual, socially acceptable racism/sexism/homophobia/xenophobia/transphobia. I need to suit up step out and be brave.

It's okay to hate the cold.
But you can't hide from it, and you can't pretend it doesn't exist.
Because sooner or later it finds you, and if you aren't ready...well...just be ready.

Zwiggen: A Mother's Walk into Death

As we approach my son's first birthday, I feel as though I am living in a strange ballet.
I know the steps, I dance them through the rooms of the house, except this time, the baby is in my arms instead of inside me.

Fifty one weeks ago, I was forty one weeks pregnant.

I had appointments for two doses of induction medication waiting for me the next week, and I had a full fledged induction scheduled for the Friday.

I remember feeling like I was in suspended animation then. Zwiggen is what the Germans call it;
a kind of twilight realm where the mother has to walk slowly into the realm of death in order to fetch the soul of her baby and bring it back. It is an altered state of being, where the mother is neither alive nor dead. She is between worlds.
As she voyages deeper into this space, labor begins. In order to touch the spirit of the baby, she has to get closer to death, so she goes closer, unquestioningly, unfailingly. She goes closer until she is barely alive, until she is mostly spirit herself, only then can she touch the baby's soul and grasp it.

This is why so many women, if not all women, reach a point in birth where they say, "I can't do this."
They feel fear like an animal, fear not of what they are doing, but fear that they are too tired to come back out of death. It has taken so long to get there, so long to reach the baby's soul, that bringing it back out feels impossible. Physically, this is the most critical moment in labor, the point at which the baby must pass through the pelvis. This moment is the reason why humans are born after only nine months gestation.
The first three months of a humans life are the most touch and go because technically, a newborn should still be in the womb, but we have evolved to be born prematurely due to the size of our infant heads. A baby at proper full length gestation could not pass through its mother's pelvic bone, and both mother and child would die, so we are born before we are finished being made.
Our bodies are not finished yet.
The souls have not made their way to them yet.
So the mother, must go get the soul, bring it back, and in this last, crucial moment, split her physical self down the middle to all at once let out the baby while giving it its soul and put back her own spirit at the same time.

This is why we falter. The moment of return of knowing we can never go back to the way we were before, it is too big, too intimidating.
A woman is never the same after she gives birth because she has gone into death and back.
There is no being the same after that journey.
It does not matter if you have a c-section. It does not matter what medical interventions need to be taken. If you have had a child, you have walked into death and come out again, and there is no going back afterward.

So I look forward to celebrating my child's birthday.
I am so excited to give him presents, watch him eat cake, and delight in his celebration of life, but for now, I am mourning the last memories I have of being a girl before her walk into death, because I am different now. I have never felt more different, and more alive.

The New and Improved Hallucinogen is Motherhood. Bring on the Lizard People!

Babe woke up at 4am this morning.
Did I stutter?
No. 4. Four. FOUR.
Ugh.
And not just, stir a little, nurse him back down, kind of awake, like, full crawl up on my chest and begin crowing like a rooster awake. My poor Beard tousled the baby's hair and turned over. He has to be up for work at 6:30, and we all know how shitty it is to be woken up and see you have to start your day in a mere two-ish hours.
So I got up, thinking, I'd be able to re-settle the child better in the living room, and maybe cruise around on Etsy looking for Christmas presents.
Forty five minutes of squirming, fidgeting, fussing, and general chicanery, and then the kid sinks his teeth into a nip and I know, we're done.
It's quarter to five in the morning, and I am strapping my kid into his high chair, nuking a mug of yesterday's coffee, and cutting up chinks of banana.
The dog and cat watch us, bemused. I have no explanation.
I turn on the oven because the kitchen is cold and the gas bill is cheaper than heat.
I watch while Baz demolishes hunks of banana. My coffee clutched between claws of injustice.
I notice a butternut squash on my kitchen table and bung it in the oven.
It will make the house smell good. Oh, and, by the way, if you're still hacking away at your squashes, scooping out seeds and placing them neatly on foil lined trays before baking them, don't.
It's way easier to just peel off the sticker and hurl the whole gourd in. Bake it at a lower temp for a bit longer (like 350 for an hour), and then get it out. Let it cool for twenty minutes and then you can cut it in half with a butterknife, scoop the seeds out with a spoon, and it's ready for whatever you want to do with a butternut squash at five in the morning.
Me?
I mostly want to hurl it at the side of the house in some dramatic display of futility and ignominy, but then I'd have to clean it up.
Or blame it on the teenagers in the apartment upstairs...

Anyway...
So I make pancakes. I do this by throwing a generous scoop of baked squash, an egg yolk, some instant oats, cinnamon, the other half of the banana, and some baking soda into the baby bullet. I blitz the whole thing for a minute while a pan heats on the stove, then I fry the pancakes while the monster in the high chair bangs measuring cups and flings gummy banana bits at me or the dog depending on which of us deserves more derision in that moment.
Pancakes made, I serve a chunked up one to the baby. He hoovers it up with a look of glee. The fresh pot of coffee is done now too, so I pour myself a decent cup. I look at the clock, it's 5:55am.
Fucking hell.

This is the Gonzo Mothering life.

I don't know what I'm doing, and I'll never proclaim otherwise.
Well, maybe when I'm sixty five, and this kid is all grown up and hopefully a semi-functional adult, but by then nobody will be listening to me as I'll be a pink haired, rhinestone wearing retiree with a newly discovered passion for ballroom dancing with partners a third my age.
Also nobody will be reading blogs by then. We'll all be getting information uploaded to the insides out our eyelids, where we have surgically grafted lcd screens so nobody has to look at each other anymore. We can all just lie in bed and watch the world as it is fed to us through the information robots.

Wow...getting up at four in the morning makes me get dark fast.

Can I take a moment just to say too, that I am in fact a morning person?

I actually am at my best about two hours after wake up?
I can read whole paragraphs and understand them. I can sometimes string words into full sentences. Two hours after I get up I am raring to go.

I tend to unravel the later it gets.

Today for instance, around six o'clock, I'll be in a corner sobbing hysterically about the state of the world fisting peanut m&ms into my mouth as the baby takes his first steps across the living room floor, and you can bet they'll be away from me.

Dear god, he will be thinking, why is bipedalism so difficult? I'd be miles away by now if I could just figure out this balancing bullshit.

So here we are. It's not even seven, the baby has curled up in my lap for a post-pancake nap, and I am too wired to take him back to sleep and actually get some shut eye.
I think about his instincts though, and I must commend him.
I mean, getting up early because you're hungry, eating a pile of pancakes, and then taking a snooze sounds like every dumb instagrammer's "perfect Sunday" so he must be doing something right.

I on the other hand am now vibrating at a frequency that makes my dog's knees buckle.
There is no hope here in the Gonzo Motherland.
Give me twelve hours,
we'll be in bat country.