To build a life

Aside from the moment of one’s death, I don’t know if there’s anything more spiritually transcendent than giving birth. It’s a sacred process where the portals of two worlds collide, requiring an abundance of vulnerability, trust, and intrinsic maternal strength. As a mother, you can only hope that those attributes stay with you throughout your journey of matrescence. I know I did.

But at some point, I checked out. I saw only what I was lacking inside. Maybe that’s why I took so long to touch this threshold again. There’s this thing I do when I’m close to getting everything I want - I panic and get in my own way about it. I relentlessly self-sabotage to satisfy some internal script that repeatedly tells me I don’t deserve to have it so good. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re born a self-punisher.

All this to say… I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to do this again. Funny how life turns out, isn’t it?

I’ll never forget the potent amalgamation of joy and relief I felt moments after delivering my last child. She didn’t cry right away. The doctor said “look at the cheeks!” and remarked what a big baby she was, and I knew with every part of me she was okay.

And life suddenly slowed down.

My body flush and warm from the analgesics and oxytocin flow. My baby girl’s plump little body resting against my breast. My partner watching us attentively. Our world changing in a blink.

It’s been a little over two weeks since we welcomed our girl, and it still feels so surreal. Everything that’s happened over the past few years just seems to make sense now, you know?

When you’re building a life, there comes a point when you need to stop looking so hard at what’s happening on the horizon. You’re probably already in the thick of something perfectly designed for you. I wish I’d always trusted that. I wish I’d known this darling girl was waiting for me somewhere down the line. Now that she’s here, she’s helped me feel so at peace.

She’s my safe haven… here in human form at long last.

08/31. There is a crack, a crack in everything.

Sometimes I feel so far from home.

It's like I'm an alien who crashed landed. Here I am in this strange place, stumbling and disoriented amid the wreckage. I've lost my way back to the mother ship, and my whole life's quest is to find myself and my people. But I have these ideas, you know? These asinine ideas convincing me that if I stay, I might be able to build a more human, more authentic world. Better than they've done it. The humans, they seem so caught up in 'having', less so in 'being'. And nobody speaks plainly or maps out the landscapes of their internal world for others to see. It's so foreign to me. I feel like an outlander wandering through a barren land speaking frenzied monologues to a crowd of vacant faces.

This probably only happened in a dream space, but I have this very early memory of myself as an infant in my crib. I'm picking away at the wallpaper with my tiny fingers when my big brother peeks in through the cracks in the bars.

"Hi Missy,” he coos. I look up at him with pleading eyes. I want to tell him that I don't belong here, but I don't have the words quite yet. I just know I need out. This rectangular box wasn't meant for me. No boxes ever are.

That's the way I've felt from day one.

But instead of going rogue like I want to, I hustle like hell for my worth in order to convince myself and others that I belong. I look like all the people, but I don't feel like anyone else I've ever known.

The truth is, I've struggled with some form of imposter syndrome my whole life. No matter what I've accomplished or how easily I fit in, I can't seem to shake this feeling that I'm a fraud. I play the part beautifully. Convincingly, even. But I have this deep fear that I'm only passing for the real thing. That sooner or later, I'll inevitably be found out and exposed. This nagging voice always tells me not to push it. Don't get too comfortable. Don't let them know you're making it up as you go along. So I don't.

No matter how out of place I feel, I automatically gain access to the inner circles. People want my company. Yet, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, I'm stuck on the periphery. You ever feel it? The alienation? That relentless disconnect from the umbilical cord of life?

After a period of high achievement or complete tunnel vision where I'm hyper-focused on something I love to the detriment of everything else, I find myself lost in the wilderness again. I want to rest my head, but hyper-vigilance is what is called for in moments like these. I can't relax. I need to keep proving I can make it here. That I can do all the things that successful humans are supposed to do. Progress over process. A constant need to be the best at everything. That's how we imposters survive. That's what our worth is tied to.

Despite 'proving' time and time again that I'm compassionate, hardworking and capable of excellence in most of the things I choose to take on, it never feels like it's enough. When someone affirms my skills or abilities and puts me on a pedestal, I become shaky and full of doubt. Being put under the spotlight or told that I'm naturally good at things seems to have the adverse effect of catapulting me into feeling worse about myself.

I don't remember a time when I didn't feel a constant pressure to perform highly in some area of my life. School, my career, motherhood. The desire to be a good lover, a selfless friend, and a committed sister and daughter. If I doubt that I'm capable or won't be good at something, then I won't even bother trying, or I'll delay it for as long as I can. All those years picking at a degree, ahem, ahem. I seem to believe that I can only do something well if I pour all of myself into it. I want to do, be, and experience so many things, but I invest so intently to the people and the ideas that I'm passionate about that it feels like a waste when I can't devote everything to them.

But lately, I just crave rest. I crave being able to bask in my own imperfections. I'm bored of doing what looks good on paper. I'm burnt out from it. That's not what I want my kids to see me doing. I have a strong inclination to bare my cracks and scars. I want to be undone, fully naked under the gleaming light of the sun. This is terrifying, exhilarating, and enlightening.

All I know for sure is that my path doesn't need to be spotless or free of mistakes to make a difference. As I tell my son, mistakes are allowed. And not only that, they are encouraged as a necessary component of getting to know yourself deeply. But it's hard to trust this when my early childhood experiences programmed me to believe I was only acceptable under certain conditions. That to belong and be of value in my family of origin, I had to check every box. This gave way to a implacable perfectionism. A diversion from my true essence and a merger into what I believe this world wants me to be. But as I'm leaning into myself more, I'm recognizing that we're all imposters in some way or another. And whether we are playing parts or being our most authentic selves, we are usually performing to an audience that's asleep.

I've always felt that this meatsack is merely providing a shelter for my soul. I just want to connect to that at all times, and to be around people who foster that connection. People who allow me to feel safe to talk about the kind of planet I envision for my children and discuss how to make our temporary home a gentler, more authentic, more 'earthy' place, if you will. When I meet people who share these visions, I feel renewed. I feel like we're just little orbs of light floating in a "soul space" instead of a world with systems and hierarchies. That feels more 'real' to me, as does recognizing that there's no 'perfect' me or 'perfect' other. What we offer through our very existence is enough.

Deep down, we know that none of these so called achievements or societal constructs truly matter. We've just accepted them as truth and breathed life into them for too long. What matters is how deeply we get to know our own souls, and those of others. How much we dare to look beyond the cracks in ourselves and others, and break these open with courage and compassion. I figure I've probably got another 50 years or so to do that, And in that time, I want to meet myself and others as deeply as I possibly can. I want to reclaim what I lost in the wreckage of who I would have been if the world hadn't got its hands on me. And in the end, I want to say that I've returned home to myself.

I wish the same for you.

July 25 - Quiet light

Things feel slow and hushed these days. I like it that way. Even though they aren't really. After all, there's always something to do or somewhere to be. Three of us in the house are working, one is tweening, and the dog is dogging. It's been a whirlwind summer. There are never enough days to connect with the people I actually want to see. But for once, I'm actually doing the things I want to be doing. Not performing or trying to measure myself against contrived standards that are impossible to meet. Not having panic attacks over assignments that bored professors barely scan their eyes over. Not self-flagellating when I get things wrong. Not feeding my imposter syndrome nearly as much. Parenting with swagger instead of letting useless distractions rue the day.

I have returned to myself in so many ways. It was a long journey. I got so far from my centre. From my wholeness. I had to break to find it. I wasn't exactly a pillar of mental health before, but I had routines. Nonetheless, in the past year and a half, I really did myself in. A strange descent into madness propelled by an intangible loneliness, a protective ego and a potent dose of disenfranchised grief.

What did all this result in? Just a rejection of self, really. A fractured self. People like me, we can't fully break, you know? The world doesn't like it. It scares people. As a youngster growing up in a highly dysfunctional home, I knew this. I understood I was to take on darkness in others and in the world, but not become dark. To care deeply about suffering but not show my own. I'm supposed to have my shit together. I'm the one people go to when they break. And so when it happened to me, I was too ashamed to go anywhere except the dark corners of my mind. And when I did reach out to non-professional supports, I didn't always get the compassion I hoped for. If you want help these days, or rather, if you want empathy, sometimes you have to pay for it. I'm grateful that I had the means to do so. It makes me upset that other people don't.

So, even though it's not quiet in the outside world, there's a new sense of calm and unhurried bliss inside of me that I've been really leaning into. I think my internal structures are undergoing a rebuild. A steadier foundation is being poured. I co-regulate with my son like a boss. We do this thing when he's really struggling to find his baseline: the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique. 5 things you can see. 4 things you can touch. 3 things you can hear. 2 things you can smell. and 1 thing you can taste. If you're ever losing your shit, I highly recommend this in conjunction with deep breathing. And with my daughter, we are developing a closeness I haven't been able to find with her in...well..maybe ever. I'm enjoying their growth. I'm paying attention. I'm watching in awe as my son curls up in the arms of his daddy in the soft glow of morning. It's fucking beautiful. It's slow. It's right where I need to be.