A Collection of Random Thoughts While Staring Out the Train
I have been busy with the new job. I click through the office in high heels and skirts, skirts several sizes smaller than I was wearing as the weight I dropped appears to be (apart from 1.5 kg) lost for good. I’m not sad. I like being several sizes smaller, actually. I feel like I fit me. I suppose deep down, no matter how much therapy you have, there is always a part of you that is married to an eating disorder.
I spent the morning over documents and charts with a customer. I spend my time away from the customer buried neck deep in spreadsheets. I know what I’m doing and I love having the opportunity to spread my wings and do it. This change was what I needed. This change was what was right.
Talking to a colleague this morning, I realize that where I started from and where I am now are two very different places. A degree in social sciences, $25,000 in student loans, and the only thing behind me the sheer determination to make something out of my life was all I had.
My first exam is this afternoon. It won’t hurt, and at least its baby steps towards finding some answers. My children migrated from their cots to Big Boy and Big Girl Beds on the same day that I wrote my post about coming to terms with the fact that there will be no more children. It was a bad day for me. I cried a lot and felt bitter and hollow inside and all I wanted to do was go back in time and scoop up my children as infants and breathe them in again and again and again and tell them that there will never be a time when they will need me as much as they did then but that I remain with a constant and unwavering need for them.
And I was taken care of that night, calmly and carefully, by my new partner. I say new because he is, as am I. 2009 was the worst year of my life bar none, and yet I learned things about myself that I could never have otherwise learned. Therapy finally clicked. I finally clicked. The opportunity to tear down generations of patterns showed itself. And the world changed, just like that. And this new world is a very beautiful place indeed.
I sometimes think that life is a series of events designed to show you that who you are isn’t really how you thought you would be.
When I was younger I didn’t want to live past 30. There was no real point, I thought. I was on a mission to self-destruction and that self-destruction was timed to expire on the eve of my 29th birthday. I didn’t need life to kill me, I was planning on encouraging things along that way anyhow. When you’re younger and broken and unable to raise your head above the parapet then you can’t know that there is anything worth seeing. There are times in my life when I look back and everything feels stretched tight as a dirty rubber band around a soggy newspaper. You need someone to give you a chance, you just don’t realize that that someone is you. You’re all elbows and attitude and ill-fitting clothing and you forget to look up and out from time to time.
And what would that have gotten me, I wonder. Dying before 30, I would have missed out on dozens of foreign countries. I wouldn’t have my home. I wouldn’t have my family (and the best part about me is you). I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to show myself that at the end of the day, the one who has to fight for me most is me.
I no longer walk the hallways feeling like a fraud.
I walk the hallways feeling like a person, with all of the fallibility that infers. And it’s scary and it will hurt but it is what living is all about. I don’t do resolutions at the New Year. Instead I make them when they come, and my resolution is to live.
I sit here and watch out the rolling window, watching a white landscaped world go by, and I remind myself that life can be extraordinary, if only you let it be.
-S.
PS – new post of mine up on Mums Rock.
Your babies will need you more and more as they grow. I also love the infant stage, but unless you are breastfeeding (and I didn’t, so it’s not a knock) anyone can provide for their needs. As they grow they will want *you* and no substitute will do. That being said, watching them grow up is the most heart-breaking thing I’ve ever done, no matter how proud they make me.
They may be getting older, but they’ll still want their snuggle time. Sometimes, believe it or not, they’ll still want to snuggle even as they start hitting their teens (but they usually initiate that, not you). And their capacity to love you, as yours to love them, will only grow.
After reading your blog for something like five (?) years, I’m happy to have reached the point where you’ve been able to make fundamental changes to yourself and leave the bulk of the past behind. Talk about a journey getting to this part, though. And a lot of us have suffered, and grown, with you as your readers. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.
Beautifully written. As the others said above, your children will still need you, always. they will still want cuddles and time with mummy. Despite the sad tones it was a rather uplifting and inspiring post. I am glad you have come through it all and can now stick that head of your over the parapet.
You can really write!! I am so glad you made the choice to live.
“and tell them that there will never be a time when they will need me as much as they did then but that I remain with a constant and unwavering need for them.” They may not need you physically as much as they grow older but I found that my daughter needed me emotionally way more as she grew older and the teen years she needed me most as she grew into an adult.
I hadn’t really planned on living past 35 – no real self-destructive tendencies, just an inability to picture life after that. Now, here I am at 40, wondering what I’m supposed to do, because I didn’t plan for this! But, all of the most lovely and unexpected (as well as some of the most challenging and depressing) things have happened to me in these last 5 years, and I wouldn’t trade them. I think it’s called maturing.
The Lemonheads will always need you – and they will need you the most when they don’t want you around! :) This morning, I woke my (3yo) girl up to start her day, and we spent some time cuddling on the couch. I was thinking that I hadn’t really gotten to hold her like that in quite a while. The opportunities will surface here and there, to remind you of the infants you once had (but with no crying or diaper changes!).
Your ability to put into words what so many of us can only sense, is nothing less than wonderful. I can’t wait until your book comes out!
Whenever I read your blog, I am struck by an urge to say, “thank you.” Thank you for letting us have a peek into your world. Thank you for your beautiful writing that inspires so many of us. Thank you.
They’ll still need you as they grow – they just need you in other ways. I sobbed every day for that first week of school that my five year old walked into that school building all by himself for kindergarten. I still tear up when I think about it. “He’s growing UP. He’s getting OLDER. He doesn’t NEED me.” Then he falls down and he still comes running for some comfort and love.
Last night he looked at me, “Mom. I love you like 10,000.” I looked back down at him, and rubbed his cheek. I smoothed his hair. “I love you like 10,000 times two.”
Oh dear, this final goodbye to the baby stage hurts, I remember me crying when our child refused breastfeeding suddenly and wanted a bottle and real food once…
The lost baby stage is very cute, sure, but what comes next and afterwards is a real adventure. And hugs and tenderness will not have to have an end. Enjoy it, every day!
Can I get an AMEN?!?!
I never wanted to a)have kids, b)get married, or c)live to grow old. Figured 1: I would be a lousy parent, 2: who would want me, 3: the pain had to stop sometime. Now I sometimes get down because I realize that in order for my children to grow up I have to get old. As much as enjoy and look forward to my kids growing up (and I really do enjoy each stage and change), now I don’t want to grow old for entirely different reasons.
I am so happy for you-way happier then words in a comment can express. I love you so-I really do.
xoxox
Very beautiful, heartfelt post. Thanks for reminding all of us once-broken people how lucky we are :).
Amazing, AMAZING post. So very real and true.
“You need someone to give you a chance, you just don’t realize that that someone is you. You’re all elbows and attitude and ill-fitting clothing and you forget to look up and out from time to time.”
Writing this down and keeping it (attributed to Helen…err, Shannon, of course.) Sometimes you say things that are just .perfect.
I could hardly breathe as I read that and know the joy of growing into yourself and the freedom of forgiveness.
THANK YOU for putting into words what I have been unable to verbalise. xx
This post means a lot… a lot. Letting go of possibilities is something I’m working on. It is hard, and real. But in some ways, what is left is the truth. Facts. As someone who has seen plenty of uncertainty, there is a little bit of peace in knowing, even when the knowing hurts.
Here is to you…to you making the best choices, the you choices…and all the ever afters beyond here.
I am so very glad you made it past thirty.
Beautiful sentiment and message for all.
Re: your therapy: Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together.
…and all I wanted to do was go back in time and scoop up my children as infants and breathe them in again and again and again…
It’s easy to see why grandparents are so patient and loving with their grandchildren, even though they may not have been that way with their children. They realize how precious every second with children/grandchildren is. That’s also a reason moms & dads beyond the infant stage of children love holding other people’s infants so much.
God is good to give us our children “fix” periodically once we’re past that stage and realize how glorious it really was.
Angel3 just went into a big boy bed last Friday, and the Super Model Mrs. Solomon took it a little hard too. I love it. Now I can go in and kiss him goodnight and tell him I love him (I couldn’t reach him in the crib). I’ve been doing that with Angel2 & Angel3 every night since they got out of their cribs 12 & 10 years ago.