Thursday, July 16, 2020

Examining Pansies

The other day, my son said his first word. Grrrrrrr.


Well, more like a sound, I suppose. When prompted with the question “What does a dinosaur say?” he will make a low growl in the back of his throat.  This could have been acquired from his dinosaur book with the buttons that say various dinosaur noises. More likely, it could be that every time he made the growling noise – often in response to a large vehicle driving by our house – I would practically trip over myself to say, “WHAT DOES THE DINOSAUR SAY??” hoping to create a stimulus-response connection. Similar actions have resulted in him accurately naming what a motorcycle “says” – remarkably similar to a dinosaur – and a kitty (mow-mow).  Despite, however, the kitty sound being one short vowel sound away from “Mama” we still haven’t mastered THAT stimulus-response connection.

These are the events of our lives now. Days that are both slow and busy, watching my son explore his world and make connections. To him, the world is ripe for discovery, rich with opportunity and novelty.   As he toddles around, newly upright and bipedal, he pauses often to crouch and explore a stick, a rock, a blade of grass. My own exploration is paused as I watch him and join him in his discoveries. Sometimes it feels joyous. Sometimes it feels mundane and repetitive. Sometimes it feels intriguing as I watch years of schooling in child development play out in my own backyard.

And – it is Good. It is Okay. It is Right. Not very long ago, I felt when things were profoundly not okay and not right and I couldn’t imagine them feeling any semblance of okay again. And while I wouldn’t wish severe postpartum depression/anxiety on anyone, descending into the darker alleys of human existence does provide the perspective that “normalcy” can feel like heaven when you’ve felt a little bit of hell. To calmly watch my son sit in the grass and examine the petals of a pansy without passive suicidal thoughts storming into my consciousness multiple times an hour, to be present in my own skin without feeling all-consuming anxiety so great it was almost physically painful – these are beautiful gifts, and I pray I won’t wander too far from my appreciation for the beauty of these simple, everyday moments.

In my line of work as an educator and social worker, we talk a fair amount about symptom reduction. We want to make the bad stuff decrease and the good stuff increase. And for me – this has absolutely happened. In the rating scales I fill out for my psychiatrist, the numbers look good. There is a significant decrease in my anxiety and depression and a marked increase in my life satisfaction. I function well in my professional and personal roles, and I have many hobbies from which I derive pleasure and satisfaction. In my job, I like these quantitative measures. I like graphing data points and admiring them when they go the right way. These numbers are simple and not messy and I can look at them and feel good about accomplishing something tangible.

And yet, I’m learning on a personal level that reduced symptomology does not always directly translate to increased well-being. It doesn’t necessarily equate to joy, or peace, or fulfillment. It is the absence of bad stuff but not necessarily the presence of good stuff.  I’m learning that the quantitative bricks that can form a solid, sound, stable sense of self are sometimes the easier things to get ahold of – healthy relationships, meaningful work, satisfying hobbies, a solid belief system - but the abstract gushy stuff that holds it all together – joy, fulfillment, spirituality, meaning, presence, purpose - can be much harder to define and attain.

The concept of a sense of self is a diffuse and abstract concept, and one that I realize now is something I have taken for granted much of my adult life. After I emerged from the tumult of adolescence, I had a pretty solid idea of who I was and my place in the world. I felt a sense of autonomy and purpose. While I faced challenges and hard times, I was able to rally my resources and address what laid in front of me.  Most of the time, I was confident and purposed, and felt relatively content in my own skin.

After childbirth, all this shifted. Or, perhaps the more poetic way to say it is – shit blew up. If my sense of self was a puzzle, the table upon which it sat was kicked from below, and all the pieces scattered. In the early days of postpartum, I remember sitting on my couch holding Everett, likely trying to breastfeed for the 687th  time, and staring out into the living room, literally visualizing said puzzle pieces scattered on the floor, wondering when the edge pieces might start to take shape. I felt as if I was in a hall of mirrors – unable to find a center point and lost in emotional and spiritual vertigo. Prior to childbirth, my sense of self – or maybe sense of Being is a better term, because this included my sense of the world and God and everything - felt like an easy chair I could sink into when the world around me was too much. My understanding of God and the world and others and myself and the relationship between them all felt sorted and organized, and I could turn to the references in this existential library for answers when the outside was chaotic and confusing.

But immediately postpartum, it felt like said easy chair didn’t exist. Instead, I paced around the room, both literally and figuratively, without a place to rest and recoup. I was a stranger in my own world, and I could find no place to center myself for all the work that needed to be done.  Then, after being properly medicated, the inner turmoil subsided quite a bit, and I gingerly sat in this space as if I was perched on the edge of a hard bench – I had a place to sit, but was alert and expectant that things could go awry at any moment. As I’ve done my own work and grown and learned, I’ve started to gingerly sink back, feeling for the back of that easy chair, looking forward to settling into a familiar comfort and centering place. But as I lean back, I realize –

This chair is different.

This chair is not the same.

I am not the same.

As I try to “find” myself again, I am faced with the knowledge that the person I was before Everett no longer exists. I am changed on a cellular level. I am navigating new responsibilities and new feelings and new realities and new fears and I am just overall an entirely different person. Many things remain the same. I love mountains and dogs and Jesus and goat cheese and hiking and people and writing and education and social work and Jesus.  The quantitative bricks – many are the same. But the goopy stuff that holds it all together – it is chemically different now. It has changed.

And so, I am getting to know this new Me.  I am learning to accept and appreciate her differences and nuances.  I am acknowledging that my understanding about God and people and the universe has shifted, as it often does with big events, and I am feeling more confident that this is growth, not regression. I am learning that it is okay to sometimes miss things about the old me and my old life, but I must not look through that photo album for too long, because I will miss the real time playing out right in front of me.

I will be honest and say that I am not fully back in my own skin. I am happy and thankful and enjoying all the quiet bliss of normalcy (or as close to normal as it can be given our current world affairs). I am beyond grateful for my son, and I’m not placating when I say that I fall more in love with him each day. Often, I will catch myself watching Everett play and think – he’s here. My baby is here. Thank You.

And also - a space remains between my skin and my soul. The puzzle still has many pieces missing.  The easy chair is there, but I am unable to sink back fully into it. Emotions are still a bit blunted, as if fully succumbing to them does not yet feel safe and there is something that pushes me forward as I try to sink back. It is difficult to put words to, and not something I have experienced before. It is not bad, but it is strange.

And so, I am learning to Let It Be. This is hard for me. I spin things in my head like a test tube in a centrifuge, hoping the answer will rise to the surface. When things are a little off, I quickly retreat to the control center of My Mind, tinkering around as if the right adjustment will make the whole machine function properly. I am learning to leave the control room and watch the simple daily happenings play out. I am learning what the petals of a pansy look like up close. I am learning what a dinosaur says. I am learning to pause and look at the sticks and the rocks and the blades of grass. I am learning to let it be.  And as I learn to let it be, I trust that subtly, inexplicably, that space between my skin and my soul will continue to narrow. I am hopeful I will feel the back of that easy chair soon.

And for now, I’ll keep examining pansies.

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