I have often been described as a drama queen. In fact, my family have had me firmly slotted in to this role for as long as I can remember. I must admit that I have certainly played up to the expectation in the past - in the not so distant past if I am completely honest - but it is only as I get older that I have started to question my "natural" over-dramatic reaction to things. While I once accepted that I am "too emotional," or "hot-tempered," I have started to find myself taking time to analyse things before reacting or being able to laugh at myself more often. Perhaps I am not burdened with genetic programming to be forever kicking and screaming and shouting at the injustice of my life and the world in general?
There is a comfort in accepting yourself for who you "really" are, even if you hate that person. A lazy, easy comfort which means you don't have to change certain behaviours. I have been thinking about this a lot lately as my sister has been going through a bit of soul searching - which has led to her searching the souls around her as well. Suddenly someone other than me is questioning my parents' reactions and behaviours, and because I am not the one doing the questioning my parents are responding to this line of questioning to me. The over arching theme in these responses - Defensiveness.
The more questions my sister asks, the more she demands changes in their lives or answers for their past, the further they both plant themselves on the back foot. My mother defends her commitment to motherhood, my father his lifestyle choices - both of them defending their parenting practices to me unsolicited. They are angry and caught off guard, they react quickly and with little reason. They are behaving, well, a bit like I used to. Given further thought, I realise that this behaviour is something that has existed as standard in my family for as long as I can remember. Everyone is always defending themselves, always justifying and reacting before and accusation can even be made. All of us ensuring that we will be the first to strike, lest we be struck upon ourselves. A family who should have a throw cushion with the motto "The best offense is a good defense" embroidered on it.
I have been thinking about what underlies my defensiveness, about what makes me react the most negatively and with the intense need to protect my image/actions/behaviours/personality. It didn't take long to make the connection between my greatest insecurities and the things about me I defend the most. We react this way to protect the fact that deep down we are petrified it is the truth - the truth we have the most difficult time facing about ourselves. For me it is the implication that I am stupid, cruel, unattractive, oversensitive or false in any way. So obvious, as these are the insecurities that creep in when I am left alone for too long. I fight so no one can see that the very things they are insinuating (or not, but that I have percieved them to be) are the cold dark truths I am trying to hide from everyone else.
Not long ago I would have labeled my parents' defensiveness as cruelty and a failure to keep their temper/sense of humour in check when dealing with their children. Today I am starting to look at how scared they must be that the things my sister is touching on, that I touched on so many years ago, are actually true. What fears and insecurities go through my father's head when lies down at night? Is he afraid that a terrible diet and a lifelong battle with obesity will be the end of him? Does he think he is no longer of any use to his daughters now that they have grown up and built lives that he wasn't able to give them as children? And what about my mother - what fears are keeping her awake? Does she worry that her children will never forgive her for past indiscretions? That she will be alone forever? That people only loved her because she was young and beautiful? That she doesn't know how to be a good mother? It is frightening, saddening and incapacitating to think of my parents with such insecurities, with any level of fear or self-doubt.
But perhaps the thing I find the most difficult is how a family full of people who are so unsure of their own value, so desperate to defend their own insecurities, can fight past this heated reaction to find a common ground. Who better could understand my need to feel attractive in order to be valued than my ageing mother - the woman from whom I learned such behaviour? Who could know my need to hide any trace of not knowing the answer better than my father - who is more insecure about his lack of education than anyone I have ever met? Who better to share my concerns about not being a good parent with than my sister, who was raised in the same house and with the same unsure parents that I had? We all have so much support and advice and direction that we could offer each other.
If only we could stop trying to convince each other that we have no insecurities or faults at all.
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Monday, 9 February 2009
Full up
I am so full of baby right now. Physically and mentally and emotionally full of this baby. There is little time and space in my life for anything else, and he/she hasn't even come out of the womb yet. The closer the due date gets (we're just about four weeks away now) the more consumed I am with how I am going to keep my baby safe, how I am going to deliver him safely, how I am going to get him home safely and feed him and clothe him and bathe him safely. No one and nothing else matters at all, not even myself. I am overwhelmed with my apathy towards everything I usually hold dear as I brace myself for this change, brace myself for the seismic shift that is about to occur in my life.
There is plenty of room to worry about normality, though. Is it normal to gain this much weight? Is it normal to have Braxton-Hicks contractions for this long? Is it normal to think about the baby morning noon and night? Is it normal for the baby to kick that way or this way? Is it normal that I care so god damned much about being normal? Under typical circumstances, I find the 'norm' to be dull and almost offensive. I fight against it, hoping to challenge or surpass it. And yet now all I want is for someone to tell me that this pain is normal, that this worry is normal, that this anxiety is normal. That I am normal and the baby is normal.
Is this what I have to look forward to in motherhood? A resignation to being known and behaving only as some one's mother? A life filled with hoping for normal? It is the antithesis of what I have always strove for. And yet it feels so comfortable, so right at this moment in time. If for a moment I am distracted from all things baby I feel guilty and panicked. I am overwhelmed with love for this tiny person, am so excited to meet him that I can hardly take it. I talk to him as though he is another person living in my house with us, as though he could answer me back.
I think I will just try to enjoy this time, this feeling of fullness. I remember what the emptiness feels like, and I don't want to know that again. Those who know and love me will understand my retreat from the real world, from my other self. I am sure she will re-emerge someday soon. Stronger, better - warmed and shaped by the love of a child and the wisdom of motherhood.
Will you bear with me until then?
There is plenty of room to worry about normality, though. Is it normal to gain this much weight? Is it normal to have Braxton-Hicks contractions for this long? Is it normal to think about the baby morning noon and night? Is it normal for the baby to kick that way or this way? Is it normal that I care so god damned much about being normal? Under typical circumstances, I find the 'norm' to be dull and almost offensive. I fight against it, hoping to challenge or surpass it. And yet now all I want is for someone to tell me that this pain is normal, that this worry is normal, that this anxiety is normal. That I am normal and the baby is normal.
Is this what I have to look forward to in motherhood? A resignation to being known and behaving only as some one's mother? A life filled with hoping for normal? It is the antithesis of what I have always strove for. And yet it feels so comfortable, so right at this moment in time. If for a moment I am distracted from all things baby I feel guilty and panicked. I am overwhelmed with love for this tiny person, am so excited to meet him that I can hardly take it. I talk to him as though he is another person living in my house with us, as though he could answer me back.
I think I will just try to enjoy this time, this feeling of fullness. I remember what the emptiness feels like, and I don't want to know that again. Those who know and love me will understand my retreat from the real world, from my other self. I am sure she will re-emerge someday soon. Stronger, better - warmed and shaped by the love of a child and the wisdom of motherhood.
Will you bear with me until then?
Monday, 15 December 2008
The Un-birthday
No long posts today. Just an acknowledgment. Today would have been Grace's, the baby I miscarried in April, due date. I have been dreading it weepily for weeks now, wondering exactly how one deals with such a day. Better to let it pass without incident? After all she was so new, according to medical text books she barely existed. Just another of the 10-25% of pregnancies that end in the first trimester.
So much seems to have transpired since April. Each new day that comes with my current pregnancy is a wonder. I must admit to sometimes hovering nervously outside myself, watching my belly grow and wondering when it will all be taken away from me. Yet in spite of the time elapsed and the things which have taken place since, the rawness of that loss grates on me some days. Each time someone asks me "is this your first?" and I give them the standard, non-depressing answer of "yes." But it's not. This is not my first baby, not the first little life I longed for and loved. Each answer of "yes" to queries about first child status is like a betrayal to that tiny creature that I had for such a short time.
This day feels like a betrayal as well. Just its existence seems wrong, as though there is no purpose for it now that there will be no baby born on this day. I wait for someone to remember, but I know no one will except me. Silly, stupid me and my refusal to just let go of it, quietly humming that old Skeeter Davis song and feeling guilty if I have a moment of happiness on this day of quiet remembrance.
Fuck it. It's my grief. It would have been our day. I don't care who finds me silly or over-dramatic. I know my loss could have been greater, that I could have grown to know and love that child even more and to have really experienced pain when she was taken from me. I know that other women have suffered immeasurably, that their pain is something I could not (and please, God, will not) understand. But that thought doesn't diminish what I feel right now, which is angry. And sad. And screwed out of a moment that would have been so beautiful. I love this new baby, March 15th is a day I look forward to with great hope and anticipation. I have worked hard not to let my first experience mar this one. But I need to acknowledge this day, the first day I looked forward to with that same hope and anticipation.
So happy birthday, Grace. I loved those brief moments when you were with me. You were my first baby, and while I have said goodbye I will never forget you. I will not forget that you showed me how ready I was to be a mother, how much I wanted to know the joys of having a family. I will not forget that you helped me learn how to heal myself after grief. I hope that there is a time and place somewhere that you still exist, and that someday I will know you there.
So much seems to have transpired since April. Each new day that comes with my current pregnancy is a wonder. I must admit to sometimes hovering nervously outside myself, watching my belly grow and wondering when it will all be taken away from me. Yet in spite of the time elapsed and the things which have taken place since, the rawness of that loss grates on me some days. Each time someone asks me "is this your first?" and I give them the standard, non-depressing answer of "yes." But it's not. This is not my first baby, not the first little life I longed for and loved. Each answer of "yes" to queries about first child status is like a betrayal to that tiny creature that I had for such a short time.
This day feels like a betrayal as well. Just its existence seems wrong, as though there is no purpose for it now that there will be no baby born on this day. I wait for someone to remember, but I know no one will except me. Silly, stupid me and my refusal to just let go of it, quietly humming that old Skeeter Davis song and feeling guilty if I have a moment of happiness on this day of quiet remembrance.
Fuck it. It's my grief. It would have been our day. I don't care who finds me silly or over-dramatic. I know my loss could have been greater, that I could have grown to know and love that child even more and to have really experienced pain when she was taken from me. I know that other women have suffered immeasurably, that their pain is something I could not (and please, God, will not) understand. But that thought doesn't diminish what I feel right now, which is angry. And sad. And screwed out of a moment that would have been so beautiful. I love this new baby, March 15th is a day I look forward to with great hope and anticipation. I have worked hard not to let my first experience mar this one. But I need to acknowledge this day, the first day I looked forward to with that same hope and anticipation.
So happy birthday, Grace. I loved those brief moments when you were with me. You were my first baby, and while I have said goodbye I will never forget you. I will not forget that you showed me how ready I was to be a mother, how much I wanted to know the joys of having a family. I will not forget that you helped me learn how to heal myself after grief. I hope that there is a time and place somewhere that you still exist, and that someday I will know you there.
Monday, 1 December 2008
Home is where the [insert answer here, please] is.
I'm back, or somewhat back. I have been reading but not writing, observing but doing very little participating these days. I didn't think I could possibly be any more inside my own head than I was before my pregnancy, but somehow this introversion and introspection continues. The most horrible thing about it is how inarticulate I have become in expressing what happens to me during these times of soul searching. Once I could fill page after page with my musings on life, sadness, happiness or self-doubt. Now I am constantly lost for words, or even lost for the desire to find them.
Not to say that I have been unhappy. I have had more moments of contentment in the past five months than I think I have ever experienced before. Suddenly there is a wave of acceptance that the life I have is the life I want, that I am where I need to be. With one important factor changed - the location. Yes, that tyrant of emotion Homesickness has reared her ugly head again. And lately she possesses a fury and determination that doesn't allow me to write her off as easily as I have in other battles. There are several elements to my homesickness, some stronger than others, some more familiar than others. Some are real, some imagined. All are conspiring to disrupt my little bubble of contentedness - this happy little world where I love my husband more than I thought I ever would, where I rub my bump reassuringly to send my little one off to sleep after hours of kicking and flip-flopping, where I am respected at home and at work, where I have time and space to do the things I find important, where I am a wife and a mother-to-be building the family I have always wanted.
The first factor is the physical environment. I miss the seasons - all four of them. I miss winters full of snow and ice and hot cocoa; crisp, cold and sunny mornings; long underwear and LL Bean Boots. I miss springtime that is not drowned in rain and hampered by regularly cold and dark days - real spring where you can feel the weather changing and see the green starting to find its way back into the Earth. I miss summer. Hot summer days spent at the beach or on a blanket in the park. Days when the heat is so strong you think you can't bear it, but then the thunderstorms come in a torrent. They are over in minutes, but have stayed long enough to break the heat and leave you with a beautiful summer evening to spend alone in a hammock or on the patio of your favourite bar with friends. I miss Fall - not Autumn, Fall - and all of the beauty that the changing of the leaves brings. I miss playing in leave piles, apple picking and hay rides.
I also miss the beauty and convenience of the places I called home before Belfast. In Maine I was minutes from the ocean, from the river, from the little reservoir with an island. In Washington, DC I was surrounded by the beauty and bustle of the nation's capital. Living in Dupont Circle meant that art, food, culture and an exquisite variety of people were just outside my front door. I could spend all day strolling through (free) museums at the National Mall, or read in the unfathomable quiet of the Library of Congress. I felt constantly in the middle of something - of protests and movements, of history as it happened, of a city that was truly alive and bursting with energy and potential.
But these environmental factors are minimal concerns in the grander picture. Belfast may be a bit dreary sometimes, but it has its own beauties and charms. I have grown to love it, to feel pride in its ability to change and grow and regenerate. I will continue to adjust to the rainy summers and the snow-less winters without too much fuss. No, Homesickness' grandest weapon is the power of the relationships she represents.
It might sound contradictory to some of my previous posts, saying I miss the relationships in my life at home. Many of them have been riddled with strife and misunderstanding. But it was my strife and misunderstanding! There is something so extraordinary about being surrounded by people who know you - who have always known you. When someone has seen you at your worst and your best, knows every dirty detail and every little secret, it provides a sense of freedom that doesn't exist in any other relationship. My husband shares this with me, and for that I am truly grateful. But in Belfast he is a solitary member of this exclusive club. I want those people I can call at 1am back, for better or for worse. In times like these, the most unlikely of things starts to happen. The very things I have tried to get away from become the things I long for the most. How strange that I would miss things like people laughing at loud bodily functions, or family members willing to fight and shout at each other in a direct and confrontational way? As a teenager I longed for trips to Europe, cultured holidays. Now I would give anything to spend the weekend at a cheesy campground with all of my family, crude jokes and all, gathered round the campfire til the wee hours of the morning.
I have made difficult decisions in my life, but they are decisions that I think reflect the person I have always felt comfortable being - in spite of this, sometimes I just want the opportunity to slip back into my previous life. Like those jeans with the holes in the knee that you just can't get rid of because they are too comfortable, and because they have lasted with you through so much. I have worked hard to kid myself into thinking that living away from my family isn't a choice, that it is what I need to do to make the best life for me and my husband and our new family. But lately I have been thinking a lot about how deliberate that choice has been and whether or not it was the right one. I hate that my mother and father are watching my bump grow through a series of digital photographs, that my child will be almost 9 months old before she meets my sister and brother - or anyone in my family outside my parents. I worry about sharing holidays, about what will happen if my parents fall ill and can no longer care for themselves, about my children feeling closer to my husbands' friends and family than they will to mine. I feel like I am missing out on so much - my brother growing up, the chance to run to my mother's house when I need someone to look after me for a couple of hours, being able to stop by and see my father unannounced.
How does one ever know if the decisions they make in their lives were for the best? How do you know where you belong? How do I get through feeling like this when the homesickness sets in? How do I figure out once and for all where home is?
Not to say that I have been unhappy. I have had more moments of contentment in the past five months than I think I have ever experienced before. Suddenly there is a wave of acceptance that the life I have is the life I want, that I am where I need to be. With one important factor changed - the location. Yes, that tyrant of emotion Homesickness has reared her ugly head again. And lately she possesses a fury and determination that doesn't allow me to write her off as easily as I have in other battles. There are several elements to my homesickness, some stronger than others, some more familiar than others. Some are real, some imagined. All are conspiring to disrupt my little bubble of contentedness - this happy little world where I love my husband more than I thought I ever would, where I rub my bump reassuringly to send my little one off to sleep after hours of kicking and flip-flopping, where I am respected at home and at work, where I have time and space to do the things I find important, where I am a wife and a mother-to-be building the family I have always wanted.
The first factor is the physical environment. I miss the seasons - all four of them. I miss winters full of snow and ice and hot cocoa; crisp, cold and sunny mornings; long underwear and LL Bean Boots. I miss springtime that is not drowned in rain and hampered by regularly cold and dark days - real spring where you can feel the weather changing and see the green starting to find its way back into the Earth. I miss summer. Hot summer days spent at the beach or on a blanket in the park. Days when the heat is so strong you think you can't bear it, but then the thunderstorms come in a torrent. They are over in minutes, but have stayed long enough to break the heat and leave you with a beautiful summer evening to spend alone in a hammock or on the patio of your favourite bar with friends. I miss Fall - not Autumn, Fall - and all of the beauty that the changing of the leaves brings. I miss playing in leave piles, apple picking and hay rides.
I also miss the beauty and convenience of the places I called home before Belfast. In Maine I was minutes from the ocean, from the river, from the little reservoir with an island. In Washington, DC I was surrounded by the beauty and bustle of the nation's capital. Living in Dupont Circle meant that art, food, culture and an exquisite variety of people were just outside my front door. I could spend all day strolling through (free) museums at the National Mall, or read in the unfathomable quiet of the Library of Congress. I felt constantly in the middle of something - of protests and movements, of history as it happened, of a city that was truly alive and bursting with energy and potential.
But these environmental factors are minimal concerns in the grander picture. Belfast may be a bit dreary sometimes, but it has its own beauties and charms. I have grown to love it, to feel pride in its ability to change and grow and regenerate. I will continue to adjust to the rainy summers and the snow-less winters without too much fuss. No, Homesickness' grandest weapon is the power of the relationships she represents.
It might sound contradictory to some of my previous posts, saying I miss the relationships in my life at home. Many of them have been riddled with strife and misunderstanding. But it was my strife and misunderstanding! There is something so extraordinary about being surrounded by people who know you - who have always known you. When someone has seen you at your worst and your best, knows every dirty detail and every little secret, it provides a sense of freedom that doesn't exist in any other relationship. My husband shares this with me, and for that I am truly grateful. But in Belfast he is a solitary member of this exclusive club. I want those people I can call at 1am back, for better or for worse. In times like these, the most unlikely of things starts to happen. The very things I have tried to get away from become the things I long for the most. How strange that I would miss things like people laughing at loud bodily functions, or family members willing to fight and shout at each other in a direct and confrontational way? As a teenager I longed for trips to Europe, cultured holidays. Now I would give anything to spend the weekend at a cheesy campground with all of my family, crude jokes and all, gathered round the campfire til the wee hours of the morning.
I have made difficult decisions in my life, but they are decisions that I think reflect the person I have always felt comfortable being - in spite of this, sometimes I just want the opportunity to slip back into my previous life. Like those jeans with the holes in the knee that you just can't get rid of because they are too comfortable, and because they have lasted with you through so much. I have worked hard to kid myself into thinking that living away from my family isn't a choice, that it is what I need to do to make the best life for me and my husband and our new family. But lately I have been thinking a lot about how deliberate that choice has been and whether or not it was the right one. I hate that my mother and father are watching my bump grow through a series of digital photographs, that my child will be almost 9 months old before she meets my sister and brother - or anyone in my family outside my parents. I worry about sharing holidays, about what will happen if my parents fall ill and can no longer care for themselves, about my children feeling closer to my husbands' friends and family than they will to mine. I feel like I am missing out on so much - my brother growing up, the chance to run to my mother's house when I need someone to look after me for a couple of hours, being able to stop by and see my father unannounced.
How does one ever know if the decisions they make in their lives were for the best? How do you know where you belong? How do I get through feeling like this when the homesickness sets in? How do I figure out once and for all where home is?
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Under my skin
My posts have been so inconsistent lately. Part of this has been a complete lack of time, deadlines I can barely keep up with and a house move that required most of my attention for a while. But a large part of it has been the shift in focus my life has taken. As though to prepare me for a lifetime of thinking of someone else first, this little person growing inside me has monopolised my thoughts and emotions for the last four months now. I can't write about much else, because in my life currently everything points back to baby. And for some reason, I can't find the words to write about this baby.
Some of the things I have been feeling have been wonderful. That first moment when I saw my little bean in the ultra sound was like nothing I had ever felt before. There he (for the purposes of this blog) was; he had arms and legs and a heartbeat, he was dancing and moving around, he was alive. Just as my miscarriage introduced me to the pain of true and uncontrollable grief, that tiny picture of a twelve-week old embryo gave me my first encounter with true relief and joy. In my attempts to keep myself calm during moments of panic - those times when the cramps I felt didn't feel right, or when I was worried I wasn't sick enough - I talked to my baby. I told him how much I loved him already, how I couldn't wait to meet him. I promised him things I am not even sure I could ever provide, but that I was certain I would try harder than I have ever tried at anything before. I named him, I rubbed my belly to soothe him, I prayed for him and pleaded with him. This made me feel closer to him than I felt to most of the people around me - and yet he seemed so unreal and so far away.
The first time I heard his heartbeat, the first time I felt him moving around inside me, the first time I let it truly sink in that this baby may actually be real - all of these moments have left me moved and overwhelmed, frightened and exhilarated, in ways I have never experienced before and could never really articulate. I have felt grateful every single day since I saw that pink line on a pregnancy test in July. Genuinely, humbly and heartbreakingly grateful. I was almost prepared for the intensity of those emotions, nearly prepared for the joy I would feel given the weight of the grief my previous loss had filled me with. But there were many things for which I was unprepared - many things that no one told me to expect.
The loneliness came first. Ironic, isn't it? For the first time in my life I am technically never alone, and yet I feel so isolated from the people around me. Suddenly it is as though I can't relate to anyone. Friends planning vacations or talking about going out for drinks seem so distant from my new life, my new priorities. I am all at once bored by and jealous of their lives. Small jibes of "you're hardly the first woman to ever be pregnant" or rolled eyes if I have to leave a party early have left me feeling misunderstood and, if I'm honest, a little pissed off. There seems to be a general acceptance that because so many people experience pregnancy, those who are pregnant have no right to visibly feel sick/tired/overwhelmed/incontinent/irritable. Just sit there and look cute, glowing and bumpy. I have never been one who is able to sit quietly and not react, so withdrawal has been my immediate response. Most of the time I would just rather be alone, and yet I yearn for company.
Introspection has taken over these days. My head has filled up with questions - Will I be a good mother? Will I be able to breastfeed? Will my child love me when he becomes a teenager? Will he move far away and leave me here with the life I have set up almost solely for him? The darker questions are harder still. Will I resent my child for the life I am giving up in order to have him? Have I done this too soon? Will I be mean or abusive? Neglectful and inattentive as I focus on the career that has for so long been my baby? Will I be jealous of this child as I fight him for my husband's attention? Will my husband still love me when I no longer fit in to the image of youth and beauty he has attached to me?
In her book about pregnancy, Naomi Wolfe talks about grieving for the woman who inevitably ceases to be when you become a mother. This is not a feeling I anticipated, but I find it haunts me a little more every day. Reality starts to hit hard when you're pregnant. Gone are the days when I could trick myself into thinking that a baby would not interrupt my plans too much, not throw my life into a complete disarray. Already I have been utterly merged with this little being. People no longer ask how I am without prefacing it with a glance or reference to my abdomen. What they mean is how is the baby, the pregnancy. Even the gifts I received for my birthday today have revolved around the baby - maternity clothes, stretch mark cream, essential oils to help with the symptoms of pregnancy (would you give your friend cold medicine for his birthday because you knew he had a cold?). This baby and I are now one in the same. There is no me without him, no him without me. For someone so fiercely independent, attaching another person on to every part of my life and being is frightening and frustrating, alien and profound.
My body and my life are no longer my own. Near-strangers and acquaintances suddenly find it ok to ask me about my breasts, my urinary habits and my moods. They question my dietary choices and chastise me for ordering a coffee (before they realise it's decaf). Suddenly the most intimate decisions I have ever made (Will I breastfeed? Will I find out the sex? Will I stay at home or return to work? Do I want more than one?) are fair game for every Tom Dick and Harry. My belly is the property of everyone, and most people do not hesitate to put their hands on my lower abdomen in such a way that would have caused my husband to punch them four months ago. Now he glows with pride as they man-handle me, beaming the silly grin of a father-to-be.
In a nutshell, I feel as though I have ceased to be myself. And while I know that when this baby is born I will become a new, better, happier version of myself - I can't help but mourn for the person I was before I became some one's mother. This ambivalence is crazy-making. Never at any point to I wish to no longer be pregnant - nor do I cease to be grateful for this miracle that is taking place in and around me. I already love my child more than I love myself, would already die in his place, and I long for his arrival with each breath. Even as I write this I can feel him moving about, reassuring me that all of this uncertainty will wither in the face of his presence - the person I have waited for since before I knew who I was waiting for, the love of my life.
Even still, will you afford me this brief moment of silence to say goodbye to my life before him? To cry for my privacy, my independence, my marriage as I know it, my stomach and breasts? Will you all think me horrible if every day, just for a moment, I remember fondly a time when I was the only person in my own skin?
Some of the things I have been feeling have been wonderful. That first moment when I saw my little bean in the ultra sound was like nothing I had ever felt before. There he (for the purposes of this blog) was; he had arms and legs and a heartbeat, he was dancing and moving around, he was alive. Just as my miscarriage introduced me to the pain of true and uncontrollable grief, that tiny picture of a twelve-week old embryo gave me my first encounter with true relief and joy. In my attempts to keep myself calm during moments of panic - those times when the cramps I felt didn't feel right, or when I was worried I wasn't sick enough - I talked to my baby. I told him how much I loved him already, how I couldn't wait to meet him. I promised him things I am not even sure I could ever provide, but that I was certain I would try harder than I have ever tried at anything before. I named him, I rubbed my belly to soothe him, I prayed for him and pleaded with him. This made me feel closer to him than I felt to most of the people around me - and yet he seemed so unreal and so far away.
The first time I heard his heartbeat, the first time I felt him moving around inside me, the first time I let it truly sink in that this baby may actually be real - all of these moments have left me moved and overwhelmed, frightened and exhilarated, in ways I have never experienced before and could never really articulate. I have felt grateful every single day since I saw that pink line on a pregnancy test in July. Genuinely, humbly and heartbreakingly grateful. I was almost prepared for the intensity of those emotions, nearly prepared for the joy I would feel given the weight of the grief my previous loss had filled me with. But there were many things for which I was unprepared - many things that no one told me to expect.
The loneliness came first. Ironic, isn't it? For the first time in my life I am technically never alone, and yet I feel so isolated from the people around me. Suddenly it is as though I can't relate to anyone. Friends planning vacations or talking about going out for drinks seem so distant from my new life, my new priorities. I am all at once bored by and jealous of their lives. Small jibes of "you're hardly the first woman to ever be pregnant" or rolled eyes if I have to leave a party early have left me feeling misunderstood and, if I'm honest, a little pissed off. There seems to be a general acceptance that because so many people experience pregnancy, those who are pregnant have no right to visibly feel sick/tired/overwhelmed/incontinent/irritable. Just sit there and look cute, glowing and bumpy. I have never been one who is able to sit quietly and not react, so withdrawal has been my immediate response. Most of the time I would just rather be alone, and yet I yearn for company.
Introspection has taken over these days. My head has filled up with questions - Will I be a good mother? Will I be able to breastfeed? Will my child love me when he becomes a teenager? Will he move far away and leave me here with the life I have set up almost solely for him? The darker questions are harder still. Will I resent my child for the life I am giving up in order to have him? Have I done this too soon? Will I be mean or abusive? Neglectful and inattentive as I focus on the career that has for so long been my baby? Will I be jealous of this child as I fight him for my husband's attention? Will my husband still love me when I no longer fit in to the image of youth and beauty he has attached to me?
In her book about pregnancy, Naomi Wolfe talks about grieving for the woman who inevitably ceases to be when you become a mother. This is not a feeling I anticipated, but I find it haunts me a little more every day. Reality starts to hit hard when you're pregnant. Gone are the days when I could trick myself into thinking that a baby would not interrupt my plans too much, not throw my life into a complete disarray. Already I have been utterly merged with this little being. People no longer ask how I am without prefacing it with a glance or reference to my abdomen. What they mean is how is the baby, the pregnancy. Even the gifts I received for my birthday today have revolved around the baby - maternity clothes, stretch mark cream, essential oils to help with the symptoms of pregnancy (would you give your friend cold medicine for his birthday because you knew he had a cold?). This baby and I are now one in the same. There is no me without him, no him without me. For someone so fiercely independent, attaching another person on to every part of my life and being is frightening and frustrating, alien and profound.
My body and my life are no longer my own. Near-strangers and acquaintances suddenly find it ok to ask me about my breasts, my urinary habits and my moods. They question my dietary choices and chastise me for ordering a coffee (before they realise it's decaf). Suddenly the most intimate decisions I have ever made (Will I breastfeed? Will I find out the sex? Will I stay at home or return to work? Do I want more than one?) are fair game for every Tom Dick and Harry. My belly is the property of everyone, and most people do not hesitate to put their hands on my lower abdomen in such a way that would have caused my husband to punch them four months ago. Now he glows with pride as they man-handle me, beaming the silly grin of a father-to-be.
In a nutshell, I feel as though I have ceased to be myself. And while I know that when this baby is born I will become a new, better, happier version of myself - I can't help but mourn for the person I was before I became some one's mother. This ambivalence is crazy-making. Never at any point to I wish to no longer be pregnant - nor do I cease to be grateful for this miracle that is taking place in and around me. I already love my child more than I love myself, would already die in his place, and I long for his arrival with each breath. Even as I write this I can feel him moving about, reassuring me that all of this uncertainty will wither in the face of his presence - the person I have waited for since before I knew who I was waiting for, the love of my life.
Even still, will you afford me this brief moment of silence to say goodbye to my life before him? To cry for my privacy, my independence, my marriage as I know it, my stomach and breasts? Will you all think me horrible if every day, just for a moment, I remember fondly a time when I was the only person in my own skin?
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Love Song for my Sister
My sister is a marvel. Sometimes a charmer in every sense of the word, sometimes a torture hard to bear for more than ten minutes. She is all at once wildly funny and frightfully infuriating - stubborn as an ox but as overly sensitive as a small child. There are times when you would think she is the most street wise person you have ever met, and others when her naivety would shock and bewilder you. She is beautiful in the best way that a woman can be beautiful - in that quiet and unassuming way, as though she would never truly believe you thought her anything other than plain. In her twenty-six years on this planet, I have loved her and hated her more than any other person in my life. Lately her life is changing - or rather she has started to notice her life in a completely different way. It is weird and wonderful, and heartbreaking to watch her go through it. My mother said she is in a cocoon...I guess I can allow for my mother to be right on occasion.
AJ was the most beautiful baby I have ever seen, perfectly formed and immediately adorable - not like her wrinkled and alien-looking peers. My mother loves to tell me of how I used to carry her around and tell everyone she was "my baby," and barely a photo exists of the two of us in those first three years where I am not kissing or hugging her (although she is often seen resisting). If you asked me to tell the story of our lives from my perspective, I would use those photos as a visual depiction of our relationship throughout childhood and adolescence. A big sister who was desperate to love and cuddle and mother (but only in the way she wanted) - a little sister scrambling (fighting, kicking) to stand by herself.
I have written before about the problems I had with my sister. We were such polar opposites, so adamant that we would not be alike. While I donned a tutu and danced ballet recitals in the hallway with my hair trailing elegantly down my back, AJ chopped her hair off and donned a baseball cap - introducing herself to people as my brother. When I made my first communion I reveled in the white dress and gloves - AJ wore a suit and tie. My parents, in either an amazing act of insight or as a demonstration of their lack of knowing what else to do, chose to ignore her push towards all things masculine. They never passed comment on it or indicated that it was in any way different from the norm. For years I was convinced my sister had been going through some gender identity crisis - I realise now it was probably just an attempt to be the person in our family who was not me...and to do that as loudly as possible. Eventually AJ stopped playing with matchbox cars and GI Joes. She grew her hair out and stopped telling people that when she grew up she wanted to be a boy, but she did not cease to take every action possible to be the person in our family who was not me. While I people pleased, brought home impeccable report cards and danced in ballet recitals, AJ feigned apathy to her teachers and became a sporting legend. I gleaned attention by listing accomplishments and oozing politeness, AJ made everyone laugh and held an audience in the palm of her hand while telling stories. I followed every rule to the point of the ridiculous, AJ broke them whatever chance she got. Whether we knew it or not, we were determined to be different, and with that difference came a rocky and fragile relationship that would haunt us for years to come.
What AJ perhaps didn't realise during all of this was how much I wanted her to like me. How desperate I had been for her approval. While I grinned with pride at being called brainy, pretty or polite by others, from my sister I saw it as a barrier to our relationship. I wanted to braid her hair and tell her about boys, to sit up at night talking after our parents shut the lights out. I wanted to tell her deep dark secrets that I would normally only write in my diary, and to defend her honour to anyone who dared try to do her harm. I wanted to be a big sister, in that ridiculous and romantic "ya ya sisterhood" bullshit way that people have sisters. I remember when I was about 13 I watched the movie Beaches. It was glorious, the way these two women loved each other. I cried the whole way through, reassured that even if parents split up and lovers leave and people get divorced, there would always be that one woman who would love you forever and never leave you. I decided (perhaps before then) that AJ was the only woman fit for that job. Surely your own flesh and blood would be the only person capable for such a task. After all, who better to understand me than the girl who shared every part of my girlhood? Who had the same embarrassing parent stories, who knew what it was like to live in my skin? Yes, AJ was my forever friend. The wind beneath my naive, romantic, controlling, perfectionist little wings.
And therein lies perhaps the biggest problem with our relationship. I wanted my sister to fit into my idea of sisterhood. Braid hair, don't shoot hoops. Watch girlie movies, not slasher flicks. Hug and kiss to show affection, don't hi-five or punch arms. The more she didn't fit into my little "sister" box, the more resentful I grew of our fragmented relationship. I held AJ to the same ridiculous standards to which I held myself. And she just didn't live up to them.
Problem number two, and perhaps what AJ would see as our biggest problem, is that I just couldn't stop mothering her. I was so sure something horrible was awaiting us both out there, and I no longer trusted that my parents would keep it from us. I dubbed myself my sister's protector. Just as I would work hard to ensure I raised myself out of the life I hated, I would make damn sure she came with me. On my terms. Whether she liked it or not. Cue several years of a child, less than two years older than the younger child, telling said younger child what to do/not do/say/not say/etc ad infinitum. Who wouldn't understand her rebellion against me? After all I held her to standards far stricter and higher than my parents ever held her to. Instead I watched her drift further away from me. And to make matters worse, almost as if to prove she was capable of it with anyone but me, I watched her be that heroic friend I was waiting for to almost everyone she met. The low point for me was when she, at the age of 18, told me we should just make an agreement to not ask one another to be each other's maids of honour when we got married - because she already had someone else in mind for the job.
After I left home, distance provided a bit of relief from our fighting. Eventually we even started sending each other cards and notes, but I managed to blow that too. AJ would send me some beautifully written card about how much she loved me and how she always looked up to me, and in my overzealous excitement I would call her and insist we talk about our feelings. Once again I could not let her love me in the way she was able - I needed Barbara Hershey or nothing at all! My vision clouded by a romantic notion of what I expected her to be, I couldn't see the relationship that was growing right in front of me.
Two years ago I asked AJ to be my maid of honour in spite of our previous vow. She accepted, and I repaid her by making her feel bad about not doing enough for the wedding and answering "yes" when she asked if I would've chosen my friend Colleen if she had not been my sister. In reality, I could not have picked someone better for the moments leading up to my long walk down the aisle. In the months before the wedding, AJ slaved over a scrapbook full of pictures of childhood scenes and our family. When I was waiting for the limousine to take me to the church, AJ broke my nervous silence with ridiculous jokes and held my dress while I went to the bathroom. In the car, when my feet hurt, she and my father rubbed them and tried to stretch out my shoes. She did everything she should have done and more - and I ignored it because it wasn't the way I had pictured it in my head.
I don't know what has changed, but lately AJ and I have been becoming closer. The more I analyse it, the more I think it is because she is becoming more emotional and open. A bit more like me. I am both elated and guilt ridden by our new found friendship - and worried that it could end or change at any moment. Living without it before was difficult, living without it now that I realise how wonderful it is would be unbearable. I get giddy waiting for our Tuesday night phone calls, but try hard to rein myself in so she can't see my excitement. There are times when I feel exploitative, as though I am taking advantage of her vulnerability right now and using it to fulfill this happy little sister dream I always had. But then other times, when I can hear how genuine she sounds when she tells me how she hates to miss my calls or when she sends me notes to say she loves me for no reason, I think I can relax into this new found relationship for good.
AJ hates it when I address her directly in this blog, in fact she hates it when I write about her at all. I just needed someone to know that while I never got my Beaches moment, never got to give her a facial or gossip with her about her first kiss, I really think what we have ended up with is so much better. We have both grown into ourselves on our own, and yet we still feel pulled to each other. I have always loved my sister because she was my sister, but I can't tell you how much better it is to be able to love her as a woman and a friend.
So with that said, and knowing that she will likely punish me for it later, I dedicate this song to my beautiful, strong, hilarious, intelligent, compassionate and loyal sister AJ. It's not Wind Beneath my Wings - that would be far too predictable and not at all you. I have already told you you're my hero - but there's a few things I have left out along the way. I promise to keep trying to fill in the gaps the best I can.
AJ was the most beautiful baby I have ever seen, perfectly formed and immediately adorable - not like her wrinkled and alien-looking peers. My mother loves to tell me of how I used to carry her around and tell everyone she was "my baby," and barely a photo exists of the two of us in those first three years where I am not kissing or hugging her (although she is often seen resisting). If you asked me to tell the story of our lives from my perspective, I would use those photos as a visual depiction of our relationship throughout childhood and adolescence. A big sister who was desperate to love and cuddle and mother (but only in the way she wanted) - a little sister scrambling (fighting, kicking) to stand by herself.
I have written before about the problems I had with my sister. We were such polar opposites, so adamant that we would not be alike. While I donned a tutu and danced ballet recitals in the hallway with my hair trailing elegantly down my back, AJ chopped her hair off and donned a baseball cap - introducing herself to people as my brother. When I made my first communion I reveled in the white dress and gloves - AJ wore a suit and tie. My parents, in either an amazing act of insight or as a demonstration of their lack of knowing what else to do, chose to ignore her push towards all things masculine. They never passed comment on it or indicated that it was in any way different from the norm. For years I was convinced my sister had been going through some gender identity crisis - I realise now it was probably just an attempt to be the person in our family who was not me...and to do that as loudly as possible. Eventually AJ stopped playing with matchbox cars and GI Joes. She grew her hair out and stopped telling people that when she grew up she wanted to be a boy, but she did not cease to take every action possible to be the person in our family who was not me. While I people pleased, brought home impeccable report cards and danced in ballet recitals, AJ feigned apathy to her teachers and became a sporting legend. I gleaned attention by listing accomplishments and oozing politeness, AJ made everyone laugh and held an audience in the palm of her hand while telling stories. I followed every rule to the point of the ridiculous, AJ broke them whatever chance she got. Whether we knew it or not, we were determined to be different, and with that difference came a rocky and fragile relationship that would haunt us for years to come.
What AJ perhaps didn't realise during all of this was how much I wanted her to like me. How desperate I had been for her approval. While I grinned with pride at being called brainy, pretty or polite by others, from my sister I saw it as a barrier to our relationship. I wanted to braid her hair and tell her about boys, to sit up at night talking after our parents shut the lights out. I wanted to tell her deep dark secrets that I would normally only write in my diary, and to defend her honour to anyone who dared try to do her harm. I wanted to be a big sister, in that ridiculous and romantic "ya ya sisterhood" bullshit way that people have sisters. I remember when I was about 13 I watched the movie Beaches. It was glorious, the way these two women loved each other. I cried the whole way through, reassured that even if parents split up and lovers leave and people get divorced, there would always be that one woman who would love you forever and never leave you. I decided (perhaps before then) that AJ was the only woman fit for that job. Surely your own flesh and blood would be the only person capable for such a task. After all, who better to understand me than the girl who shared every part of my girlhood? Who had the same embarrassing parent stories, who knew what it was like to live in my skin? Yes, AJ was my forever friend. The wind beneath my naive, romantic, controlling, perfectionist little wings.
And therein lies perhaps the biggest problem with our relationship. I wanted my sister to fit into my idea of sisterhood. Braid hair, don't shoot hoops. Watch girlie movies, not slasher flicks. Hug and kiss to show affection, don't hi-five or punch arms. The more she didn't fit into my little "sister" box, the more resentful I grew of our fragmented relationship. I held AJ to the same ridiculous standards to which I held myself. And she just didn't live up to them.
Problem number two, and perhaps what AJ would see as our biggest problem, is that I just couldn't stop mothering her. I was so sure something horrible was awaiting us both out there, and I no longer trusted that my parents would keep it from us. I dubbed myself my sister's protector. Just as I would work hard to ensure I raised myself out of the life I hated, I would make damn sure she came with me. On my terms. Whether she liked it or not. Cue several years of a child, less than two years older than the younger child, telling said younger child what to do/not do/say/not say/etc ad infinitum. Who wouldn't understand her rebellion against me? After all I held her to standards far stricter and higher than my parents ever held her to. Instead I watched her drift further away from me. And to make matters worse, almost as if to prove she was capable of it with anyone but me, I watched her be that heroic friend I was waiting for to almost everyone she met. The low point for me was when she, at the age of 18, told me we should just make an agreement to not ask one another to be each other's maids of honour when we got married - because she already had someone else in mind for the job.
After I left home, distance provided a bit of relief from our fighting. Eventually we even started sending each other cards and notes, but I managed to blow that too. AJ would send me some beautifully written card about how much she loved me and how she always looked up to me, and in my overzealous excitement I would call her and insist we talk about our feelings. Once again I could not let her love me in the way she was able - I needed Barbara Hershey or nothing at all! My vision clouded by a romantic notion of what I expected her to be, I couldn't see the relationship that was growing right in front of me.
Two years ago I asked AJ to be my maid of honour in spite of our previous vow. She accepted, and I repaid her by making her feel bad about not doing enough for the wedding and answering "yes" when she asked if I would've chosen my friend Colleen if she had not been my sister. In reality, I could not have picked someone better for the moments leading up to my long walk down the aisle. In the months before the wedding, AJ slaved over a scrapbook full of pictures of childhood scenes and our family. When I was waiting for the limousine to take me to the church, AJ broke my nervous silence with ridiculous jokes and held my dress while I went to the bathroom. In the car, when my feet hurt, she and my father rubbed them and tried to stretch out my shoes. She did everything she should have done and more - and I ignored it because it wasn't the way I had pictured it in my head.
I don't know what has changed, but lately AJ and I have been becoming closer. The more I analyse it, the more I think it is because she is becoming more emotional and open. A bit more like me. I am both elated and guilt ridden by our new found friendship - and worried that it could end or change at any moment. Living without it before was difficult, living without it now that I realise how wonderful it is would be unbearable. I get giddy waiting for our Tuesday night phone calls, but try hard to rein myself in so she can't see my excitement. There are times when I feel exploitative, as though I am taking advantage of her vulnerability right now and using it to fulfill this happy little sister dream I always had. But then other times, when I can hear how genuine she sounds when she tells me how she hates to miss my calls or when she sends me notes to say she loves me for no reason, I think I can relax into this new found relationship for good.
AJ hates it when I address her directly in this blog, in fact she hates it when I write about her at all. I just needed someone to know that while I never got my Beaches moment, never got to give her a facial or gossip with her about her first kiss, I really think what we have ended up with is so much better. We have both grown into ourselves on our own, and yet we still feel pulled to each other. I have always loved my sister because she was my sister, but I can't tell you how much better it is to be able to love her as a woman and a friend.
So with that said, and knowing that she will likely punish me for it later, I dedicate this song to my beautiful, strong, hilarious, intelligent, compassionate and loyal sister AJ. It's not Wind Beneath my Wings - that would be far too predictable and not at all you. I have already told you you're my hero - but there's a few things I have left out along the way. I promise to keep trying to fill in the gaps the best I can.
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
From this Blog to God's Ears?
Disclaimer: This blog is about religion. Maybe not religion, perhaps more about faith and power and families and all of the baggage that comes along with religion. I just think all things God need a warning these days. The fact that I believe the previous statement probably says more about how I feel about religion than this blog ever could...
I was baptised and raised Roman Catholic. The degree to which this was a factor in my life varied based on my mother's constantly changing attitude towards her faith. But regardless of whether my mother always adhered to the Catholic teachings, the power of the church was ever-present in our lives. My mother considered the family priest, Father Joe, one of her closest friends and confidants. When Father Joe told my mom to do something - she did it. When my mother and father(then 17 and 19, respectively) attended pre-marriage meetings with Father Joe he explained the evils of sex before marriage - my father was promptly cut off. When mom and dad could not decide on a name for me, Father Joe was enlisted and helped my mother choose a name. Father Joe baptised all three of my mother's children and both my sister and I made our first communions and reconciliations under his guidance. We were sent to Catholic school in spite of my parents having no realistic way of paying for it. My mother saw the church as her support, her beacon of hope. When she was feeling lost and vulnerable, we would visit Father Joe - sometimes staying for days at a time with him in the rectory. When my mother needed money, Father Joe sent her some. When my mother locked herself in the bathroom and took an overdose of prescription pain pills, she called Father Joe for her last rites.
Fortunately Father Joe called the ambulance instead.
Given my background, it was no real surprise to me that telling my mother we were not planning on Christening our unborn baby in the Catholic church would lead to a certain level of disappointment. It was the defensive, enraged and irrational reaction that I was more shocked by. My mother used all manner of emotional devices to convince me I was making a terrible mistake - including the implication that my faithless child might grow up to be a sociopath with no concept of right and wrong. She pleaded with me to recognise the good of the church in spite of its flaws, to remember that Catholicism had to be a good thing, because Father Joe had been sucha good man. She even insisted that she would have the baby christened in spite of me, that it was too important to leave to one of my whims. She suggested politely that I find some other way to be "defiant" against cultural norms, one with less significant repercussions for my family.
Being raised in the church myself, I know the power that the institution has over its followers. My mother has been told of purgatory - of the need to erase original sin that follows each of us into this world. I would be lying if I said the same nagging fear hadn't crept into my own mind at one moment or another. But instead of being led by that fear, I have been angered by it. Frustrated in a church that would imply that my child's soul could suffer at my failure to adhere to their rituals, furious at the emotional blackmail that seems to be behind the act - an attempt to ensure future generations of followers and patrons. In fact, there are a lot of things about the Catholic church I get angry about if I think about them too much.
I'll take this opportunity to say that this will NOT be a church bashing session. Catholicism has given me many great things in my life. There is no doubt that my strong sense of right and wrong was a product of my mother's religious belief. Father Joe, the man I describe above, instilled in me a great sense of hope and and love - and let's not forget that he saved my mother's life. Another priest, the University Chaplain and the man who married my husband and I - Father Rob - helped me regain a sense of self-worth when I was 20 years old that I otherwise may have taken years to find. He also gave me the words that acted as my greatest comfort during the miscarriage that nearly ate me alive 6 months ago. No, I would never claim that no good can come from Catholicism or from any organised faith.
But I can recognise the bad as well. I can tally up the things I think and feel - and know - and I can weigh them against what the church tries to enforce. And the majority of the time, I just can't balance them. I can't get past the church as a power structure, one that has grave potential to inhibit and exploit. The same girl that felt loved and cared for by a priest was also petrified of hell and the devil, afraid to even think "bad" thoughts in case divine retribution were to follow. Although Father Rob helped that young woman regain some sense of self-worth, much of that self-worth would not have been lost if it were not for the guilt she had amassed over not being perfect in they eyes of her family, and especially of God. I have listened to sermons and homilies which condemned the lifestyles of people I loved. I listened to my Grandmother (the most faithful person I have ever known) tell of her excommunication from the church after divorcing the man who abandoned her and their three children. I have watched my mother put money she could not afford to sacrifice into the collection basket, only to look around at the grandeur of the church and the size of the rectory. I have sat in silence while an institution I supported openly and unapolegetically discriminated against my gender, where abusers of children were covered for and excused.
Finally, after years of turning a blind (faithful) eye to these offences, I began to ask the questions which led me to my decision. Would I tolerate these abuses from anyone else? If I had a friend who was openly homophobic, who was bigoted against other faiths and harshly judgemental of those who did not adhere to the same moral codes as them - how long would I put up with such a friend? If a school hired teachers who went on to abuse children in their care, and then covered for and refused to fire those teachers - would I continue to send my children to that school? Would I not be demanding the punishment of all involved in that cover up? If a charity asked me for donations to help sustain itself, and then used my money to buy over-the-top, fancy new offices while calling for its patrons to live humble and simple lives - would I still give them money? If a company used scare tactics and manipulation of truth to convince me and my loved ones to buy their products, would I not boycott their goods and try to find another provider?
Basically, if the Catholic church had been anything other than the Catholic church, I would have held it to account. I don't support people, politicians, businesses or organisations whose practices are at odds with my morals and beliefs - why do I continue to be a member of a church whose practices are at odds with my morals and beliefs? When my children are born, I like to think I will go out of my way to keep those kind of negative influences out of their lives. Why then should one of my first acts as a parent be to commit them to a life of serving a church which may well be that same kind of influence? It no longer makes sense to me, and I can no longer justify it as a rational act.
I am not saying that I don't want to teach my children to have faith in something greater than themselves and other human beings. I remember very well that believing in God and Heaven was a great comfort to me as a child. My mother once told me that God has a plan for everyone. I loved believing this, feeling like I had some great purpose to fulfill. I felt safer with the idea that God was looking out for me and my family, reassured that those who I loved were not lost forever when they left this Earth. Praying gave me a sense of control over things against which I felt powerless, and faith gave me strength and confidence at so many times in my life. I have not ever been ready or willing to let go of those things, nor have I ever felt I had evidence against the existence of God - whatever form he/she/it might take. I want my children to know those comforts, I want them to have faith and hope.
I just can't allow them to be made to feel like that faith and hope is dependent on their conformity to a rigid set of man-made rules and regulations.
So you see my dilemma. A modern dilemma, I suppose, and one which I assume is not new or surprising to any of you. How do you raise hopeful and faithful children outside the confines of a church community? How do you find a faith community that works for you and your family? Or is this all the same as telling my children there is an Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy or Santa Clause? Should I let them learn the realities of life without the safety net of God and Heaven and all things hopeful?
When it was just me, I was happy to take a lifetime to answer this question. Now I feel like I need a five month crash course.
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