Things That Are True: The Body Knows

There seems to be a theme to my October so far - it's like the gods I don't believe in* summoned up all the flotsam and jetsam of my past, washed it up on the beach of my consciousness and said, "Listen, sister. Deal."

Beach flotsam I just happened to catch on camera last weekend, English Bay

Yesterday, after three days of agonizing writing, reviewing, rewriting, and crying, I sent an email that almost killed me to write. I don't know how it will be received. I don't know how or if it will change some pretty important relationships in my life. But I'm just so done with some of the stuff the email's about, I had to send it. I had to reclaim my belief in myself. So now I sit, angst-ridden, simultaneously stalking and avoiding my inbox, wondering what the fallout will be; what kind of nuclear winter we'll have to suffer through before we can move on.

So that's fun.

Also yesterday, while sitting enjoying a perfectly lovely hot chocolate in one of my favourite haunts, I saw him. He was just walking by, he didn't see me, there were a few metres and half an inch of glass in between us, but still, my stomach instantly tied in knots, and I immediately felt like throwing up. After fourteen years, just seeing him at a distance can still make me physically ill. It affected me so much I had to interrupt my conversation with my coffee pal just to process it.

He was my first serious relationship, the first person I lived with, and the first (and only, I might add) person to hit me in the name of love.

It was textbook: he dazzled me, he made me feel like the best thing ever, and then he gradually, so gradually I didn't notice it was happening, undermined my confidence, estranged my friends, controlled everything I did, and hit me, telling me it was my fault. I think about it now, and can't believe it. How did I, the me that I am today, allow that to happen? (That's probably an entire post or five all on its own.)

Anyway, that relationship ended 14 years ago. I've seen almost nothing of him since, just chance encounters. Our social circles don't really intersect, our professional lives don't inhabit the same space. In the years since that horrible relationship I have very purposefully revisited spots we used to go to together, and replaced the bad memories with good ones. And I have never allowed myself to sink so far into a relationship again that physical abuse was somehow okay.

But it's the week for insights, and things I can't unknow, it seems. After I got home yesterday, one hit me so hard I had to stop moving, stop even breathing for a second.

The Imp is at a stage where he hits when he's frustrated. Since he's two, and testing every boundary, pushing every button, and still learning to communicate, he gets frustrated a lot. So he hits a lot. More precisely, he hits me a lot. He doesn't hit at daycare, he doesn't hit HWSNBN. He hits me. A lot.

The physical pain from these little two-year-old attacks of fists and feet is minimal, and transitory. I'm the grown-up, and I act accordingly. The Imp spends some time in the naughty corner, as he and I both get control, and as I tell him "calm down our bodies". There are times when it is really difficult for me to reign in my anger at being hit. There are times when my anger is all out of proportion to the assault. I've never lost control, the intellect has always prevailed in these situations. A couple of quiet minutes, a calm discussion of why we don't hit, a warm and loving hug, and on with our day.

But I realized yesterday, all in a heartbeat, that it's not the two-year-old hits I'm reacting to. It's the fourteen-year-old attacks that send me into a towering rage, that make me struggle to keep my voice calm, to explain why We. Don't. Hit. That make me need to take a quiet moment behind a closed door before I can give The Imp a hug and go back to reading stories, and playing games, and enjoying all the mind-numbingly beautiful moments of parenting, that happen all the time, every day, mostly when we're not looking.

The anger towards The Imp is an involuntary physical reaction, just like the stomach tightening and nausea yesterday when I saw my old flame. The body still reacts, even when the mind knows better.

I'm hoping that knowing this, processing it, figuring it out, will help me be a better parent. Will allow me to let go of this anger I didn't even realize I've been carrying around all this time, after all these years.

This morning, The Imp, as if looking straight into my brain at breakfast, said, "Hitting makes people sad." Yes, honey, hitting makes people sad. And not just the people being hit.

Then he wrapped his arms around himself, beamed at me, and said, "Hugging makes people happy!"

I must be doing something right.



*I don't believe in God. But if I did, it would have to be Loki. Because, well - just look at the world out there. It's the only explanation that fits. (With a hat tip to my Uncle David, who first mentioned that to me years ago, and it's stuck.) Either Loki, or some well-meaning but harried old chap in the sky. When I worked in the film and television industry, we used to joke: Good, Fast, or Cheap - pick any two. The God I most often hear described, despite his reputed omniscience, seems to be a variation of that: All-Loving, All-Knowing, All-Powerful - pick any two. That's my personal opinion, and I stand by it, but it doesn't prevent me from having, and more importantly, hugely respecting my friends and family who are devout in their faith.

Navel gazing and good intentions

We live in an apartment in the sky. We’re on the 21st floor, looking out over one of North America’s largest urban parks. We have amazing 300 degree views of mountains, beaches, bridges, and our city’s downtown core.

Today is a foggy day – not only metaphorically, as there was precious little sleep in our household last night (a subject of another post), but physically, atmospherically, and meteorologically, it’s a foggy day. The fog is so dense that I can barely see the near edge of a neighbouring building 20 feet away. The far edge of the same building is lost in insubstantial whiteness. Other than the periodical sounds of fog horns moaning in the harbour, it’s very quiet. You would never know I was in the heart of a city of a million people.

As I neared the end of my pregnancy, this is what impending motherhood was like for me; looking out into the fog from the 21st floor. I knew in a vague way what was out there: vistas of endless possibility and potential, milestones and landmarks, astounding joy and desperate heartbreak, and a million people who’ve been there before. But it was all insubstantial. It was unclear and difficult to really visualize, no matter how much I read, and how many friends I talked to. There was the occasional fog horn, helping me to re-orient myself, and every now and then there would be a light breeze that would lift the fog just enough to let me see farther than I’d been able to before. Then the breeze would disappear, taking any certainty I felt with it.

Seven months later, it’s still like that in many ways.

I am an admitted control freak, so this is difficult for me. I like to know what’s coming. I read, I research, I ask questions, I arrange facts and figures in my brain to call on them when needed. I’m not very good at being a beginner. I was a successful career woman in my late 30s when my son was born. I had a role. I knew what was expected of me. I led, I made decisions, I was an expert in my field. There were very few foggy days.

Becoming a mom changed all that.

Here I am: a beginner.

Despite having read my own body weight in books about pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, nothing really prepared me for that moment when I became someone’s mom. And it’s not just one moment – for me it’s been ongoing. Every day I’m a beginner again, because my son grows and changes so fast. The fog of uncertainty never quite clears. But I’m learning to be okay with that, which is a huge thing for me.

So I guess what I’m hoping to do with this blog is to be a sort of metaphorical fog horn or light breeze for other women going through some of this same uncertainty. I don’t pretend to know all the answers. But I’m enjoying learning the answers that work for me, and sharing what I’ve learned with the one or two people that might stumble upon this blog.

And I promise not to take myself too seriously, despite the earnestness of the preceding paragraph!

I received some very good advice years ago. I was at a very low point in my life, going through the last painful death rattles of a very bad relationship. I was in the ladies’ room at a friend’s wedding and having a lighthearted conversation with a woman I had worked with briefly and knew only slightly. Maybe she could sense that all was not well in my world, or maybe she made the comment in an offhand way, never realizing the impact it would have on me in that moment and for the rest of my life. She said this:

Just remember, when you’re going through a difficult time, that trouble is like a fog bank. Fighting it is pointless. All you have to do is just stand still and strong and it will roll through and past you and be gone.

Those words have come back to me often since I became a mother. Motherhood is many wonderful (so wonderful!) things, but it can also be difficult. Exhaustion, the helpless feeling of not-knowing, frustration – all can contribute to a sense of being lost in the fog. In the dead of night, when my son won’t go to sleep no matter what I try, when I’m just SO tired, when I’m angry at my husband for no rational reason, when a million things seem to conspire to make me want to give up, those words have reminded me to just stand still and strong. Morning comes, the fog lifts just a little bit in the form of my son’s happy grin, and I peer out the window trying to see what the new day will bring.

It’s been a hell of a ride so far.