"I know"

I know I hate being wrong. Sirens and flashing lights go off in my stomach when I am proven wrong and I am afraid my cover is blown. Look, eveybody! She's stupid. She doesn't know what she's talking about. How could we have ever thought she was clever.
I know I am funny. I know I love comedy. I know I wish I had the balls to write and perform comedy. I know comedy was one of the first defense mechanisms I developed to protect myself. I needed to be funny to distract people - it was all smoke and mirrors. Look over here! Isn't this great? I thought if I could keep people laughing long enough they wouldn't think to make fun of me for being the fat kid. In my family, I was often a clown because there was so much tension - there were so many conflicts we avoided. Conversations were sometimes like a minefield. There were all these unspoken subjects we were not supposed to brooch. Things felt wrong. I couldn't say why or for what reason. I had no frame or reference of perspective, but I knew it felt uncomfortable. So I would joke to give the illusion that everything was ok.
I know that the first time I ever ate compulsively was when I was 4 years old. We had just moved from the middle of the piney woods, close to my father's family, to a small town close to the gulf where my mother had grown up as a little girl. I know that my grandfather was taking care of me while everyone else worked and that we had gone to my parent's house so he could cut the grass. I don't know if they'd asked him to - I know he loved cutting grass and that he would cut people's lawns without them having asked and without him having announced he would. I know he always felt offended when people didn't say thank you. I know that I was alone in my new house. I know that there were ice cream sandwiches in the freezer. I know I thought at the time, I am going to probably get in trouble for this later, but right now I don't care. I know I ate four in a row. I know I knew that was far too many ice cream sandwiches for one little girl to eat.

"I don't remember"

I don't remember how or when I learned to fear men. I don't remember where I learned to feel unsafe in their presence. I could never remember if a man had hurt me when I was little or if I innately learned from the women in my life, and their open wounds inflicted by men, to be wary.
I don't remember feeling safe. Or comfortable. I don't remember thinking this was out of the ordinary. I don't remember feeling like a child.
I don't remember feeling unafraid of words or judgment. I don't remember thinking, fuck them. I know who I am and I don't care what they think or say.
I don't remember kindness to myself. I don't remember being able to embrace myself, saying it's ok. I am here. I've always been here and I will always be here. I love you. We will get through this together.
I don't remember when I knew I loved to write or why I ever denied my love for setting pen to paper. I know why I grew uncertain of my abilities and I know why I shied away from writing, but I don't remember why I chose to hold on to that criticism for so long.
I don't remember ever feeling like I was enough. I know I would fall asleep many nights going through the never-ending laundry list of things I would change about myself, if I could: I wish I were skinny; I wish I had green eyes; I wish I had the long, spindly legs of a dancer; I wish my skin were dewy and fresh and free of blemishes and stretch marks; I wish I had nice clothes, that I looked like I belonged; I wish I had strong, toned arms... and on and on until I finally just drifted off to sleep. I don't remember when I stopped doing that.

"I remember" workout

I remember learning vocabulary at my grandmother's house after lunch, sitting next to her on their scratchy, unforgiving rust-colored couch. She smelled of Noxzema and toothpaste. Noxzema was her cure-all and she was so obsessive about brushing her teeth, that she had scrubbed them of their enamel.
I remember sweaty, oppressive, Louisiana heat, pressing in on me from all directions. Making me feel like to move was to exert the most effort physically possible. I remember loathing it, needing the air conditioning. I never realized the sun was mostly to thank for the heat. I miss the sun so much now. It's visceral, my desire to live in a place with the bright warmth on my face, shining through my eyelids, making my skin a little ruddier, though rarely tan.
I remember the smell of the public library. That welcomed rush of cold, cold air that was the horseman of a mustiness that can only be pleasant when coming from books. I remember my desire to know overwhelming my curiosity and keeping me from thumbing through a book, any book.
I remember magazines - stacks and stacks of magazines that I wanted to be important to me, but just weren't. I collected magazine after magazine dedicated to Lady Diana after her sudden death but I don't think I ever read a single one. Then of course there were all those other stacks of magazines about teenage boys on television with horrible center-parted hair and too-big flannel shirts. Later there were stacks of Cosmo. Those magazines were both who I wanted to be and who I hoped to deny I actually was. It was similar with books and music. And movies. And sometimes acquaintances.
I remember being so free after high school but also not because I was deathly afraid of myself and everyone else. I was not myself, then again I had no clue who I was. I was groping my way through jungles of self-doubt, anxiety and fear. I have yet to emerge.

Inventory

A) What was particularly nice about today?
-going for a nice, long walk in the woods
-waking up to my smiling, chatty baby
-visiting with a new friend
-listening to Dear Sugar

B) What did you do today that you are proud of?
-I remembered that being proud of myself was a choice and, when I remembered, pulled my shoulders together and down my back, so that my head was automatically held high
-I got out of the apartment even though the weather was super Hamburg-y
-I got out of the apartment to treat myself to time with a smart, funny, interesting woman
-I noticed myself fretting about something I have no control over and managed to cease the constant flow of worry

C) What did you do particularly well today?
-I cooked two delcious meals

Full disclosure

It occurred to me that there are a couple of things I either want to come clean about or cop to or maybe just say out loud, I don't really know.
I don't believe in god any more.
I don't believe there is any inherent purpose or meaning to life.
I believe positive thinking is important and beneficial to one's health. I believe overall health is a sum total of mental, physical and emotional health. But I no longer believe that positive thinking has the power to draw things into your life that you want or to heal disease. (Yes, I completely believed those things. Had I not mentioned that? I had my reasons and they were based on my own personal experiences.) Fuck, I have wasted so much money on self help books. Which like, isn't the concept of self-help BOOKS, plural, ridiculous?? Shouldn't there just be one or MAYBE like a handful? I own so many, I could open a small book shop, composed of one, almost completely full, bookshelf.

when am I?

I got to reconnect with a good, old friend yesterday - one of the dear pets I had forgotten to tell about my pregnancy and little L's dramatic entrance to life. She seemed to appreciate the trauma of our NICU experience more and more as our conversation carried on. That evening, she wrote me a beautiful email about how astonished both she and her little 5 year old daughter were about just how tiny L was when he was born.
Our conversation showed me how far I've come since L was first born, in that I was able to talk about his birth without getting too emotional. She asked me at one point how old I was and, admittedly, I didn't know. On this past birthday, I "celebrated" in the NICU with my baby, other parents whose children were in our room and L's nurses and doctors. I somehow found the time and energy to bake everyone cookies (this is German tradition. you basically bribe people with sweets so they have to tell you happy birthday if they want some.) and S and I went to a Christmas market in the evening, where I had one mulled wine and a sausage. It wasn't the worst birthday I've ever had (that's a tie between my second and ninth grade birthdays, when not one person came to my party and my only friend went to my ex-best friend's party instead of hanging out with me, respectively), mainly because I don't really give a shit about birthdays any more. It's safe to say it wasn't the best birthday either. Still, I was shocked to realize my last birthday was of so little consequence to me that I'd completely forgotten how old I was. SPOILER: I am 33.
I held it together talking about his NICU stay but that email? Man, I sobbed like a baby. I may have come a long way, but I know I am not over it. Not that crying is necessarily proof that you're not over something, but it's usually a good indicator. I was talking to a former classmate, who also had a baby in the NICU, about something similar. She was talking about how she and her husband still haven't recovered from their baby's birth and she's been home from the hospital for a year. I said I think recovery, if you are graced by its presence, is a miracle. I think most of the time it never comes. Yes, you can move on. Yes, you can carve out new grooves. But I don't know if things ever go back to the way they were. And really, they shouldn't. Honestly. What would be the point? If I survive some kind of trauma, I at least want to learn something from it. If I am not open to letting scary, painful things shape me, life will be a lot more uncomfortable and pointless than it already is.

Letter to my mother #3

Dear Momma,

Next Sunday will be my first mother's day as a mom and, while I am proud of all I've been through to call myself one, I am so terribly sad and lonesome for you.
Before little L came into our lives, I had been struggling with what I've been told is mild depression. It has felt graver than mild at times, but I've never reached a point where I couldn't make it out of bed to dress myself and go through the motions of my myriad responsibilities. If there's one good thing I have from the all-pervasive sense of guilt I inherited from you (not blaming you), it's an unflagging sense of duty. It has not always served me well, but has proven to be a boon to my professional life, so thank you! While I have always been prone to being sulky, my sadness worsened in my late twenties and, though I've experienced moments of joy, I've never been able to recover the sense of inner stability I enjoyed for a brief period right before things went off kilter. If I had to pinpoint the most salient aspects of my depression, they would be: an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and the inability to get out of my own head.
Little L has greatly helped the latter. I cannot afford to spend all day, every day, trapped in the rabbit hole. He grants me the permission I need to fixate on something besides my faults. In that way (and in many others) he has helped to heal some old wounds in me. Having him has given me clarity on certain things I didn't understand when I was a little girl: why you worried all the time; why you were always so tired; why you were resentful and angry. Having him has made me immeasurably more grateful and in awe of the sacrifices you made to make sure J and I had everything we needed and then some. Having L has also transformed certain curiosities from my past into unsolvable mysteries: how and why you stayed with Dad; how you did everything alone without going stark raving mad; how Dad could be so dismissive of lives he helped create; how he could take a knee on the banal and grueling minutia of parenthood, yet still always show up in the winner's circle.
I wish now more than ever that you could have given yourself a life closer to what you deserved, because you deserved so much more than you received.

You forged my heart in the fire of your undying love for me. It belongs to you forever.

I love you,
Sarah