I believe the last time I wrote, I had just moved back to Minnesota. And it was 2011.
It's now the end of 2013 and I'm a wife, a mother, a dog owner and an Education Director at a theatre company. Like the title suggests, time flies when the minutes are full.
A few years ago, someone said to me, "The days are long but the years are short." It's haunted me. I think about it when I have to stay late at rehearsal, wondering if I'm missing my life, if I'm missing THEIR lives. Because I'm a family now…so the sense of singularity that once wove itself thru my being has been completely eradicated.
I'm not sad about that.
Ben and I got a dog, Wallace, February 23, 2011. He was an old souled bulldog who changed me fast and left the world all too early, 4 days after his first birthday. But he started our family. We became an US when we got our boy. The past was finally behind us and we stepped forward together every day, making plans around this little furry thing with the wiggly butt. After Wallace passed, Gilbert entered our home, our second bulldog puppy. Poor Gilbert had heartbroken parents in the beginning and big shoes to fill, but is now the comedian of the family and a non-stop cuddle fiend. He's my boy. Wallace was Ben's…but Gilbert's mine.
We got married May 25, 2012. It was a PERFECT evening and the best party I've ever been to. It was 100% authentic to who we are together, who we are separately, who we want to be as a family moving forward. And now that I come to think of it, it was the last time I was drunk. Like I said…good party.
We found out we were pregnant--surprise!--Labor Day 2012. I had always been told it would be hard for me. A score of physical and emotional scarring in my reproductive area lead me (& doctors) to believe, if it should happen, it'd have to be assisted. Apparently not. We were so happy. We named the little bean in the first 3 days and started making plans. I felt sacred, having a life growing in me. 15 days after we found out, I lost the baby. And while I knew that 1 in 4 pregnancies end that way--heck, my mom and mother-in-law both had miscarriage stories--I felt broken. Like my body had failed our family. Like it always would.
So we picked ourselves up and brushed ourselves off and went on with the living. "No pressure--we're not ready anyway--we weren't planning on it--let's save money--let's just enjoy each other--we just got married after all!" Thanksgiving morning 2012, I had a feeling. And the empty window of a plastic stick showed a plus sign again.
She stuck this time.
Lynnea Nicole was born August 9, 2013 at 9:09am. After 3 days of induction, I finally had a C-section to get her out--she was 2 weeks late. She was in the right position, a great size, perfectly formed, old enough to come, but….this is not a child who does things she doesn't want to do. She came in this world fiercely independent and knowing her own mind.
I like that.
The moment you meet your child who has grown inside you, who you have been daydreaming about and making calculated guesses about for the last 40 (or 42, whatever) weeks is one of those moments in your life when time stands still and KNOWS to wait for you. They put her on my chest and I already heard her mighty lungs and her clear voice through the walls of the room they had taken her to to clean her up. Her roar made me smile, as I knew she was mine. The whole team was laughing at her volume.
"She sounds pretty mad in there."
I said, "Well, what do you expect? We've been trying to get her out for the past 3 days--she hasn't been interested. And now we just pulled her out by force. She's PISSED."
They laughed at me--a pity laugh, to be sure, as one should always be nice to the woman whose abdomen you're sewing up that minute.
And then she was there roaring right over my face, and they put her on my chest. I pulled her up to my face so we were cheek to cheek, Her fingers closed around my mouth and I said, "Lynnea, I'm your momma." Our little lioness went silent. She knew me and I knew her. Our skin finally got to touch.
A few hours later, when I recovered, I held her again, without shaking shock-weary arms and we just looked at each other. I moved her to my shoulder and wouldn't you know, my girl at 4 hours old, tried to hold her head up on her own. She wanted to look where she wanted to look, and I was in awe that the first thing she did when she entered this world was proclaim her presence to all those who could hear and then start about the business of holding her head up high.
"Never grow a wishbone, my child, where you're backbone ought to be."
She's 15 weeks old on Friday. Which is wild because I don't remember life without her and yet I can't believe so much time has passed already. She's already gotten so big and learned so much. I've already learned so much and yet still feel lost sometimes. Who put this living being in my care? How can I protect her from everything out there? How will I ever be enough as a mother? A wife? An artist? A provider? Where do all my identities fit when someone on this earth needs me for survival? And why, do I suddenly not care to work the hours that used to fill me up so full?
Having a front row seat to a life experiencing the world for the first time fills me up with creative energy in way I've never known. I feel as if I could write a poem, a book, a play, a song, a dance every day if the world would allow it…
So maybe I'll blog again. Maybe. I have so much to say and yet don't' know the words...
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