Wild Geese
Hello cosmic internet void. How are you? I’m not amazing, thanks for asking. I am going through what I am calling the fifth trimester. The notorious fourth trimester is posed as the critical motherhood obstacle to overcome. I thought I had done it. I “conquered” post partum depression, I came to terms with my breastfeeding journey, I ate a lot of croissants, I felt joy again. Alas, as summer rolled in, instead of feeling excited for sunny days and ocean dips, things went to shit again. What happened? Well, I hugely underestimated the shift, grief, chaos and confusion that comes with learning to become a working mom.
Here is what I know about myself: I love to work. I take great pride and satisfaction in being a successfully self-employed writer. I like making money (I also like spending it lol). Stuck in the mindset of pre-Emmett Liz, I ambitiously took on client-after-client and finally started to feel a little like myself again. Once the safety net of my pat leave hubs went back to work, I trudged ahead, not taking anything off my plate and lowering no expectations. Cook, clean, do pilates, see friends, read books, work, be an engaged, fun-loving mom—I was giving myself not an inch of grace. Surprise, surprise the pressure cooker boiled over and I fell apart. My mental health demons returned, I struggled to get out of bed and things became dark, to say the least.
I am still very much in the process of weathering this storm with the unwavering help of friends, family, therapy and medication. What this fifth trimester is teaching me, among many things, is that I need to reevaluate my obsession with achievement. Motherhood is an achievement, every single day. It takes patience and strength and infinite amounts of humility to endure the never-ending challenges children throw at us. At the end of the day, if myself and my insane toddler are still alive and clean and fed, that’s a win. The face of work is going to evolve as I settle into this new way of being. And once I’m settled, it’s all going to change again, because that’s just what kids do to our lives. While I’m figuring it all out, one day at a time, I am taking the ever-wise words of Mary Oliver with me. Life doesn’t have to be about how much we get done in a day, how much we struggle, how much we have or do. Sometimes we just need to tune into the simplicity of what it means to be a human; heart beating, breathing, loving, making mistakes and showing up to try again. We’re just little flecks in this wild and weird world and no matter how hard we push, things will all eventually fall back into the long-established rhythms of nature. After months of feeling sad, this brings me so much comfort and hope ❤️
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.