Have you ever been reading a really good book in bed, you feel your eyelids getting heavy, but you push through and start the next chapter anyway? What tends to happen, is the next time you pick up the book, you attempt to continue reading where you left off, and you have no clue what happened in those 6 pages that you “read” before falling asleep. You know that your eyes must have seen the words, and you obviously physically turned the pages, hell you even dog-eared that last page, but you would most certainly fail a pop-quiz on the dialogue. So now you have a choice; you can go back and re-read those pages right away and get a better understanding of this new chapter, or you can continue reading and hope that whatever it is you read will be revisited and therefor jog your memory down the line. There is no “right or wrong” it is simply a choice that you have to make if you want to move forward. The common thread of course, is the understanding that eventually you will revisit those pages whether it is by choice or by force, the only “control” you have is when you want to acknowledge this as truth.
So this is where I tie this scenario into my current reality (shocker). As most of you know, my husband and I are expecting to meet our first child very soon. My due date tells us we have a week, but we know all too well that this little mystery miracle will be joining the party whenever he/she damn well pleases! So as it goes I am about to start this next chapter, but let me tell you these eyes of mine have been very heavy lately. I am trying my best to stay awake, to soak in all of these potential final moments of “fill in the blank” before the baby comes. But it seems like the past couple days I have been waking up and not quite remembering what it was I read the day before. I have been listening to my inner dialogue that keeps saying “be gentle”, “you are just tired, the baby needs your energy right now”, and that helps quiet the noise for a little while, but I just cant seem to move past this heaviness. I feel raw, like my head is in the clouds, like I am avoiding something, and until this morning I had no idea what it was. But just like that old book scenario I was brought right back to the beginning of that chapter that I had left behind, and I chose to reread it for the first time in a long time, and now it is all starting to feel a little clearer.
You see, it was exactly this time last year that I was walking along the darkest and scariest path of my entire life. It was this exact week last year, that I began to spot regularly while waiting for my Friday, October 3rd, 8 week appointment to check on the development of our first baby. It was exactly a year ago, that I had my first experience with “mother’s intuition” and I hated every second of it. I knew from the first time I spotted that I was about to, or that I was in the process of losing our baby. I remember how terrified I was and how exposed and vulnerable I felt. But at the time all I wanted to do was push it down, run away, I couldn’t deal. Besides, “I didn’t have mother’s intuition”, I would tell myself, “I am just overreacting, I am not cramping or really bleeding, I’m sure I am fine. I’m sure We are fine.” I would continue on with my day, dreading the next time I would have to go to the bathroom and have to see my world crumbling once again. I would go on and make dinner and eat in silence and sometimes I would cry and tell Mike how scared I was, but I would never tell him what I really knew. He was aware of the spotting and the physical signs, but he didn’t know that deep down I alrady knew. I couldn’t have both of us drowning. So I would tread water, and he remained my life raft. That was the longest week of my life, and yet I still was not ready once that day finally came and we heard our fate. I wanted so badly for that week to be over while I was in it, to just know what I was feeling was real, but I know if given the choice to remain in that Thursday purgatory I would have if it meant I didn’t have to feel the pain that was coming full steam ahead.
But that is not how life works. We don’t get to pick and choose when the bad or the good things happen to us. The only choice we have is whether or not we are awake enough in those moments to really understand the lessons that are being taught in real time. But that is very difficult, especially if it is the first time you are learning that lesson. Thankfully life has a beautiful way of looping back around and showing us that same lesson from a different angle, hopefully equipped with a softer edge, so that we can have another opportunity to continue the climb. So that is where I am. I am seeing this lesson once again, and thankfully this time I am awake and open enough to understand what I was being taught the first time around– to simply let go, and trust, because this is it.
Much like this time last year, I am walking a path that I have never been down before and I am full of mother’s intuition, except this time, the edge is softer, and that is because this time I am choosing to trust. I trust that my body was made to preform this immense task ahead of me, I am trusting that my baby is growing to be perfect in their own way, and I am well aware that the only way that I can fall fully into the present moment is to let go of whatever stories I am telling myself. Because this is it. What I am doing right now, in this exact moment, this is all I have. This annoying pain in my left hip, and the fact that I have had to pee for 10 minutes; this is what is real right now, nothing more nothing less. A huge part of this lesson, is knowing that I need to pay attention to what is arising within me, attuning to the fact that there is a lesson trying to be taught, I just need to show up for class. Because I am about to have my first parent teacher conference with my greatest teacher, and I want to be sure I am putting my best foot forward. This teacher deserves nothing less than my absolute best. This teacher of mine, is expecting me to have answers to their questions, and the only way I can supply those, is if I actually learn from the lessons life is trying to teach me in preparation for the most challenging and rewarding test of my life.
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