I’m lucky to have got to the stage I’m at. I found acceptance through help, appreciation of beauty through the world around and meeting my soul mates. I’m teaching my mind to understand and control itself. Today has been a difficult day. I still thrive on them by creating, learning and dreaming. I can control it by taking each hour as it comes. It’s okay to not be able to get up – just try and have a shower, feel the soap lather your skin, wash the bad feeling away, lose yourself in the steam. If you can’t bare to see anyone, send a single text. When it is completely impossible to create, browse ideas. Let your mind wander. Take the first step. It’s always easier said than done but that one tiny everyday task can make your day a success.
So today instead of drowning in my own emotions, I stayed in bed. I eventually had a shower which led to a coffee which led to studying. The poisonous society we live in teaches us that if we aren’t constantly achieving, busy, earning, then we are wasting our time. It took me so long to believe that isn’t true. A cat may enjoy the heat through a patch of sunshine, glowing onto the tiniest section of a floor. A plant will do nothing more than thrive from water and heat, to simply survive. Now obviously I’m aware we are more physiologically and psychologically developed than cats and flowers. But we can learn from them. To appreciate and enjoy simple happiness. The idea we constantly need to be better can brainwash and destroy us. It creeps up on you, I am a prime example. I recently bought a stunning highlighter to make me feel more beautiful, in vanity it pleases me. I want to earn as much as possible to indulge in experiences. To buy gifts and please the ones I dearly love. It isn’t a bad thing, we can’t escape consumerism but we don’t necessarily have to obey it.
I’m not suggesting we should all grow our own vegetables, make clothes from found materials and move to a tree house in the forest (as wonderful as that sounds it’s probably very hard work). Instead I’m raising the idea that a successful day can be a walk, mindfulness, making an aeroplane from toilet roll tubes with your children. It can be making someone smile. It can be contentedness, to understand the blinding power you have especially when you don’t believe it.
I’m not okay today. I woke up from a dream with a sinking feeling in my gut, a weight in my chest making my body so heavy it was impossible to move. Living in my subconscious was an alternative life style. One I once foolishly rejected; a decision I later suffered for. It was a simple dream. I dreamt I felt occupied, another soul was present, another faint heartbeat. In this dream, I took a pregnancy test which instantly resulted in two fat pink lines which led to tears of ultimate joy. These dreams of mine, colours are so vivid, made up memories are photographic and emotions are bonafide. So awaking to the dimmer colours of reality with goosebumps from leaving the window ajar, I didn’t even attempt. I collapsed back into bed ridden with heartbreak, limbs aching and a blank mind.
Dreams are simply a muddled collection of unconscious thoughts. You create stories that are out of your control. The fact Noah is in Edinburgh just amplifies that difficult maternal emotion. Every time he leaves for his father’s I swear to myself I’ll be productive, active and refreshed on his return. A few days pass and all I can do is stare into space and wait. Reader, if you don’t have children you are yet to understand. It’s an unbearable love. They don’t just physically come from you, they are an extension of your soul. It’s a pure, truly ugly, heart wrenching, overwhelming, eternal love. There aren’t the words.
But I know he’ll always come home. At these times I prepare for the onslaught of anxiety, I need gently tending to in order to eliminate ugly thoughts that threaten my idea of safety.
When Noah was a tiny baby, I discovered for the second time I was pregnant. Some people I told the truth, some I didn’t tell and others I lied to and said I had a miscarried. I understand that that is wrong, but I was grieving from my mistakes and the more I told, the more I believed it was out of my control. I wasn’t at fault in that lie. I’m pro choice but life is unbelievably sacred. It’s a gift, it makes you discover strength you didn’t know was possible. But if your mental or physical health is endangered or the decision will send you to actual poverty, then it’s a lesser of two evils to not go through with it. It doesn’t mean you won’t be heartbroken. I once met a girl in Edinburgh when I was three months gone with Noah and she told me she’d had a few terminations. She casually talked of her cravings and pains. As a teenager I was gob smacked at the idea of abortion being a form of contraception. Ethically I was disgusted, but everyone is entitled to their opinion.
I tell myself we wouldn’t have been able to cope but deep down I know I’d have found a way, I always do. How can you grieve for something you never really had?
I do, often. Not for any child. I do not wish to be pregnant, but for the soul I gave up. I know the feeling is magnified without Noah in my arms. I’m not religious but I do believe in reincarnation. It is scientific fact that energy cannot disappear – and what greater energy is there than the conscious mind, the purity of the soul? I also believe that life starts from conception and this soul will return to me. She will forgive and come home and I will wait until she decides it is her time. Until that day I will continue doing the best I can as a woman. Noah is the rawest, most perfect example of kindness and he is destined to grow into an incredible man. He will love her when she arrives.
I shall not dwell on my life choices. Instead I shall smile, grow and simply be in awe.
Mother, Lover, Believer.
E x
Fascinating Occasions 🌙 