Questioning...

I just had to talk myself down from a full blown panic attack.

The day started with my hopping happily from bed and throwing on clothes, adding a little makeup, perfume, things I haven't done in eleven days. I was hoping for a certain visitor. Instead, I got an excuse...a familiar one. Even so, I felt my zest for the day begin to wane. I contemplated washing my face and letting the day happen as it would...

Thank goodness for great friends. One stopped by as planned, another a delightful surprise. I soaked in their energy and said a thank you that I wasn't going to spend another day alone in my head. I was rolled down the hospital corridors and out into the sunshine for a few lovely minutes. I breathed in the fresh air, fed the birds, let the warmth of the sun cover my skin, and felt blessed.

Enough to return to my room and feel determined to make the sunshine a daily treat for myself. It seemed that I had tricked my mood into turning bright...even as, on the inside, I wondered at how long I could lie to myself...

It is more than difficult to be confined when there is so much world outside. I realized my summer would end and my Fall would begin within these walls. And that if I could not keep my cool, my easygoing nature, it would get harder and harder to get people to come see me, free me from these walls, if only for 30 minutes a day.

I lay in my hospital bed uncomfortable, in some pain as my son learns his feet and his fists, and my uterus stretches to give him the room he more than deserves. I try and fail to not think of those other six babies, the men I was with when I made them, when I lost them...and how different this is, knowing that for six months and six days, I grew this child alone. To raise alone. Because, in this, there is no partner to hold hands with, to sing the harmony of the songs I make up for my baby, to do the heavy lifting of keeping me centered.

When I was instructed to brace for what would be the sixth attempt at an IV in almost as many days, I  felt something on the inside of me shake. I heard a voice echo in my head "did you really think you were brave enough for all of this? To take all of this? To feel ALL of this?" My empathy made me feel for the poor Indian woman who was only doing her job, as tears rolled down my face . I didn't want her to feel bad. I just couldn't stop myself from feeling bad.

I waited until she left, to slide off the bed into the restroom. I wanted to collapse on the floor, to sob my heart out. Instead, I sat on the toilet and tried not to make too much noise.

I wondered, not for the first time, why this would be the pregnancy that lasted. Why other times in my life, more stable and secure times, was I unable to conceive then? Why, when I had no clue where to go and how to survive this time in my life, would God finally grant me motherhood...

I am grateful for it. I promise you I am. I just honestly don't know how to do it.

And truthfully...I don't know who to ask.

-L.

Baby Love

I ended up in the hospital last week after what was clearly a stressful July, given the state of my home life and potential work options. After being well and truly scared by doctors and nurses alike, I decided that the time had come to stop being afraid of motherhood, and the responsibilities that come with it. I realized that all big decisions concerning not just myself, but also my son, would be deferred only to me - and that was frightening...

I am not known as the most decisive of people.

But if it came to it, to having to make the decision of whether or not to continue care on my possibly premature son, or to allow for a closure to his life and suffering, there would be no room for hesitation.

I honestly expected that my motherhood journey would begin when we met - face-to-face - in the delivery room. I have since realized that I've been his mother since I first decided he would be my baby.

I love him. I did not know I could grow love within my body, especially after years of self-hate and loathing. I did not know the lengths I could go to in order to preserve that love... But I have. And I will continue to do so because he is so worth it...the idea that I will get to know this person, created in me, blessed to me, is too wonderful to deny.

I always knew that I would love my children. But I had no idea how big this love could grow.

- L.

Baby Steps

When life decides it is time for you to change your course, it does not fuck around.

Honestly, a year ago, I did not believe I would be here. Unattached. Unstable. Unusually quiet. And still on the inside. But also. Growing. Changing. Morphing into my next stage. And more scared than I would like to believe.

Motherhood did not come to me as I was promised. No loving embrace. No whispered dreams of the making of kings and queens. Instead, she came to me in the dark, under a moonless sky,  with a cold rain marking the night as unremarkable as possible.

I immediately forgot, even as my womb began to remember.

Six babies who never quite made it here. Years of wishing, pleading, hoping, and yes, once, even begging to be allowed to make this journey. Years of being denied, threatened with lovers who would rather walk out, given ultimatums, even having the gift dangled in front of my face, only to have it snatched from me.

That may have hurt the worst. Being told, being made to felt that I was unworthy of motherhood. A hurt I have yet to recover from, as the words came from someone I loved, trusted, and changed my life for.

So now I walk into motherhood alone, but surrounded by women who are holding me up when I am tired, when I feel I cannot go on, when I forget that I am both blessed and loved. I have made family where before I felt isolated. I have found, through them, the strength I was told I always had.

I will be brave for my son - even when I am weary and the world is hard.

If nothing else, I will show him what a gift a strong woman is.

I do not relish the idea of single-handedly growing him from boy to man. I hope to fill his life with amazing role models. I know the world will not be kind to him. Fatherless black boy. Beautiful, talented, loving, kind - those will not be the words all paint him with. They will see him as a threat, no matter how well-mannered, well-spoken, or well-principled he is.

But I give him his name in hopes that it will remind him of his power.

His strength. His place in the world, not just the corner of it where he is born.

My son is not yet born, but I see him clearly as a man I would be honored to shake hands with one day.

I ask that his steps be ordered, and that he recognizes one day that the courage he has to move forward is one gift that will come from me.

Even, and especially, those baby steps.

With love,
L.

A Long Walk

It's been almost 60 days since I saw you last

The quick but beautiful moment that made my born day

The small but deep kiss

How easily my hands found your skin like two things that belong together.

I listened to your voice and looked into your eyes and found myself just WISHING 

That the timing was about to be right for us.

But it's been almost sixty days. Nearly 30 since I heard from you last.

For those first few weeks every dream I had of you

Was vivid and alive

Breathtakingly hopeful.

My body readied in anticipation

Of the nation we would build together.

I let the love soften me.

I let it fill me.

I let it claim me.

And you disappeared.

It would be right if I got angry

If I said "fuck this bullshit" and moved on

If I stopped waiting and wishing.

But

Dammit. Dammit.

My heart will not hear my mind 

My heart will not hear logic or reason

My heart will not let go of this.

in any other circumstance I might applaud the tenacity.

But right now

Knowing that knowing you knocked my world right off its axis

Never to be the same again,

I realise, as maybe you do not, that you are an impossible act to follow.

No one has even come close.

No one will ever come close.

Not when it is your smile and your hands and your mouth that I look for in the day

And in the dark.

And not when I remember that I once thought I was happy - and then I met YOU and realised that my former state was a poor example of what happy could be...

Maybe I'm crazy.

Or maybe

Maybe I just know.

Xoxo,

L.

Don't let go love

It's a strange thing to be in love and in limbo. Especially when you are someone who feels her feelings so thoroughly. I feel every single one of mine, every day, and sometimes it makes me feel crazy. 

I love someone. So much, so deep, that no one else can touch it. When I am overcome with joy and beauty - I wish he was there to hold my hand and share it with me. To smile at me and secretly agree that such a moment should be felt between us. There is so much I don't know about my love, that he doesn't know about me, yet I still feel for him every day.

Some days I actively try to not think of him, close enough to see but not enough to touch, but those are the days when my mind and heart go directly to him, unbidden. I even tried to exorcise his presence, in an effort to do what he'd asked me to - to move on, to find someone who could actively show me the appreciation and love he wanted to but couldn't commit to.

You might as well have told me I was some fairy creature all this time, because my heart believed that just as much. Moving on from someone who has moved your heart, shaken you to your core in a way that had never happened before in your life? It is not possible. I tried. I still try.

Last week, I met a man who took one look at me, in wonder and disbelief, and he tried to hold my hand, move an answering response in me. I felt my hand begin to shake, to repel, even as I tried to be polite, tried to see if there could be a "maybe". I could almost feel the steel bands tighten around my heart as everything in me most definitively said No. It has happened again and again since I met my love. My heart will not be moved, even when I will it to do so.

So what can I do? When my mind strays to him a hundred times a day? When I feel the darkness pulling me down and deep and, without warning, he sends me a message, and I burst free, burning, full of light and life like a Phoenix from the ash?

He is my dragon. He is my heart. The love I feel is alive and a wild thing. I feel mad with trying to show him exactly this. I miss him.

He misses me.

Everything I have that was once his is like a brightly burning token of affection. I wear his necklace for protection of myself and my heart. I think of our very first kiss and how alive I felt, how safe, how fiery and amazing. Vibrating with the highest resonance, I just needed to touch him, harmonise with him. To find that what I'd always assumed was a discordant melody was, in fact a power chord, was so humbling to me.

I wanted to take him home, move him in, bring delight into his life forever. I was the quirky, playful, silly, beautiful hippie-flower child in his life, meant to open his heart and make him begin to wish for better, for more. The thrill I felt to my core when we lay together and he moved my hands with his, circling and uncircling my ring finger, kissing the place where a wedding ring should go, almost without a clue he was doing so, making it feel like a promise...

I cannot explain why I love him. 

Even now, as I lay here and do not know what's to come for us, I know that I love him. There is no other for me. I will say no other vows, make no other promises. 

There will be no more falling in love.

I'm already in love.

Dangerously, forever in love.

And all I can ask and pray is that he won't let go, not until we can really see what this is. What we could be. Why we were brought together, and why it feels so big.

Because, my love, this love? 

This love is everything.

Yours,

L.

So Much More

I'm stubborn.

I know this.

I don't let go easy.

So, if there comes a time when you find I

Am nowhere to be found

Please believe

I tried all I could.

When my past is

A list of lovers who

Overstayed their welcome

And made sure to drag me along on

Their way out,

You must wonder why

With all the silence

I still reach out for you.

It's simple.

You make the songs in my heart 

Sound all at the same time.

You make the stars behind my eyes

Shoot from my pores and my fingertips

You make me believe in

The kind of love I've always wished to have.

It's complicated.

Your words don't always match your actions.

I question whether I'm a fool 

On a daily basis

I wonder what will happen when you leave, because

I don't want to see you go.

It's a little thing

The hope I keep, that you smile

When you think of me

And that maybe

Maybe

Your soul aches a bit for me.

And it's everything

This love is everything

This growing and building

This moving and praying

This singing and writing

This - all this - it's everything.

Everything.

Absolutely everything.

And so much more.

I had a dream today

A mini-dream out of the multitudes, and in it I was asked a question. The question was simple: your heart has been hurt. What have you learned? 

It did not take more than a moment to respond. They say that every event that happens in your life is meant to teach you something.

I learned that I am worth more than I give away. What should return to me, in the way of love, is more than I have allowed myself to imagine.

I learned that I need to stop waiting for a specific "who", and instead wait for a specific "what".

The person I wait for is so full of passion for me there is no room for doubts and fears. The person I wait for is so sure, that no secret burden, no ugly scar, can turn them from me. The person I wait for was picked by God for me - and is eager to begin this journey.

It was a beautiful dream that allowed my breath to ease, my heart to calm, my mind to clear. The message was simple: keep walking your path, keep doing what you do, keep being your truest self, even when the world is hard. I am sending you a warrior.

I look forward to it.

Be blessed.

L.