Writing My Wild

This morning I heard my husband trying to wake up our daughter, which I knew was my cue to get up and try to do the same. After promising cinnamon rolls were almost ready and imitating one of her favorite Star Wars characters, he went downstairs and I stayed behind.

I traced the jaw line of  her beautiful face (which I am always in awe of) and kissed her cheek. Eyes closed she said, “I’m still tired.” I said, “I know”, then whispered, “I love you.” She whispered back in her sweet little voice, “I love you, too, mama.”

I sat there trying to wrap my mind around the sound and the words. I tried to shove them into a place in my mind where I won’t forget their tone, her sweetness, or their meaning. I cried quietly there on the edge of her bed, not making a sound, wiping the tears away a handful at a time.

I don’t want to forget this. Please don’t let me forget.

Tonight after dinner, my daughter insisted that we go outside and play basketball. She is 7, still under 50 pounds, and full of sass. Determined, she calls her big brother, her dad and I outside at twilight and says “game on!”  As tiny and well below the rim as she stands, she makes the first two shots she attempts. I’m so proud of her as she dribbles up and down the driveway and I love seeing that she’s quite proud of herself, too. I’m reminded of a video I have of her at age 2 trying over and over to make a shot with this huge basketball and a tiny kid-sized hoop at the playground. Just as she did 5 years ago, she refuses to quit tonight even after she misses some shots, injures her finger, and is accidentally slammed in the face with the ball by her brother. She cries big tears from her beautiful brown eyes, lifts her glasses and wipes the tears away. She asks for a hug each time she is hurt. I oblige and tell her it’s okay and that she’s tough. She grabs the ball and soldiers on.

Part of me wonders if I’m doing the right thing each time I say, “It’s okay, you’re tough.” Is that the right thing to say? Later I read a section called “Ears” in Untamed and I cry and grit my teeth. I wonder if I’m just training my daughter to be the same kind of walled up woman I have become – trained to suck it up, be “brave”, and push my fear aside so people think “I’ve got this” even though inside myself I’m saying “No, I  do NOT got this!”

But my daughter IS strong. She IS fierce. And she will need to hear my voice in her head in times when I’m not there. “You’re strong and you’ve got this, babe. You got this.”

This morning, I’m sitting on our screened in porch, enjoying the fact that it’s Saturday, the sun is out, and it’s not too chilly to be outdoors. I’m excited to sit with my tea in a “Be Happy” mug I got from my Secret Santa last year and my two pieces of cinnamon raisin toast, lightly buttered, even though as an overweight 44 year old I shouldn’t be eating toast. I take the first delightful bite and a little voice inside me says “Ahhhh, how could you ever deny yourself TOAST?!” I continue to enjoy it.  

I sit down and immediately feel something under me that shouldn’t be there. I reach between the cushions and it’s my husband’s key fob, which he’s been looking for for DAYS. I pop back into the house and proudly hand it over but as he thanks me I rush back outside and shut the sliding glass door. I’m eager to continue reading Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed, a book I have to consume in very small bites in the very small spaces between working, mothering, cleaning, wifeing, studying and worrying. It’s not time that gets in the way, though. It’s the flood of tears that start raging down my face like rain water rushing past a clogged storm drain – a powerful, moving mess that MUST keep flowing. I can’t be a hot mess crying all day – I have other things to do, and I don’t want the children to see me upset. SO. I read in slow, emotionally manageable bites, cry, put it down, and walk away.

I continue through the chapter she called “Imagination”. In it, she writes that women speak in the language of indoctrination (in should, shouldn’t, right, and wrong ) more often than we speak in the language of imagination which allows us to identify what’s beautiful and true. Recall that less than 5 minutes ago, I told myself that I shouldn’t eat toast, only to have some other voice tell me “oh yes, you should.” I start to cry. A lot. This is my indoctrination and my imagination showing up for me, and now I have the language to name it and a duty to bear it. I have battled my weight my whole life and let’s be clear, when a person ‘battles their weight’, what’s really going on is that we’re fighting with ourselves over things that have nothing at all do do with our weight. I have been at war with myself for a long time in that department and it’s goddamn exhausting.

I think about something I saw Tony Robbins do once and start asking myself this stream of questions about the tea and toast. There’s a reason I love them so much. What is it? I sit and think. My mind immediately takes me back to my grandparents’ kitchen and a stainless steel countertop where I see the hot pot of water my grandpa has set up as he did every day and a box of Lipton tea. I see my grandpa in his well-pressed short sleeved work shirt tucked neatly into his ‘work’ pants. He’s long been retired but he’s always so tidy, comfortable, and into his routine. I realize I am shorter than I am now in this memory – my eyes are only a head’s height above the top of the counter. I’m old enough to reach what’s up there and fix myself a cup of tea. I hear the toaster pop up and recall the softened butter grandma kept on the table and the guava jelly I actually wish I had right now. I sit down. This entire memory is like a soft, warm blanket wrapped all around me. I feel safe, loved, and everything is quiet. Why would I ever want to teach myself to not enjoy tea and toast on a Saturday morning? This moment feels sacred to me. I cry some more and take a sip of my fancier-than-Lipton tea and I write this down. I feel better and I’m ready to keep reading now. But instead, I decide to create a blog. I need a space to write.

Note: This was my first “reaction” to Untamed, posted on Instagram on April 4, 2020.

Before all of THIS happened in the world, I had started to feel this far away feeling. I know from years of therapy and my own learnings that this feeling is a distress call. It’s my insides waving at me like my Mom use to do from the beach when I’d gone too far out in the ocean. I’d look back and see her tiny self on the sand, thinking she was just saying hi until a lifeguard would suddenly appear out of nowhere, “casually” paddling by. He’d never have to say anything, I’d just roll my eyes and start heading back in knowing it was the right thing to do but resisting all the way. I’d dive under and hold my breath, inching my way into the shallow water one long minute at a time. I’d hang out there until the tide rolled me back to shore both resentful and grateful that I was closer to home.

Today, @glennondoyle reminded me of why we resist coming “home” when we are out there trying to make our way in the big ocean. It’s scary to come face to face with who you are meant to be after being conditioned over a lifetime to tame your “wild”. Story after story in this book has an equivalent in my own life – moments of dampening, numbing, shrinking, struggling, but also feeling and knowing I was meant to do braver things than what I was conditioned and what I have conditioned myself to do.

If there’s anything that will help us overcome all of this grieving and uncertainty, perhaps it’s knowing that this moment is forcing a return for many of us to our own center. I am discovering as the days go on that the far away feeling goes away the closer I get to acknowledging and embracing my internal “home”. #untamed