When 'what if' is

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

The truth is, Little Tyke was not planned. Motherhood for me has been a tough road - very rewarding, but tough all the same. There were times that I even dared to wonder what my life would have been like if he wasn't around.

For the longest time after he was born, I felt completely and totally overwhelmed and a little oppressed. I felt as if my life had been taken away. Hubby and I had only been together as a couple for two years when he was born. It sounds like long enough but, we got married when I was three months pregnant - which means that, at a time when most people are only just 'coming down' from the euphoria of their honeymoon, I was a bloated, swollen-feet-having, back-pain-suffering grinch.

And then after he was born, my milk just wouldn't come in. In-between the cracked nipples and guilt over not being able to perform the most basic of motherly duties - I had to go on antibiotics because my ceasar wound became infected. I got thrush (and passed it on to Little Tyke) and so had to stop breastfeeding: after that cleared up, he refused to take the breast anymore. Then there were the endless months of colic...! Oh god, the colic. That almost broke me.

At the same time, I was trying so hard to run the new home that I had created with my new husband. But I was just so tired all the time. I still wanted to be the desirable (and agile) little nymph that I had been while we were dating. But I just couldn't lose that baby weight and I seemed to gain even more as the months wore on. I missed the nights out that we used to have - the partying and the romantic dinners. But we had noone to watch Little Tyke while we were out.

I felt like a shadow of my former self and it was at those times that I would ask myself what life would be like without him. I would never admit that to anyone and even when the thought reared its ugly head in my own mind, I would quickly shove it back down and chastise myself for hours. It wasn't natural to think that way and I was an apalling mother for even entertaining such a thought - in any form. But the fact was my life had changed irrevocably and I felt that it hadn't really been by choice, so inevitably when the hard moments came so did those ugly thoughts.

Fast forward to today. Little Tyke has been in Z for over a month now and I'm finally faced with the reality of my once fanciful (albeit shameful) 'what if's. The truthful answer is that life would be hollow. There would be no daily reminder of my alive-ness. Nothing to keep me connected to life itself.

Being a parent gives you a VIP pass to life's backstage. You literally witness and experience its very beginning. The moment that you realise that this brand new little person is about to embark on a journey that you have already travelled and have taken for granted all your life, a sense of purpose immediately starts searching for expression within you.

Suddenly the ills of the world, the ills within yourself become a permanent part of your peripheral vision. You are consciously, subconsciously and sometimes unconsciously aware of the fact that you are responsible for guiding this little life through all the perils that you have faced and (more terrifying) the perils that are yet to come and that you know nothing about.

You find new joy in the seemingly mundane things that now cause the face of your child to light up ... coming home, giving hugs, taking a drive, eating ice-lollies. You suddenly realise that you have a reason to smile every single day. And for me, that is the one that blows my mind. A reason to smile every single day? Even when you don't particularly feel like you have anything to smile about, all it takes is a funny word or a wierd laugh from your little one and suddenly a smile will creep up on you, simultaneously warming your heart as it spreads across your face.

There are facets and dimensions of life that become clear to you when you have a child. You begin to live outside of yourself and, if you're like me, it is for the very first time in your life. I've said before that I reckon I'm pretty selfish, but when Little Tyke needed to eat or had to have a nappy change it was him that came first - every time and without even a second thought. It may seem elementary but it's really not. It's a truly remarkable feat of nature; to give and give and give without an expectation of even an iota of reciprocation.

He became my joy, my purpose, my reason, my life.

And now, I miss him unendurably. Every phone call is guaranteed to end in tears (my tears). I miss hearing him say "Mummy". I am even willing to hear it called out repeatedly for up to 10minutes at a time (like he loves to do) if it means I'll have my baby back with me.

What is life like without him? It's really not life at all - not my life anyway. As much as I had wanted to look at this time apart as an opportunity to catch up on all sorts of stuff - including catching up with a me a thought I had lost, I realise now that a life without my son is impossible. This is my life now and how much more rich and fulfilling a life it is. I have gained more from being a mother than anything I could ever have thought I had lost.

Maybe I needed this time to really think about it and even this blog to try and put it into words. In a way, I'm kind of glad I did.

So... can I get my baby back now?

HELP...!

Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy. ~Robert Anthony

Last week, I spent that last few days before the weekend in a state of mild depression. Pyjamas all day, weepy and defeated. I told Hubby that it was because I missed Little Tyke so much, and that was a big part of it but I also feel there was something more to it.

Since my last blog post I've been excruciatingly conflicted - trying to reconcile knowing that I've been F*&king up with the powerful urge to retreat into my comfort zone in order to escape that very fact (and thereby perpetuating the vicious cycle). I spoke last time about power and responsibility. What has struck me (and frankly scares me to death) is the fact that - contrary to what I had been telling myself - the power has always been there, and all this time I have essentially using my power for evil and not for good.

I had a pretty decent weekend and this Monday morning finds me particularly chirpy and hopeful, but I can't help reminding myself that that's how I started out last week... and the week before, and the one before that. Sometimes I wonder if I truly am a lost cause. How can I know all of these things cognitively and still not be able to act on them in such a way that I feel that I've made even the slight bit of progress in living a satisfying life?

I've been able to fix myself before. I managed to get over the biggest heartbreak of my life, to extricate myself from the worst emotional abuse I've ever experienced, even succeeded at quitting smoking after 9 years, and losing 10kgs in a couple of months! And how did I do it? I took it one day at a time. Everyday, I was able to examine my every thought and action and decide whether it was the right thing for me - if it was going to get me to where I wanted to be. So how come I can't seem to be able to do that now... even though I know for sure that it's the only way?!

Then I realise that what sets those hurdles apart from what I'm going through now is that I wanted to do it. I had the will, because I came to not only realise cognitively, but also believe in my soul that living with those situations was doing me much more harm than good. But now, the comfort of not living up to expectations (even if they're my own), of letting life just 'happen' to me, of clinging to my fear. That comfort is just too enticing. Could it be that I don't want to get better, to BE better?

Startling, I know. But it's the only theory that makes sense. Even back when I was still working towards the victories I just mentioned, my thinking behind it was not nearly as deep and considered as it is now. I just knew I had to do it, and keep at it til I finally got there. Why then can I not replicate the same sort of triumph in my life now? Now that I have the added advantage of all my years of experience and introspection. Why?

I hate admiting my shortcomings, especially admitting them to myself. It hurts to know how I've been sabotaging myself and continue to do so over and over. The 'whys' of the situation are important but I don't know if right now I really have the emotional capital or perspective to figure them out. Last week's depression scared me and made me realise that maybe therapy wouldn't be a bad idea. If I had the money I would have booked a session right then and there.

There are some things that exist deep down that no amount of self-help will... well... help me with. I think that in the past I may have prided myself on the fact that I'm a deep thinker, a student of the human psyche. But more and more I'm feeling that I can't keep trying to do it on my own. I'm in no way admitting defeat, but I am admitting that I need help.

It's a tough road and I see now that I've been making light of the gravity of the task of achieving real happiness. Even as I type this, I'm tempted to take it all back. I feel so disappointed in my weakness. I keep wanting to say, "I'm sure I could get it right. I just need another Monday, another new month, another new year". But I don't have the luxury of that. My life's gotta change. It's gotta be soon and it's gotta be for good!

However, I remain hopeful. I spent the weekend catching up on loads of painfully neglected work and was up early this morning finalising that process. On that front, I'm pretty much on an even footing - for the first time in months! I've made some progress putting a plan together for the launch of Hubby and Big Bro's debut album - which I'm very excited about, I might add. Unfortunately, I only got one workout in last week and haven't nearly been eating right but everyday's as a new opportunity to do things differently. I've just got to keep taking the opportunities as they come.

The point is, I can't carry on being so hard on myself. And as much as it feels like a cop-out, I must admit that there are some things that I just don't know how to fix and, until I do, I need to just do what I can with the knowledge I've got. Because, in the immortal words of Maya Angelou, "When you know better, you do better". At least I have now learned that I need to know more about myself before I can be a better version of myself.

Update [May 2010]: I think I've found some of that help I needed. It was here all along!

Image: (c) Optiknerve-gr

Power

Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile... initially scared me to death. ~Betty Bender

As difficult as it is, Little Tyke's absence has represented an opportunity for me to achieve, chase, or - at the very least - set some goals. One of the many opportunities represented by Little Tyke being in Z is the chance for Hubby and I to 're-connect', another is for me to spend more time on myself: nurturing, feeding & taking care of the most vital parts of me, yet another is to get my career in order.

So, in what I suppose can be seen as an inevitable event, what began as the simple realisation of a new-found freedom, has become an ever-increasingly over-bearing 'to-do' list. So many goals, so much internal pressure to live up to it all. It's almost as if I've got some point to prove.

...and if I do have something to prove, what is it and who do I need to prove it to?

I had an epiphany yesterday - I came to realise that every second of my life is under my complete and total control. Now, I've watched enough episodes of Oprah and read enough self-help books to know that that little bit of information is nothing new. However, for me in that instant, it was the first time in YEARS that I have had that thought and processed it deeply enough for it to actually stike a tangible cord within me, "I decide. I choose".

I was in tears. I had a total breakdown, brought on by the realisation that for so many years... nay, too many years, I had been feeling that I had no control... none. Feeling that stuff just kept happening to me. A victim? Dare I admit it? But, I had to admit it - and that moment of truth reduced me to tears. Hadn't I always believed that victims chose to be victims? Oh, the shock of realising that I had made that choice!

Obviously, 'what to do about it' becomes the next burning question, and the answer is down to a very simple process of thought. "You are in control, right?" Right. "So you can make your life what you want it to be, therefore all you have to do is do what it takes to make it so.

"But how?", a sceptical voice enquires. "Well, excercise your power down to its furthest reach. You control every second of your life, right?" Right. "So, in every second of your life, decide whether whatever you are doing, going to do, or are thinking of doing is going to get your life to be what you want it to be".

At that point, I just burst into audible sobs. I knew how to do that. That's why the initial realisation was so gutting. At every moment I've known that I've been working at cross-purposes with my self. It was nothing more than self-sabotage.

"But you're STILL in control. Even as you sob, you can choose - after you've dried the tears, blown your nose and thrown away the tissues - to leave it there or to pursue the solution. You can cry about how you've screwed up or you can try to figure out why you screwed up and and how to fix it. Take the power you have gained in admitting to a problem and multiply it, by directing it towards working out a way to make it right".

Wow! I can actually do that, can't I? Right here and right now. I don't need to wait until I've reached my lowest point; until I'm a shell of myself and I feel that life has nothing left to offer me. I can make a decision right now. It's not too late to reclaim control.

Then the tears came even harder. But this time they came from outside of me. It was the fear. The fear that has ruled me with such fierce tenacity for so long. It suddenly appeared from the shadows, like a fur-coat-wearing, feather-hat-donning pimp in a dark alley. I could feel my figurative hand instinctively rise to its metaphorical cheek in a double-act of defense and acceptance of the inevitable. I knew this fear was my master and it had just walked in on my conversation about the underground railroad with another rabble-rousing slave. In that instant I knew I had seen a familiar light, but the gravity and difficulty of getting to it, suddenly became so intensly clear to me - clearer that it had been in a while.

I stood there, staring it in the face. Confronted by my fear in its full and supremely intimidating glory. I wish I could describe the epic showdown that was going on in my mind at that moment... but long story short - I flinched, and by the end of it I was on some "Yessir, Masser. Don't worry, this uppity nigg*r was just leaving". I sat there. Spent. Eyes flitting back and forth, as I pantingly tried to figure out what had just happened. I saw my fear - looked it in the eye and as much I wanted to erase its image from my mind, I had to force myself to consider how powerful it honestly was. Scary, we can agree on; but if I were ever to defy it, what's the absolute worse that could actually happen?

I left that particular 'train' of thought right there, though (baby steps, I guess). So at this point all that I know for sure is that I AM in control. The consequences of actually excercising that power are a different matter. The ugly truths that I'll have to accept, the fears I'll have to overcome... all of that is a bridge that can only be crossed when I come to it. In a way, deep down inside I know that this little realisation is not for nothing. I do have a point to prove, and who do I have to prove it to? That very same fear.

It all just brings me back to my earliest mission... back to just getting on with life. Just doing what I have to do. I can't help feeling that I'm just spinning my tyres, though. I've been here before - epiphanies and deep introspection: it's what I do best. Action, though - that's what seems to be so elusive.

I'm thinking that the best way to deal with it is to take it one second at a time... "Excercise your power down to its furthest reach.... (second by second) In every second of your life, decide whether whatever you are doing, going to do, or are thinking of doing is going to get your life to be what you want it to be".

With great power, comes great responsibility, they say. My first task is to exercise the power. It remains to be seen whether I can handle the responsibility.

Guess who's coming to visit

Mother-in-law: a woman who destroys her daughter-in-law's peace of mind by giving her a piece of hers. ~Author Unknown

It's been a while and there's been quite a bit going on recently - most notably, a 2-week visit by my mother-in-law (MIL) and the departure of Little Tyke to visit her in Zambia 3 days ago.

Having MIL here was supremely challenging! She's got very set views on things... all things - from being a wife, to feeding a child, to washing dishes. She really is a lovely lady - but quite overbearing (and a little crazy). I've always been intimidated by her, probably stemming from Hubby's earliest descriptions of her as 'gangsta', even long before I ever met her.

The whole time she was visiting, I felt like every minute element of my life was under scrutiny. I found myself wondering how much of the friction I felt was due to my own insecurities and how much was simply down to cultural and background differences.

Let's start with the background theory. I was raised by a single mother: a career woman and product of the 70's - a semi-feminist and fiercly independant individual. MIL on the other hand has lived a pretty traditional life - married for over 30 years, essentially a stay-at-home mom - strong on family values and very religious.

So, obviously I am not in any way used to the kind of interest (read 'interference') that to MIL is simply a mother's duty. From the moment I left the house (and even before then), my mother always treated me as a grown-ass woman. How I ran my house was my business. MIL, on the other hand doesn't have those boundaries.

Firstly, her insistance on me regarding and treating her as my 'other mother' makes me very uncomfortable. I felt like it was being forced on me - and what does that mean, anyway?! My first intinct was to resist. I have a mother - and for the longest time, she was all that I really had. I just didn't grow up like that. I have witnessed many a family member take advantage of my mother, and the feelings of abandonment towards my own father did nothing to engender a strong sense of trust or dependance on family. Also having grown up far away from my extended family, I just don't have that in me. To me, people are people and need to be embraced or held at a distance on that basis only - not by virtue of familial ties... Right or wrong, that's just what I grew to believe over time.

Then, there are my insecurities. Well, where to start...? I have an encyclopedia of them - categorised, ordered chronologically and neatly indexed. There's my inability to handle criticism, my guilt over my mothering skills, my weight issues, my intrinsic passive-aggression - among many many others. So, one can imagine that when told I should be waking up at 4am to make a cooked packed lunch for Hubby; or when the food I cook for my son is left to rot in the fridge & replaced by a meal cooked by his granny; or when I'm told that I "look better in what you're wearing today. I don't know what those other clothes you wear are" - self esteem is knocked to an all-time low.

And it was relentless. I just didn't know how to handle her... I had to balance being respectful with an urge to lash out; and fight back tears while trying to convincingly laugh at jokes that I found deeply hurtful. All day, every day. Being called away from the office because we're out of tomatoes (but what about the entire meal that I had left in the fridge for today's lunch?). Being asked if I don't mind removing my stuff from the laundry basket so that she could iron her son and grandson's clothes!

I tried to look to Hubby for comfort. I even had a talk with him before she arrived, sensitising him to the fact that she made me extremely uncomfortable and pleading with him to try and back me up in things, to help draw those boundaries. But, of course he doesn't see things the way I do see and plenty of what went on happened while he was away. Even when I recounted some of the toughest moments to him, I could see I was treading a delicate line. She is, after all, his mother and - putting myself in his shoes - I could see how a lot of it could be misconstrued as a dislike of her.

To be brutally honest, at the end of it I started to feel like a big baby - oversensitive and too quick to resort to tears. How could I allow myself to feel undermined and so excrutiatingly uncomfortable in my own home. Should I not have just put my foot down? And in fairness, on the last day I did put my foot down. She just laughed at me... and again I was reduced to a quivering ball of tears. Sensitivity is not the lady's strong point, I must say.

But at the end of the day, I got thru it. I have yet to really work this one out in my own head and I'm really quite relieved that she lives in Zambia. In any other situation, I would have just decided 'this is not my type of person' and treated her accordingly - cordial, but distant. Of course you can't treat an MIL like that, but at least not having to deal with her often saves me the pain of trying to work out an alternative way of coping.

What I'm now grappling with is Little Tyke's departure. He left with his granny on Sunday and I haven't spoken to him since. That, however is a whole other story and whole other blog post.

Have you got your sandwiches ready?

Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him. ~Albert Schweitzer

Saturday, 18 July 2009 was the inaugural Mandela Day. The cause was celebrated all over the world and the point was to 'make an imprint' by dedicating 67 minutes of your time on that day to basically spreading good vibes by helping someone or making some sort of contribution to making the world better. The time would be spent in honour of continuing Nelson Mandela's legacy and remembering the 67 years he spent as a leader, trying to make his country and the world a better place.

I've spoken a few times here about giving of myself and how much I felt I should do that more. When I heard about Mandela Day, I thought this was my opportunity to stop talking about it and BE about it. My idea: to drive the streets of my city with packed sandwiches and give them out to needy people as we came across them. Pretty simple and straight-forward, right?

Anyway, Hubby and I started off at about 12:20 or so and the 67 minutes started ticking. I had it all worked out in my head... we'd get to the city centre and at every traffic light there'd be the usual three or four guys either begging or selling stuff; we'd stop at the red lights and hand out our lovely festively-packaged sandwiches with smiles and salutations all round while we gleefuly shouted "Happy Mandela Day!" as we pulled off, hooting... lol.

But it was not to be...

The experience of Mandela Day was a really big eye-opener for me. I am still amazed at how we agonized about the selection of our beneficiaries. As soon as we got into town, we realised we had no system or real plan. And a lot of questions that we were only now asking ourselves, 20 minutes into our 67!

Would we give to beggars? We decided that maybe we shouldn't because they really weren't desrving. Everyone knows they make a lot of money for doing nothing but standing around looking disshevelled and miserable. But, 30minutes in, we hadn't seen anyone that was deserving so we pulled up at a red light and sure enough, there was this kid... begging.

He couldn't have been older than about 16 or 17, so we decided 'why not' and gave him a sarmy. "Happy Mandela Day!", we said smiling. The kid nodded his head and walked on to the next car... no smile. no thank you. nothing! We were like WTF?!? and I looked back at him in the rearview mirror. The sandwich was gone! I have no idea were he put it, but he stood there, between the two lanes of cars, empty-handed and making sickly little gestures between his stomach and his mouth as he emplored our fellow motorists to pity him with some food.

WoW! I was stunned, but I had to think about what I really expected to happen. Well, I guess I have already answered that question quite early in this blog post. Could I really describe what 'needy' means? I mean, just because that kid was on the hustle and he needed to keep up the appearance of sheer destitution to get any more food, did that mean he didn't need the sandwich? Or maybe he needed something else that I could have given.

That question still forming in my subconscious, we moved into the next neighbourhood. (Now, the South African socio-economic dynamic is so definitive, vivid and palpable that I hope anyone unfamiliar to the country will still follow). Picture an old white neighbourhood with a small mall-type centre and across the road a smaller centre with the old Portuguese-owned take away, post office, habedashery, dry cleaner, little Italian restaurant, etc... Of course, at lunchtime on a Saturday, there is bound to be an assortment of black people sitting scattered across the tiny lawns and their railings... on break from work or looking for work.

We pull into the parking lot and think this is the perfect spot, there's gotta be someone needy here who's not a beggar. And that, my friends, I learned is one of the hardest things you could ever try and do! How do you assess 'need' by just looking at someone? There were so many people there... big mama's talking loud with their friends, domestics with the white babies they've been charged with caring for for the day, men in blue overalls asleep in the sun, the shopping centre security guard, the car guards... And every single one of them, I was sure, needed someone to perform some random act of kindness for them at that moment, but all I had was sandwiches.

All I had was sandwiches.

We drove around, and up & down, and debated... Picking people out and then gultily picking reasons why they weren't the ones. "These sandwiches are pretty rudimentary, so we've gotta give it to someone who won't judge - who's really just, like, starving"; "He looks pretty well-dressed and clean. Won't we come across as arrogant and as thinking that we're better than him?"; "He's obviously got a job, I'm sure he's got money for lunch"; "What if they think we're trying to poison them"; "I can't do it. You go. If you go, they'll be more receptive"; "But I feel so awkward... no, no, I can't. You go".

And so it went until we had been sitting in the parking lot of another centre in the area for about 10 minutes, watching the man who was sweeping up leaves on the sidewalks (not to mention having changed parking spots twice while doing it! lol). Sounds utterly pathetic, I know. Anyway, Hubby just decided to go for it and after a couple of "What do I say"s and "what if"s, he took the sandwich and went off to give it to the guy. Apparently he just gave him a funny look and then thanked him. He watched Hubby walk away for a while before he finally took a sniff of the sandwhich, peeked inside it, and then took a bite.

The first one was the hardest (the beggar doesn't count). We (or I, rather) quickly eased into it and went on to give away all our sandwiches, but one. I changed tack by losing "Happy Mandela Day" and rather explaining what Mandela Day was and why I was giving sandwiches, which elicited much better reactions. The whole experience was thoroughly rewarding. I'm still all about LOVE and I'm so going to make a habit of giving. But, it was also a lesson...

I had this idea that our 67 minutes was going to be a walk-over, but it turned out to be (a mostly agonising) 2 and half hours! I learned that everyone has a story. I learned that all it takes is a little time to get to know someone's story & you would be surprised to learn how much you really can give with what little you've got. We had it in our heads that 'needy' people are out there, like this other sub-species of human with easily identifiable markings. But we are needy too - all of us. Whether you have a roof over your head or live under a newspaper. We all need something, that someone close-by can give. We all need something that someone else has a lot of, like love or a helping hand, or time, or friendship, or even sandwiches. Yes, even sandwiches.

Like the one guy we gave a sandwich to by the train station. He was clearly employed in some sort of hard-labour, but he hadn't eaten all day and he needed that sandwich. Even though all I had was a sandwich... the lesson was, all he needed was a sandwich!

And as we drove off and I saw him bow his head in a silent prayer, it all started to hit home. Of all the sandwiches we gave that day, I only saw that reaction once - but just that one guy... just that one sandwich made it all worth it.