Since Verity was born I've been wallowing in a bit of a depression. There's something about having a baby that causes me to go through something like grief. And while I can blame at least part of it on physiology and post-pardum depression, I can't pretend like part of it - a substantial part of it - isn't just me.
I know my last post was about depression and it's not something I like to wallow in. C.S. Lewis writes in A Grief Observed, "I almost prefer the moment of agony. These are at least clean and honest. But the bath of self-pity, the wallow, the loathsome sticky-sweet of indulging it - that disgusts me" and I empathize with him completely. But writing about it helps me not to wallow so much, to let at least a part of it go and be done with.
So yeah, part of it is me. I mean, it's been three months now since Verity's birth, how crazy can my hormones still be? The lack of motivation and inability to see the worth of many things isn't unique to my postpartum reality, only reinforced by the lack of sleep. I've always had a serious lack of motivation in my life. On the one hand, I get intense anxiety at the disorganization of my home, but on the other hand, can't seem to muster up the drive to do anything about it. "Why bother," I ask myself, "it's only going to get messy again," or even taking that thought process as far as, "Why do anything significant with my life, I'm just going to die and I can't take it with me."
I have to say though, I am grateful for the grace God has given me to keep making choices. I fought through the confusion and frustration of wanting to pick the "perfect" college, and instead I just picked one already. Instead of dwelling indefinitely in the land of the undeclared, waiting for some magical epiphany to spell out what I was supposed to do with my life, I found that I enjoyed theater and decided to major in it (Well, more accurately, I found that I enjoyed music, theater and dance - although, with the exception of tap, I was no good at that third one - and majored in Integrative Studies, working with my professors to design my own concentration in Performing Arts). I'm someone who looks for signs and affirmations to guide my decisions, but I think the only decision I ever made that truly felt "meant to be" was the decision to marry Bryan. Thank God for that, seeing as it was a pretty important one! Still, there were fears - specifically, that of commitment - that I had to battle through. But I kept battling through them. I started a family. I moved "away from home" - as far away as I could wrap my head around (a whole 45 minutes away), because I'm still not THAT brave yet.
Over the years, I've learned not to let my lack of motivation keep me from making choices and moving forward. But it's still a huge struggle. Surprisingly, or maybe it isn't so surprising to some of you, it's most difficult when it comes to the little things. I think those things are harder for me to see the value in. Even now, I am making a conscious consistent choice to just keep writing, without stopping, despite my lack of real desire, without paying attention to word-choice or anything else really. Because while my conscious self fails to see the use, something in my core seems to know that it's important and good.
This is almost always the case when I write. When I do, it's because something has stirred up thoughts and emotions in me that make me itch, for lack of a better off-the-top-of-my-head description. And while I may not feel that itch a couple hours from now, it will still be there, adding to whatever anxiety I'm already experiencing, since I'm almost always experiencing anxiety in some form or another.
What makes this so hard is that, as unlikely as it may seem, I'm a perfectionist in my own way. Right now it is driving me crazy that I'm not paying attention to word choice or any semblance of weaving my thoughts together in a logical progression. But I don't have the time. I have a baby that I need to jump up and entertain every several minutes and a husband and toddler who will be back any minute from their walk, and if I let these things hold me back, I would never write anything again.
Coming back to A Grief Observed… That is today's "something" that has stirred up my thoughts and emotions. In just the first few pages, Lewis' description of grief is already sounding so like my own that I'm "itching" internally all over (I really wish I had thought of a better word right about now). He got my wheels turning right from the start with "No one ever told me grief felt so like fear" and not long after with, "… I want others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me." It reminded me of how much it hit home when I read a Facebook post entitled something like, "What it's like to have an extroverted personality but really be an introvert". In general, but especially when I'm feeling really low, I ache to be surrounded by people and activity, but lack something - the energy, perhaps? - to interact.
That husband and toddler I told you about came back from their walk and I had to take an intermission. I'm not going to worry about picking up where I left off because none of this was ever really going anywhere to begin with. I just had the opportunity to write and I took it. I just took my first real shower in I don't know how long. By "real" I mean I didn't leave out any steps in the interest of time.
Now I'm in my room. Alone. And I actually have some time to spare because the girls are apparently behaving. This happens so rarely. I actually forget what it's like to be alone with other people in the house. What I mean by that is sort of like the experience I was just describing where I left off. Hearing Bryan and the girls downstairs while being able to just be in my room collecting my thoughts is such a peaceful experience for me. I told him the other day that when I have a bad day, it starts to get bad when the girls take their afternoon naps. The house is so deadly quiet that I can't relax. But I can't relax when they're awake either, because they need me. I am most peaceful when I have them all here with me, asking nothing of me. Only then do I seem to then be able to ask nothing of myself. Maybe there's something to that. Maybe I feel like I need the permission of others to just be still. When I was growing up, I never worried about whether there was something I was supposed to be doing. If there was, my parents would tell me. If everyone was home and not asking me to do anything, it felt OK to do nothing.
This is one of the reasons it's so hard for me to pray these days. There are so few moments like these when I can just be still and let the spirit of God blow gently (or not so gently) through me. Or if it is, I'm too busy to notice it. And I'm not sure there's any way around this. But I have to assume God understands, because that's just the way life is.
I spend a lot of time wondering if things will ever be this way again. I'm sure once I'm done having kids and they're all old enough to more or less fend for themselves, aside from the occasional demands for missing clothing items or food, I will have more of these moments. But right now that all seems a very long way off.
I'm not sure how to end a post that was, as I said, never really going anywhere to begin with. I almost don't want anyone reading this because it's so raw and disorganized. I think I'll just post it and not tell anyone. If you happen to stumble upon this post, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen.
