Sebastian was recently out of town for six days. Before he left, I was a bit worried about being on my own with the boys for so long. Sebastian is a huge part of our days, and is the most actively involved father I've ever known. But those six days were the best thing that could have possibly happened to me in a long time -- maybe ever.
In those six days I rediscovered how capable I am.
I made a commitment to eating only whole foods, foods that would nourish my body. And I stuck to it.
I made a commitment to taking my vitamins and meds every day. And I stuck to it.
I made my yoga practice a priority -- above the computer, above cleaning up, above watching a movie or reading a book. If the boys were sleeping or otherwise occupied and I had thirty minutes to myself, I used it to practice yoga and meditate.
I decided to only use the computer to check and reply to email and look up the occasional specific thing (a recipe, for example) for a week. No reading blogs, no watching a TV show or movie on netflix, no getting sucked into the world wide web.
I was present for the babies and made sure to meet their need to be outside, their need for warmth in the chill of the coming cold, to make good, healthy meals for them.
It may sound cliche or cheesy, but I found myself again during those six days.
For the past two years I have felt lost. When we got on the train and headed west from Chicago, I left behind all of the things I defined myself by for the four years I was in university. I left behind the close friendships I had formed, the independence the el train and bus system allowed me, the innovative and exciting theatre scene, the museums and libraries, the classrooms that I felt so invigorated in. I left behind my freedom to travel, to come and go as I pleased, to spend my days any way I chose.
When we arrived in Spokane, I holed up in our basement quarters for two months until Pan was born. And then we were snowed in for about three months. Suddenly there was seemingly no time to work on re-defining myself and my life -- I was a mother and that was all there was to it. And so I read and studied on how to be the best mother I could be, which seemed to mean that I had to sacrifice everything else for my baby.
I also faced a diagnosis of bipolar disorder that made a great deal of my youth and teen years make much more sense to me. But two pregnancies and the whirlwind of hormones that accompanied them over two years really aggravated the bipolar and sent my moods way out of my control. I felt helpless, never knowing who I was going to be through the course of the day. I cried a lot. I felt debilitated and sat around most of the time doing nothing and feeling guilty about it. I leaned hard on Sebastian and let him carry the weight of responsiblity in our household and family.
I think many things have aligned to create this shift in my sense of self. My meds are finally in the right combination and dosage to help stablize the chemical element of my moods. I am learning natural ways to calm or energize myself when I do feel a twinge of depression or mania -- deep breathing, especially. I am writing pages
every day and making time for reading.
Actually, my my workbook
told me that in the fourth week I would recover a sense of inegrity: This week may find you grappling with changing self-definition. The tasks are designed to catapult you into productive introspection and integration of new self-awareness. This may be both very difficult and extremely exciting for you.
I didn't really take this seriously, and kind of forgot about it, as I didn't use the workbook much throughout the week. When I opened it this morning to do an exercise I re-read that title page for the chapter and laughed at how true it had been.
A lot of changes are going to be happening for us in the next few months. I'll go into details soon, but I am just so deeply happy that I've come into myself again. I will need all the inner strength and peace I have to approach the chaos of the coming months with grace.
+Chelsea
.