Finding My Footing and Leaving Muddy Footprints
As it turns out, our feet were made to be bare!
I am sitting here watching my 361 day old baby take her first nap of the day as I write this. I wanted to be near here for inspiration for this piece, because well, she is the inspiration. Phoebe June is my muse.
I spent so much of my life thinking parents were full of shit when they talked about how much they loved their children. Like when their babies emerged into this world the pain just melted away and angels sang. There was no way, I call bull. Yeah they are the “most precious thing in the world” and all that, but how special could it possibly feel to be loved like that? I had been in love, or so I thought, there was no way I thought it could be better than being loved by a partner. And then I became an aunt, and I totally understood love then, or so I thought. Then I got my own dog and I totally understood being a parent and that undying, unconditional love, or so I thought.
Fast forward to a hot and humid 2:00 a.m. on the 7th of August in the year 2023. I am quietly tapping my husband’s shoulder and apologizing for waking him so early. I was quite certain I needed to go to the hospital and have this baby. Exactly one week prior I had experienced a similar, feeling causing us to rush to the hospital, bags and all; ready to have a baby then. If that was not real labor, this had to be because if this wasn’t it then I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to handle the real thing. Luckily, it was full blown labor. Mucous plug, expelled. Bloody show, seen. Contractions, contracting. My water was trickling down my leg so they popped that fluid sack to speed up the process when we got there. It fucking worked. I blinked and I was in the position: legs up, pushing a human out of my vagina. There was pain and vomiting and an epidural and crying, but they were right, the other moms, you kind of forget it. It fades away, all the shit dissipates with time. In my case, the literal shit does too, because my sweet babe came out moving her bowels all over her momma, an omen of the messes to come. I remember the kind staff. I remember thinking “of course I have to do this” as I reminded the doctor to please shut the door while my entire pussy was on display for the whole maternity ward. I remember the relief from no epidural to epidural, but the pain I really can’t picture. It was really bad and not fun, but I can’t feel it. It all melted away when she came.
I can feel the love I felt watching Cole become a father. I can still feel that. The singular best moment of my life thus far, I can’t imagine anything topping it. Something else was special for Cole and I about the day our daughter decided to enter this world, it was our second wedding anniversary. So, exactly three years after we woke up early one August morning to have the world’s smallest wedding at sunrise, our rainbow child decided to wake us up early again and this time, join us. To my surprise Cole essentially was able to deliver Pheebs, shout out to Dr. Dubs. He even bare-handed her. The iconic “it’s a girl” was barely audible from his mouth as he laid her on my chest and we two, became three. I was whole for the first time in my life. I understood. I get it now.
I felt a high those first 24 hours that is as indescribable as the pain I felt we she entered the world. I spent so much of my life stressing about childbirth. Dying from a bleed, the horrific pain, nightmarish situations requiring emergency situations. Childbirth is no fucking joke, it’s an unbelievable trauma that the body goes through, Trust me, I’m a nurse. And a mom. Basically an expert, no I just have ADHD and an intense fear of death, so a hyper-fixation of catastrophic situations. It didn’t happen like that though. None of the horrors that I had mentally prepared for my whole life happened. I got so fucking lucky. I got so lucky. I was so lucky, in fact, I am too scared to ever do it again because that hyper-fixation/overthinking center of my brain rationalizes that another childbirth would now be the exact opposite and end in said catastrophe. How else could this be possible, there must be a loophole somewhere.
I want to be honest. I love my baby more than life itself. I did not, however, love infancy. I struggled with it a lot. I, again, feel lucky that we had no major issues or illnesses to grapple with in her first year. Still though, I get very triggered by baby crying. I know, we all do, it’s in our genetics. Well, it is really hard for me to not be able to help, so those first months I was really hard on myself. During my pregnancy I had something called hyperemesis, basically extreme morning sickness. After giving birth I desperately wanted to be able to breastfeed Phoebe and for a short while I was able to, but I after two months my body stopped producing. That felt like a failure. Another thing that moms warned me of, but I thought were exaggerating, was the mom guilt. No it’s so real. I thought I was starving my baby on accident when I realized she was crying because she was not getting any milk when she was latched. I remember breaking down in the rocking chair, mentally abusing myself for being so stupid. This kind of internal struggle persisted throughout a lot of the first year. I am so grateful to have had access to therapy for support, as well as Cole as a partner. I survived it, it was taxing though. I loved every second of it, I cannot do it again.
We got through all of that, and it was like a second passed. Growing up my father always told me “you’re going to regret wishing time away when you’re older”. Turns out, my father is a very wise man. It really has gone so quick, she’s walking. I am chasing a toddler and she’s not even one yet. I have created this tiny, like, miracle beam of love and somehow, I am lucky enough to get to spend everyday with her; growing and learning beside her. I am so lucky that I get to be at home with her. Hell, I want to homeschool her because I don’t want to have to spend a day without her. I never imagined love could feel like this. All my life I waited for something, there was a piece missing. When I found Cole I figured that was it, I was complete. I now know that my heart was so much larger than I ever could have imagined.
I do not think everyone should have children, I do not think a human’s sole purpose is “survival of the species”. I think a lot of kids are super annoying. Moreover kid stuff is annoying. I will strongly recommend this though: I think everyone should have a child influence in their life. I think everyone should make it a point to spend intentional time with children, on their level. You see the world much more clearly when you simplify like kids do. We adults add so much sludge to the waters.
In January my brother in law, Mason, moved in. Mason is a solo kind of guy who loves tech. The man has a bin full of tangled cords that is a prized possession. I love him to death, he’s a nerd. Mason has never had any desire to be a father and he really hasn’t had the opportunity, or want, to spend time with any kids when given the chance. I don’t blame him. He has even admitted that while deciding to move in with a baby he was skeptical. It was probably a month of living here before he held her. Now he runs around and chases the pups with her. Muncle Mason is her best friend. There is something irreplaceable that children can bring into your life: magic.
My life was saved by children. Not my own, though she made my life infinitely more special. No, I was brought back into the world by two three year olds, at the time. J and E. Obviously, the world is gross so I won’t use their full names, but J and E were twins that I started to nanny when I was 23. When I was right on course for a DUI or much, much worse. My careless phase, which sounds better than my suicidal phase, it also doesn’t quit fit. I was not so much trying to end my life, but really tempting fate to cut my thread. And, on a level hoping she would. I thank my lucky stars every day I have the opportunity to wake up and live. That is all thanks to J and E.
You see, being with kids isn’t all throwing tantrums, diapers and baby talk. The key is you have to let yourself be with the kids. Get literally on the same level, and let that level be theirs. Trying to force a child to meet you where you are will absolutely, never be beneficial. I have tried, I promise, get on the ground and meet them. Try to see the world through their eyes. Let yourself think like them. When they ask a question that seems ridiculous, seek out the answer with them. If it is not findable, create your own answer together. I am not sure what the word is for it, for the magic a child reminds you of inside of yourself. They really are miraculous gifts from the universe. Even when they aren’t your own flesh and blood. Not all kids will love you, but there are kids out there who will like you, they will love you. They will want to be like you when they grow up and that reminds you that you’re pretty remarkable too.
The best way I have ever found to describe the impact that J and E made on my life is that they brought color back to me. Funnily enough, I had had no idea that I was living life in black and white prior. I had no idea just how out of control I was. The most magical thing about realizing that you’re at “rock bottom” from the point of view of a child is that all you see is infinite possibly upward. I was able to look around at the world I had created around myself and see that I was heading toward a future that I did not want, but not react to it with anger or sadness. It was a true That’s So Raven psychic moment of seeing two paths forward in front of me: one of contentment and stability or a foggy path with a glimmer of sunlight at the end. I took the latter. I realized my life would never sparkle if I didn’t allow myself to fully live it. I had to learn to embrace the sorcery within and step into the unknown. And now I do it barefoot. It was my niece and nephew who taught me to be brave enough to embark on this journey through life barefoot. A little mess truly never killed anybody, why fear a fixable mistake when so many are final?
Who ever said “Children are the future” first was a very intelligent person; as was whoever shared the sentiment, “It takes a village” originally. If you have the opportunity to be a villager in a child’s life and you are reading this: do not pass it up. No one else in this world can show you how to tap into the most human pieces of yourself, your curiosity and imagination, like a child can. The best thing you can do in return for their gift of insight, is to nurture that sense of wonder. We need to stop forcing them to see the world in grayscale like so many of us get caught doing. The world makes the color fade slowly from our lived, so slowly you may not notice. I didn’t. Until I had met J and E I had thought I was living a life where I was completely fulfilled. Maybe because on paper I was. But in my heart, was I achieving my dreams? No. When the color comes back that doesn’t feel like a failure, but like a gift. It becomes: I still have the opportunity to achieve my dreams. What a wondrous world.
Now fast forward six years, and here I am living my dreams. They may not be what I thought they would be, but that’s the joy of choosing the path with no known ending. I get to wake up everyday unsure of what the day will bring. Now I get to do so with my toddler by my side.
I am so grateful every second of every day. I could cry.
I can look back and see that my color started draining away while I was still a child myself. I didn’t really fight for her though to be fair. I wanted to grow up and be taken seriously so bad. I had no idea that when you grow up people take you even less seriously when you see the world like me. So I learned to ignore the color before it even chose to leave me. I banished it away and allowed the memory to slip away, too. I shudder to think that there are people out there who never had the opportunity to se the color due to their circumstances, or worse, those who had the color and allowed it to leave, but never allowed it back in.
The beautiful thing about living life in color is that it can always get infinitely more vibrant. Blue turns to aqua, turquoise and periwinkle. Reds and oranges blend together in an infinite spread of diverse hues. I could spend my entire life names just the “green family”. Perhaps it won’t bring you the solace it does it me, but the grayscale only is grayscale. It doesn’t get more gray. Life in color will continue to evolve forever and ever.
The color within my Phoebe’s eyes alone is more than most get to experience in all of their existence. I cannot take that for granted.
J and E saved my life, but Phoebe June gave me my life’s purpose: to create. To capture the simple beautiful miracle that is life. That is my life.
