Life is Brutiful

I read a book a while ago called "Carry On, Warrior" by a woman named Glennon Doyle Melton. She also has a blog that's fantastic. If you are a human being and you find yourself having a hard time adjusting to life on this planet, do yourself a favor and read her stuff. She's one of the brilliant people I've found this past year who is helping me to get healthy in my head. And if you know me, you know that's one hell of an expedition.

So Glennon, she writes a lot about living in the "and/both". She says that a lot of people believe very deeply that things have to be "either/or", black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. But sometimes, LOTS of times, life and people are just so AND/BOTH. Yesterday was a glaring example that this is my truth. I am and/both.

I was at the hospital for a birth from noon on Monday to 2pm on Tuesday. This is and/both. I was very excited that one of my clients was going to be welcoming her baby into the world a few weeks early and I was elated to be able to be there with her and to support her. But by 3am, I'd say  both of our excitement was waning. She was strong and steadfast...I was exhausted. But I rallied and she was amazing and she birthed a beautiful baby boy the next day around 1pm. Being a doula is exceptionally gratifying AND very difficult. I mean, come on. I get to see people welcome their babies into the world. My job is to literally witness miracles. And people PAY me for it! That is ridiculous. I KNOW that I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing with my life because I come alive when I do it. Also, it's rough. It can be really physically demanding...during any given birth, I am often doing some form of rubbing, holding, pressing, lifting, jamming, shoving, or bending any part or whole of a woman. It's emotionally demanding...I respond to very different individuals in their most vulnerable moments with whatever they need most at that time. I may have to be comforting or stern, respectful but blatant, or reassuring, or soothing, or calming, or encouraging, or confident, or ALL of the above within the span of a few hours depending on what the situation demands. It's hard on my schedule because it's totally unpredictable. When I say goodbye to my kids, I have no idea how long it will be until I see them again. It's sometimes hard to piece together childcare. It's hard to have more than one glass of wine at any given dinner if I have a client on the calendar for any time that month. I mean come on, you gonna mess with my wine? You BETTER be having a baby. And it is tiring. I'm up for days at a time sometimes with a laboring mama and the difference between her and I (well, one of many) is that I don't have any awesome hormones coursing through my body enabling me to do hard work. But I've got love, and I've got a responsibility to a woman, and I've got determination not to let her down. My work is AND/BOTH. I love it deeply, AND it's rough at 3am. I am weary and drained of all my physical and emotional reserves AND in that moment I get to watch a woman hold her new born baby to her chest and they look at one another like they know each other so well and are still quite fascinated to be finally meeting. Both of those things peacefully coexist in the same space.

So yesterday after I left the hospital, I went home to relieve my mom from watching my kids. My plan was to let them watch TV until their brains completely rotted through so that I could sleep on the couch because I hadn't slept since the previous night. And about one minute into executing my awesome plan, I remembered that I had signed the twins up for a gymnastics class and their first class was happening in like an hour. Lawd have mercy. Ok. "Get you head in the game, Sam", I said to myself. I convinced myself to rally once again and get the kids ready and out the door to a full-filled new experience. Because my brain was at the point where it was figuratively shitting the bed, I had forgotten that new experiences are NEVER fun-filled for my kids. Maybe it's because I'm kind of a coddler or because they've never done daycare, or just due to their personalities, but they FREAK out when trying new things. So I totally forgot to dread this new experience and I got everyone into athletic clothes and out the door. When we got to gymnastics, I stopped into the office to let them know it was our first class and we were clueless. The office person told us we'd be with Miss Katie, or whatever her name was. She seemed adorably sweet so I reassured the kids that she would take good care of them and we got their coats and boots off and ready for class. They were both tentative but because I had zero compassion coursing through my veins at that moment, I told them to get THEIR heads in the game and get onto the floor. They each were crying as they walked out to do some stretching on a carpet square and I quietly asked if the universe could just do me a solid here and please help keep them calm. And THEN the adorably sweet teacher girl stood up and EXITED the floor and was replaced by a muscular, stern-faced, middle-aged MAN who began showing stretches to the kids and my kids LOST. IT. The other children in the class were unfazed as they pointed and flexed their little toes but both my kids turned around and ran out to me literally screaming and crying. As if he had just walked out there and bashed each of their heads with a baseball bat. They gripped my legs and clung to me as if their lives depended on it. And this scene was witnessed by no less than 50 other moms. I had no patience. I had no grace. I told them to stop their crying and get back out there. This was one of those times that I definitely should have said ANYTHING other than what I really thought but I just had no filter. They cried uncontrollably and I just sat there watching them and telling them I didn't feel bad, there was nothing wrong, and cry me a river, whatever, but get back out there! Not my best parenting moment. And I knew in my mind that ALL those other sweet, calm, moms were watching me and cringing at my lack of any human emotion and totally judging me and feeling sad for my kids that they had such a tyrant of a woman as their mother. And I seriously did not even care. A real low point. I sat there while they cried the kind of cries where they cannot even catch their breath and I just wagged my finger in their faces telling them to get over it and I thought I would have to either carry them out there by the scruffs of their necks, or completely fail and just take them home. But then came my second miracle of the day. One of the moms went out to the gym floor, fetched her son, brought him back to where I was angrily sitting with my wailing children, and helped him to ask Brett and Ella if they would like to go with him to bounce on the trampoline. Then the heavens parted and the angels sang, and B & E each wiped away their own tears and nodded a tentative yes to this kind little boy. And off they went to be with their class.  I looked at that mom from my spot on the floor with Levi still clinging to me and I dropped one dramatic tear and mouthed "thank you" from the bottom of my weary busted heart.

I mean this woman was thin and well-dressed and she was perfectly type cast for my brain-story of all the perfect, snotty, judgey moms throwing stones around me. I raggedly told her about how this is the third sport we've tried and I can't get my kids to stop crying through everything and I'm so tired of being the coddling mom and I'm so TIRED because I haven't slept in two days and I'm just not sure I'm doing anything right as a mother. And she hugged me and looked me in the eye and told me she had been there and was still often there. Then every other mom of every other kid in their class reassured me that they knew how I felt and that we are all positive that we're failing as parents. Seriously, it came right out of a Hallmark movie, people I cannot make this stuff up. Just when I was sure that I was awful and so were the people around me, they had compassion and came to my rescue. Yes, I was kind of rotten to my kids. Yes, I'm so freekin sick of them being scared of everything. I'm so freekin sick of ME being scared of everything. And yes, people can be mean and nasty but people are more often kind and caring and helpful and beautiful. And that was a really good reminder for me.  Brett and Ella never looked back at me for the whole class. They bounced, they flipped, they hung and spun and jumped and smiled for the entirety of the hour. THIS is and/both.

Gosh it was a really exhausting day. But I'm learning that you can only win when you are vulnerable. You've got to fall in order to prove that you can get back up. You've got to care for others and you've got to sometimes let yourself be cared for. I'm tired because I felt dogged and ragged and rescued and rejuvenated. I'm tired because it takes a lot of energy to be emptied out and then filled back up again. But this is life. It's not either/or.

Life is Brutal.  And life is beautiful. Life is brutiful.

Thank you, Glennon for teaching me that that's ok.