Birth

Giving birth was exhilarating and exhausting. The post game replay never ended. I analyzed and problem solved. Tried to understand how to do it better, how to make it what it was suppose to be. Why didn’t it live up to all of the promises and expectations. What did I do “wrong”, or what was done “wrong” to me? Fear came with me to my second birth. Lots of other tools, and fear. Fear of getting it wrong again, fear of the overwhelming pain, fear of dying. After the second I vowed never to do it again. This was a part of my life that I had gotten through by the skin of my teeth and never wanted to revisit. Like many things I have birthed in my life time, I left it behind with relief that I had survived. It was a means to a joyous end and nothing else. Like graduate school, and several jobs I’ve held, I locked the experience up in a box and put it on a shelf.

Giving birth to new ideas and parts of myself summon fear to me. Fear of shame, fear of vulnerability. Fear of succeeding and being visible. The expectations of what it is suppose to look like and the promises that will go broken, haunt me. What are you going to do next? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? There is no room for wondering. I just want to sit in wonder of what I have and wondering of what will be next. I don’t want to set the bar, because then it looks impossible to jump. I know others are motivated by goals. Having the short term map keeps me on the road. But I want the opportunity to change course and not disappoint. I want the opportunity to take that road I never dared to take before. I want to wonder what I will find and deeply know I will be ok. 

When I think of birth I think of fear and joyous outcomes. Fear of the process and relief when it is over. Birth has been hard and miserable work, worth while. Now I want to find joy in the hard and miserable work. I want to notice how it grows and stretches me, how it is my building block. I want to look back at the experience living in the open and smile fondly. The birth is the joyous outcome, not a thing to be hurtled to get to the prize. I am learning that birth is about journey. The birth process is not a moment, but road. 

What has changed in me is the knowledge that I will survive and be in tact. I will be stretched, but not broken.