Diary of Shame

I was late picking up my daughter and her friend from preschool. It was 12:11. I said "I'm sorry I'm late, I should have left earlier" (taking a cue from an article I'd just read about excuses versus explanations and blame versus accountability--yay me!) Teacher said "Is there something that makes it hard for you to get here on time?"

I felt a warm flush crawling up my face and my heart sinking until its place in my chest was replaced with a hollowness. I thought, "she hates me, I'm so broken I can't even pick up my daughter on time." And then I wondered if I've ever been on time...I know I'm not usually the first and not always the last. I thought, I'm usually pulling up at 12:05 and if ever I'm later that 12:10, I pay the late fee as stipulated in the disclosure document, which I hate to admit has happened about once a month.

Teacher suggests maybe I could set an alarm or something, "so I don't have to wait for you."

I fake a smile through my dilated pupils. Guilt realizes I never thought about her waiting for me and Shame seizes the opportunity: I cannot resist the weight of my head hanging in Shame; my shoulders follow like "good obedient" children; my hands slither into my pockets. I mumble something about having to try that, while my tunnel vision locks on the doorknob and the escape alarm sounds.

"She won't let us come back next year" Fear says. I feel myself being pulled apart. I try to hold myself together with Guilt seeking some explanation I can use to find a solution to my tardiness problem. I was enjoying myself too much, I have a hard time pulling myself away--hyper-focused, how can I manage that better? "Damn it!" Blame interjects. "If you weren't so sensitive and deprived from childhood you would be a better adjusted adult."

Right now all I know is I need a shower. The greasiness of shame apparent on my hair. The hollow of my heart apparent in my dull complexion.

I also know I need to tell someone. My training tells me Shame cannot survive in the light. Shame wonders who could understand the paradox of my feelings, the "mountains out of molehills" my mother called them. "Why are you so sensitive?" Shame taunts me.

I think of my best friend, I know she'll listen, but Shame reminds me she's always there, on time, for her kids...I know that's not true and yet I wonder who else I have in my Empathy Seat. I have recently been trying out my husband for this role with pleasing success...but tardiness is a pet peeve of his and a source of past frustration between us Shame reminds me again. "But!" I say, I can tell him I just need him to listen without judgement and I don't even want a response. So there!"

Shame switches to distract mode with "you should text the teacher a groveling excuse. Maybe she'll feel sorry for you." 

"Grrrr. I'm not falling for your hustling for worthiness tactics, Shame." I think of another friend, a self-professed sister tardier, I could text her to sit in my empathy seat... It's better in writing anyway...I'd hate to leave anything out. I imagine any number of people in my Empathy Seat, a previously lonely enterprise, but now that I believe I am worthy of love and belonging, the exercise has served its purpose and Shame regresses to its corner. Like a shadow Shame is always there and I cannot get rid of it, but knowing where it stands, I can turn away from it to face the sun.

Circles

At time of publishing I am 20 weeks pregnant and currently no longer experiencing the relentlessness of pregnancy and nausea I was under at 6 weeks when I wrote this, however, I am still holding to my commitment in the last paragraph and that is making all the difference this time around. 


Written at 6 weeks gestation:


I'm pregnant.

*sigh*


It's not that I'm disappointed or ungrateful. It's just. A. Heavy. Load.

You see, it's my sixth pregnancy. And pregnancy is, well, I don't think I really have to tell you, but pregnancy is emotional duh! And while each one is unique, each one also carries all of the emotions of the previous ones. So instead of feeling just one pregnant, I feel pregnant six. times. over. Six times happier, six times scared, six times delusional, hopeful, regretful, painful, anxious, powerful...

Psychology tells me that's my "emotion mind," which in my "normal" state is already a little hyper-vigilant and now in my "heightened" state it thinks it's the Supreme Ruler. Can someone just carry me around in one of those shoulder taxis for nine months please? The Supreme Ruler thinks time stands still until this tiny being growing inside me becomes a fully developed human being growing outside me. For nine months, (eight now I guess) it consumes me. I want the beginning, the end, and all the emotions of the past five pregnancies to culminate and converge on this one moment in time, when it will all be done. Finished. Checked off the list. Behind me. Perfect. Then I can move on with life, as if creating life is far from living life. Do you ever feel like that?

I suspect I have a control issue. Oh and I have a resistance to change. Change. The only constant. The unrelenting constant when it comes to pregnancy that perpetuates itself every 24,192,000 seconds of gestation. 24,192,000 seconds of dividing cells, growing tissue, splitting hairs, pumping blood, beating hearts.

Two hearts. From two bodies becoming one, to one body becoming two.
Cycles. Life cycles.
Circle of Life. Circles.
Life.
Always traveling in a different direction, always to continue on the same path.

So the planets, the moon, and me, going in circles. I wish I could get to the center. Sun envy I guess you could call it. Where the universe, or at least a solar system, do revolve around me for once. Don't judge. For most of my life I have been selfless to a fault. I have taken care of  those who should have taken care of me. I have taken blame for things I could not control. I have taken light from that God given part of myself to please others. But in taking things that weren't mine, I have actually been selfish. Selfishly putting myself at the center of the universe trying to control what wasn't mine to control in the first place. And now I realize the truly selfless are those that neither take nor give, but just be. Be what God made them to be.

So as I begin this journey for the sixth time over, I pray for being. Being one with this changing body. Being one whole. One whole being. Becoming two. So, dear baby, I will not give myself to you. I wish I could be enough for the both of us, I wish I could be your sun and you my universe, but you deserve a whole start, not some orphaned piece of my fractured soul. So no, I will not give my self to you, but I will let you make your self whole within me.