Yearning Nostalgia, Reminiscing Guilt
Didn't expect to write another motherhood related post so soon ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A friend of mine sent me an article from Romper: My Mother's Parenting Book From the '80s Are a Revelation and I read through it quickly while meal-prepping for my child. This article was an easy read and well-written, but my initial impression was that it was no more mind-blowing than the other slew of recent articles bemoaning today’s world of over-information, over-consumption, and generalized anxiety amongst the mass pop.
I honestly spent just a few minutes reading it — but for some reason, as I was getting to the end of the article, I was fighting tears and felt a dull, deep pain inside my chest as if a loved one was hugging me hard. What a picture: a mom with no make-up, disheveled hair, and a stained apron, standing alone in front of her cutting board and a sheet pan ready to go in the oven, crying quietly while her husband and child were playing exhuberantly in the other room.
I had moderately bad, and unfortunately untreated, postpartum depression lasting several weeks to possibly a couple months. This was after a rough birth (unplanned c-section, over 36 hours of labor, blood transfusion, a week-long stay post-birth due to baby’s jaundice, etc.), and before the rough birth, a year of unexplained infertility, which resulted in the soft implosion of one of my most treasured and closest female friendships.
The aforementioned friendship, which I may or may not dive more into on a later post, prompted me to sign up for therapy last summer. The breakup was not too dissimilar to a nauseous split with a romantic partner; situations related more closely like siblings than cousins. Therapy introduced me to the concept of feeling sorry for myself, or in less juvenile / semi-hostile terms, “giving myself grace.” Without even realizing it, I was constantly chastising myself, my thoughts, my body, my looks, my words. But if you were to give me a quick survey by asking, “Do you love yourself?” I would’ve answered confidently “yes.” Cognitive dissonance, much?
The internal harsh treatment continues to this day, it’ll probably continue in ebbs and flows throughout the course of my entire life. It crested after the birth of my child when the shame of immediately not bonding with the baby pulsed in my ears like a warning light. I remember when I rode with my days-old newborn in the ambulance after the hospital transferred us to another hospital, I didn’t want to sit or be near the car seat, which was strapped to a gurney during the ride. I just wanted to sleep, be fed by my mother, and return to my old life.
Thankfully the bonding and love eventually did arrive, along with my breastmilk and postpartum care from my parents. But it was overshadowed by an intense anxiety and exhaustion, to the point where if you had cut open my bones you would have seen nothing but dust. I continue to feel guilt about not enjoying those newborn / infant cocoons more. While on maternity leave and beyond, I yearned for the life I was living pre-child. I still yearn for my old life, but even further back now — my childhood. Maybe that’s why I keep reading to my toddler used library books published in the 1980s and 1990s. I prefer the actual recycled books over the new re-prints, the texture and smell of the pages adds to the bittersweet nostalgia.
I won’t be able to end this post in a facile manner. I suppose I just wanted to document my desire to time-travel, triggered by the Romper article. I want to go back to the nineties to hug my mom, who probably didn’t read these books, but nevertheless experienced child rearing in a lonely but simple manner. I want to go back to life before the internet and the smart-phone, both of which I place a large amount of blame on for amplifying my guilt and anxiety during those early postpartum days. I want to go back in time to the months following my child’s birth and give my past self a big hug. And maybe when I was crying alone in the kitchen this morning and felt that deep pang in my chest, it was the ghost of a future or past self from another timeline giving me a hug today.
