Transition. Not as in the sweet rift of evolution and transformation. Not that feeling, no, not the chrysalis of change nor the terrified gut like you're at the top of the roller coaster about to come roaring down.
This is transition, as in birth. The brick wall. The place of 'I cannot go on,' when you really truly know you have to, that there is no other way. The baby's not going back in. Even if it ends up happening by surgery, that baby comes out. Even if the most awful happens and the baby dies, he's still coming out. Even if you die, that baby's still coming out. Usually when mamas feel this way, they're dilated to 10cm and are about to start that home stretch of pushing, a heave-ho for some women, or a grueling marathon for some, like me. Either way, at transition we're close, so much closer than we've been, and that's when it feels impossible. We feel more than doubt - deep despair. Total stark hopelessness.
I've never felt quite this way when I was not in labor. Actually, I didn't quite feel so wholly this way even in labor, though I have witnessed women going through it.
I feel it now. I appreciate that my boys are with me, constantly showing me why I have to go on. I also sometimes wish I could just take care of myself in this moment. I wish I could let it all go and dive and hit rock bottom with the force of will and gravity together. I do not want to do that to my children. I do want to do it for myself.
After being responsible for some time, I want to be irresponsible. I want to go tear shit up, I want to not care, I want to not be good. Like Mary Oliver says, 'You do not have to be good," and I say 'Hell yeah!' even though she didn't mean it in that badass way. She meant in it in that sanctimonious derisive viewpoint way, equally important. But why not be good? Why be 'free' of the things I most love? It's like when I used to give myself weekends off from my yoga practice... Why give myself time off from something that makes me feel deeply good?
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