I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤

“Joy is the most vulnerable of all human emotions. We are terrified to feel joy. We are so afraid that, if we let ourselves feel joy, something will come along and rip it away from us and we will get sucker punched by pain and trauma and loss. So that, in the midst of great things, we literally dress-rehearse tragedy.” Brené Brown, The Call to Courage

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I wrote about this quote in Saturday’s video. It hit me hard. I watched The Call to Courage for the third time today to pull quotes out, not just for the next two weeks, but for the Every Moment Gratitude (2) Challenge in January.

The first time I heard it, I saw myself. The second time, my husband watched it with me and said, “Oh, Babe, that is you!” The third time I watched it, I had an epiphany. Brené Brown calls them “Total God moments.”

So, here’s a story I’ve never told because I’m not proud of it. When my oldest daughter was born, I was overwhelmed by the love I felt. That part, of course, is natural. It felt like no other love I had ever felt before (except for one other time, which I’ll get to). It’s important to note that, when I first thought of this story I’m not proud of — the first time I listened to Brené Brown’s talk — I didn’t even remember the other powerful first love (and profound loss). I had blocked it out. I knew it happened, but I just didn’t allow myself to feel it or even remember it.

So the story I’m not proud of about my oldest daughter, Kelly, is this. We were living in North Carolina when she was born. As far as I know, Kel was the only Rebel in the entire family (both sides) who was born below the Mason-Dixon line. I was far from family and friends. For the first three months after she was born, she couldn’t sleep without being next to me, lying on my chest. She had bad colic. So I always carried her in a pouch. She was my first, so I had read every book I could find at the library about being a good mom. I thought I was ready.

What I didn’t know was that I had post-partum depression. I thought I was the reason she cried all the time. I didn’t understand colic. And I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it except my friend from the Lamaze class. The problem is, she was also a first-time mom. I was (and still am) grateful for her friendship, but we were kind of clueless together.

From the moment my daughter was born, I felt like I was going to do something wrong and hurt this perfect, beautiful child. Or that someone would take her from me. I felt completely unworthy of this profoundly incredible gift of being her mother. So, I made plans to leave. I told myself she would be better off without me, that her father’s family had resources, and her aunts (her father’s sisters), whom I loved dearly, would be a hundred times better at being her mom than I would be. I packed and left her in her dad’s care, then went to get a bus. My friend was planning to meet me in New Jersey at the other end.

The bus never came.

I went home, chastened, and determined to do my best. I raised her, and I made mistakes, but she grew into a beautiful woman, a wife, and the mother of my grandchildren. She’s a terrific mom. I’m incredibly proud of her.

Yet, I never asked myself where the fear came from. Why was I so terrified that I would risk throwing away everything? Today, as I watched The Call to Courage for the third time, I remembered the first time I felt that overwhelming love. It was when my sisters were born. I knew from the moment I held those babies, one and then the other a few years later, that I wanted to be a mom. (According to a beautiful proverb from a tribe in Africa, that is the moment when all my children began heading toward me — all six). I had never felt so much aching tenderness and love for anyone in my life before my sisters were born. There was so much joy in it (during a time of incredible pain).

When I was 14, my father and his wife, my step-mother and the mother of my sisters, moved. We had had only five years together, weekends and summers, from when they were born until when they were torn from my life. I fell apart, but I didn’t remember that until today. My mom took me to a shrink because she didn’t know what was wrong with me or how to fix it. All I did was sit in my room and cry.

The psychiatrist helped, mostly because she was terrifying, and I did exactly what she told me to. She said I had to join two activities in high school that year. I was a freshman. So I joined the marching band and the school newspaper as a photographer. It helped. I got better, eventually. I wrote to my sisters many times, but they never answered. I don’t think they were getting the letters.

The ache of missing my sisters was always a part of my life. It didn’t ease until I grew up and we got back in touch. I didn’t see my baby sis until 19 years later, at our father’s funeral. So, even though I was an only child for most of my life, I am proud to be the oldest sister of two beautiful women whom I adore.

I’m also incredibly grateful I have finally understood (and to have finally forgiven myself) for almost making one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I also want to thank whatever angel delayed that bus and saved the rest of my life.

♥ n.f.