I’ve missed this space, and I’ve missed using it as a vessel to place the hard parts of me. The parts of me that are mine to own, mine to wrestle with, mine to keep, and mine to decide if I place in another’s hands.
I booked a series of counselling appointments today. Doing so felt like admitting (again) that a part of me was broken. I didn’t know what to do with those feelings other than taking a deep breath, pressing the confirm button, and watching the banners atop my phone pop-up as the appointment confirmations came into my email, one by one.
Life has been a dance as of late. Several of these dances started just this past June, and they are steps I am still learning (and fumbling my way through).
The dance of parenting schedules. Figuring out who is “on”, who is “off”, and trying to make sense of it all among the thousand other things on our calendars. Seeing my kids, not seeing my kids, worrying over my kids among the transition, wondering about my kids when I’m gone, wondering about my kids when I’m there, the joy of reconnecting, and the sadness of goodbyes (a sadness that hits me in different depths and different, unpredictable ways every damn time).
The dance of co-parenting. The back-and-forth texting of asks, needs, and wants. The wearing of different shoes, reading of changing rooms, and the navigation of respect (and sometimes failing) around a relationship that has changed so much from its original dynamic. Nonetheless, forging on among such dynamics, undertaking a shared enterprise of care and upbringing for the tiny humans you created together with this person you once loved.
The dance of a tenuous living arrangement. Spaces that should have long since separated (like the relationship that bound it) but remain still unchanged (for too many reasons to name). The dance of respect (and sometimes failing) among choices made in those spaces, the feelings of frustration (on both our ends), and the need for space and distance. The continuation on “as is” because change isn’t going to be soon to come, and how to reckon and be and dance in that period of waiting.
A culminating dance of all these factors, and the effects they’re having on my mental health. My desperate bids for control among a world in which I feel I now desperately lack. Losing myself in the coping mechanisms/dances of doing and busy and cleaning and organizing and obsessions and compulsions in a frenzied bid to find a single iota of control in this life I’m leading. To still have a face and a house and a life to present in this dance of life even if all the parts inside of it are on fire.
As I’ve danced these steps these past three months, I haven’t always made it past another’s toes. At times, and I’m not proud to admit it, I’ve purposely stepped on toes I’ve deemed in my way. I’ve fumbled and I’ve flailed, I’ve tried to see what works and I’ve had some epic fails. I’ve stubbed my own toes, I’ve caused bruises (both internal and external), and I am still very much on a journey of learning how to step, how to be and become, and how to find happiness in such a gigantic realm of change and transition.
It hasn’t been a pretty dance.
Arguably, this was perhaps the worst time ever for me to have gone off my meds. Tell two months ago me that. I’ll tell my counsellor that.
Yet, among these dances (and these stumbles), there has been love.
A love of who I am, even if I frustrate the ever living fuck out of myself sometimes. A love of how I’ve changed (physically and mentally). Watching me actively choose now to live/dance the life I want as opposed to the life I was given. A seeing of a girl in the mirror who put in the fucking work, and who is learning to love the person looking back at her (however slow and broken that process may be). She still has a long way to go, but she’s trying, and god damn, she is *dancing*. It is breathtaking to behold. Also, she weirdly goes on hikes now and enjoys it? But, I digress.
A love of my children. These are trying times for all of us, and they have been doing their best to navigate this dance in ways that make sense to them. There have been big emotions, big questions asked, and learning experiences for us all. But god, they’ve grown. And their love for me, no matter my length of absence, has been unwavering. To see their excitement when they realize I’m home or I’m there to pick up at child care or whatever, it’s nourishing. It is giving. It is joy.
A love of friends. Reconnecting physically and dancing with people that I have long believed because of parenthood, I couldn’t. But I can do hard things. I do them every damn day. I am able, and I can. The exploring of those in-person friendships and how they grow and become among the realities of parenting schedules, offering new dynamics and new ways of existing. New ways of dancing. New ways of rekindling sources of joy.
And a romantic love (he knows who he is). A love that means a profound amount to me and has helped shape my pathways and journeys in these dances towards goodness and wholeness. A love that I admittedly have pulled into dances that wasn’t his responsibility to lead, and a love that I should have protected better when there was too much of my becoming, unravelling, finding, fumbling, grasping, and flailing among such dances. A love I want desperately to keep, but I love that I will respect if he feels he can no longer be a part of this dance with me.
I see you, counselling.
I’ve changed since I was last in your realm, and there is much for us to reconcile in our re-acquaintance.
I hold my hand out to you now to join me in this dance.
