A Walking Letter B

Taken December 7, 2022

I have kept a journal since I learned how to write. Regular ol’ Mead Five Star college ruled notebooks in a variety of colors take up space in our storage room filled with all the thoughts and feelings that have conspired over the years. I don’t like fancy journals with inspiring quotes, or anything hard-bound, just a plain spiral-bound notebook. There is NO better feeling for a dedicated Journal Worm than the day you crack open a brand new, empty book. A new chapter of your world just waiting to be filled with poorly written feelings. I think I’ve saved everything since college, and maybe some little girl diaries. That’s a lot of life to be able to look back on. I’m not 100% sure why I’ve always been so compelled to document my life this way. I’ve felt it more strongly than anything in my entire life, it’s been the one constant thing in the evolution of me, and now it’s the cool thing to do. The only trend I’ve been ahead of.

It comes in handy when your memory fails you. It’s amazing the stories we tell ourselves about our past selves, and the ways we get ourselves wrong! You can never fully trust your memory, and I know this so well because I’ve gone back in my Marion chronicles many times finding so many surprises. I did this recently when I found my journal from my last pregnancy.

In my memory, I was much calmer and less worried about the birth process, and the story I’ve told myself since then is that I just didn’t know any better because I hadn’t experienced birth before. I’ve been totally wrong about myself. I was every bit as nervous and anxious then as I am today, two days before my due date with my second. I certainly had more to be nervous and anxious about back then-my husband was perpetually on tour and had lots of shows around my due date. I also didn’t have a clue what it felt like for a baby to exit my body, no clue how much harder breastfeeding would eventually be, I had zero wisdom and was just jumping into this crazy experience that women jump into every day. And I was so far from my family and felt alone. And yet, my memory says “you were so zen before your first birth.” What a tricky bitch.

Why did my memory flip so inaccurately? Perhaps it was my brain’s way of convincing me to do something as crazy as birth another child after such a hard first experience. And what if I never wrote my thoughts and feelings down, believing my own bullshit and sending it out into the world? We do it every day, the memory is entirely unreliable-I think maybe we’re just these bubbles of feelings bouncing around getting through life. What other memories have me convinced of good or bad experiences that are not wholly true? Well, thankfully I have records.

Being pregnant is such a wild ride, particularly where the public is concerned. You hear crazy things all day, usually it’s very pleasant, but you realize how frequently we, as people, talk right out of our asses as though we know anything. I can’t tell you how many people have observed that I’m carrying high, right before someone comments that I’m carrying very low. I’ve heard “oh that is DEFINITELY a girl” and then went somewhere else to hear “that MUST be a boy.” You couldn’t believe how many people observed how large I get in pregnancy and swore I wouldn’t make it to December, let alone my December 10 due date. I heard this all the time with Gloria and I went 8 days past my due date. It’s usually men, which is adorable. People are so certain, and so certainly wrong! All day! We just spew out cute little nonsense of which we are so absolutely convinced! We are a truly darling species. And we usually mean well, even when our words fail us, leaving our feet dangling out of our mouths. It’s a funny kind of attention you can’t avoid when you’re so swollen. I’ve been enjoying it, knowing this is the last time I will experience pregnancy. I will miss people smiling at me just because of my belly, especially older ladies, and I know it’s not everyone’s preference, but I do love touchy feely girlfriends who feel my big tummy. It makes me feel loved, it makes me feel like my baby will be loved by them.

The main difference about this experience is that I’m trying harder to soak it up. The pregnancy itself flew by because my life was so busy. But it’s slowed down now, and I’ve entered “the time in between.” I was sent an article while I was waiting for Gloria to arrive about this time in between, see the link down below. It’s the ‘Zwischen’, a German word for the in-between. It brings me peace in these final days, and I share it with every friend now when they enter Zwischen. And the wisdom I carry now is knowing that it’s all temporary. You just can’t quite understand that when you’re in the thick of it with your first. Every hard time feels like it’s the rest of your life, and now I know it’s not. Motherhood taught me that there is NO option but to get through it. It doesn’t matter if I have a stomach bug, the baby needs milk. It doesn’t matter if I’m wildly depressed, the baby needs me. My children will always need me, no matter what state I’m in. This is the main reason why I had the foresight to request a Zoloft be placed in my hand the moment after this baby arrives. I know better than to even allow myself an opportunity to feel that low while a tool exists to keep me out of the mess, all with the foresight that I just have to get through it and that it’s not forever! It’s a pretty beautiful place in life, as hard as it will be. A place of true acceptance.

This time I know what my body will look and feel like after the taut, firm roundness turns to wrinkly jello for a few months. I know that all of the meat I gained in my legs and backside and arms are specific fat storages for the milk that will grow my baby and that it will take several months to burn it all off. I will be myself again one day, I know this now and didn’t then. I will long for quiet nursing time in the dark when this baby becomes a preschooler who talks back. I will miss the simple problems that happen with tiny ones because the problems get so much bigger and harder the older she becomes.

My most prized possessions: The Mead Five Star notebook and a Pentel RSVP Fine Point pen.

I’ve only filled about two notebooks since my pregnancy with Gloria, but in those notebooks, you can read about all of the anxieties and excitements, my whole birth experience, the pages and pages of a depressed person who hasn’t yet discovered she is depressed. Finally, the discovery that I was depressed. Those are hard pages. My baby turning one, the hardships of being a mother feeling alone with a husband on tour, debating a move away from Nashville, a move away from Nashville, and exploring a new town with new customs. Feelings of sadness being so far away from my family. A new job, sadness leaving my daughter to work long hours. Newfound independence and skills and confidence. A new home, new car, new life. And now, a new baby. It’s a lot of life crammed into a couple of Mead Five Star college ruled notebooks with my sometimes tidy, sometimes messy cursive. I can’t WAIT to be able to write about Helena.

I hope these notebooks won’t be a scary burden to my children when I’m gone. It’s the good, bad, and ugly. It’s my brain vomit, and I protect these notebooks very seriously. I’d be mortified if anyone, even my beautiful husband, broke trust and opened these up while I’m living. It’s terribly written stories on tear-soaked pages. A lot of rambling and embarrassing myself. A lot of not knowing anything, and figuring it all out. I hope the writing gets better in my future notebooks. I hope my girls will feel proud and amused when they discover them. Maybe there will be a day when they’re grown and going through all of the hard things a young person goes through and I’ll be able to show them that I went through it, too. I have hard evidence.

The Last Days of Pregnancy: A Place of In-Between This is a lovely article you should share with someone waiting for their baby to finally arrive.