holding and being held

Somewhere along the way, my hair has become my two-year-old’s comfort object. When he is upset, he reaches out to hold the end of my ponytail in his fist. Before he falls asleep, he mutters, “I want your hair.” Sometimes he twists and pulls my hair which is terribly annoying, overstimulating, and sometimes painful. But the impulse to hold his mom’s hair is so innocent, so elemental, I can’t harbor anything but tenderness for it. Of course you can hold my hair, baby. He used to hold my hair like that while he nursed, and now that he’s not nursing anymore, of course he still wants that. Of course he does. How human to desire continuity of comfort. Your mom holding you, you holding her. If we are so lucky, it’s one of the best things we get to experience in life, I think — being small and being held by someone who loves us wholeheartedly. It’s a shame that it’s so hard to remember.

The deeper I get into motherhood, the more true treasure I find. The deeper I get, the more I want to truly experience every day I have with my kids. It has incited more true mindfulness in me than anything else in my life. I want to be here. I want to really experience my life with my children. I want to remember. Not all the time, obviously. I get so tired, I get so frustrated, I get so bored. But it is so enchanted, truly, to experience the reciprocity of love between my children and me. To watch them grow. To feel their dependence on me, to meet their needs and know them well. To honor the ways I need them too, and manage that need as an adult. I am so proud of them and I am so proud of myself. I learn every day, and I notice myself growing and changing into a better mom little by little.

I’ve been in a pretty tough spot with my mental health in the past few weeks. It’s anxiety, mostly triggered by instability and fear of the future’s uncertainty. I have felt myself being very affected by some (not even that terrible) financial shifts for our family, some chronic illness flares (probably caused by the stress), and all the…news. I feel my mind searching frantically for some sort of certainty, some handle of control. Every decision feels bad and the future feels scary instead of bright. I want to know if and when we will have another baby so I can make sure we save the money to pay for the birth (we’ve had to pay a 6k deductible on top of premiums for both of our son’s births) and so that I can set myself up to take some kind of maternity leave as a small business owner. Speaking of small business, I want certainty that I will be able to continue making money this way — that I will connect with enough doula clients and that sewing pattern sales will not continue to fall. I want to know if I’ll sell my new poetry book, and if anyone will want to read it. I want to know if I have good ideas, if what I have to offer is helpful and wanted in the world. I want to know if I will be able to continue to balance work with motherhood, if I will be able to deliver on my goals without losing my mind or spending too much time away from my family. I want to know how much our marketplace health care is going to cost next year, and I want to know what to do if becomes unaffordable like I’m afraid it will. I want to know if my husband will get a cost of living raise that actually responds to cost of living increases. I want to know if we still will have some semblance of order and decency in our country! I feel visceral fear about all the uncertainty, while knowing full well that others have so much more to fear. The sorrow and suffering of the world takes it all over the edge — I can hardly even take it in.

I can’t be certain about any of the ticker tape of questions running through my mind, and uncertainty is the secret sauce that typically breaks my own particular brain. So, this translates for me to just a lot of somatic experiences of stress and sadness, and difficulty with executive functioning and staying present especially when I am supposed to be working, being brilliant and producing amazing things. I feel like a leaky faucet or an open wound, so reactive and tender. I want to hide away and cry. What helps? — being with my kids. Holding them, touching them, reading them books, watching them elegantly scooter circles around out local “scooter place.” Dealing with their needs, keeping just busy enough to not really be able to think much beyond the present moment. Being with them, embroiled in the mechanical motion of our family, wrapped in our cocoon — not needing to produce anything but care, not needing to make money, provide or plan ahead, or figure everything out — is the balm. Sometime the stress creeps in, of course, a cold hand on my shoulder. But when I’m with them I have good reason to shake it off and carry on. They need me. They look to me for everything. There is no true stability for any of us, but I can be stable for them. And embodying that stability, coming back to the truth of the moment, which is that we are here right now, together, ultimately helps me feel more steady too.

Parenting is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I think it took me a few years and an exit from the perpetual postpartum survival mode I was stuck in to start to really feel the ways it enriches my life too. I feel so lucky to have so much time with my kids, and I find myself feeling so protective of that time, scheming ways to get more of it, to keep everything in balance without the scales tipping too far in any direction. I feel upset when I think about my oldest starting kindergarten and being away for so many hours of the day, five days a week. I relish my time working alone, and I maintain that having some full days in the week to work makes me a better mom. And I love our home-together days so much — our park visits, our reading time, our grocery shopping trips, hours messing around outside or sprawled on the rug playing hot wheels. I love both. It makes me wish there were a school past preschool that was only three days a week, and that if there was, that we could afford it.

But here I am, in my mind racing ahead again to some uncertain future that doesn’t feel bright — worried about scarcity, worried about lack. What do we have right now? We have, truly, everything. Our little house, our days together, just enough time apart, cozy with one little boy falling asleep holding my hair, the other little boy breathing in and out an arm’s reach away. I do not need to race ahead and figure things out too far past this moment. I am here now, we are all here right now, held together and holding each other today. I keep just telling myself — be here now. There is so much co-regulation in that hair-holding trust my son has in me, the act of holding his body, feeling him breathe, smelling his smell, feeling my whole system relax into that safety and love. Helping him regulate helps me regulate too. Mutuality, and inter-dependence. I can’t stop thinking about how much we depend on each other, how much our time together means to all of us, and to the world around us too. I feel so lucky to still live near my family of origin, and to still be able to depend on my parents, to know they are always there for me, no matter what. And, to be here for them too. That interdependence doesn’t stop when you grow up, it just changes. I feel my nervous system relax knowing they’re nearby, knowing I can call them anytime, knowing I’ll see them soon. I know they feel the same about me.

A family can be a truly powerful force in the world. I am coming to learn that more and more as I experience it as a parent. My work is not separate from my family. My own inner world is not separate from my family. And the solutions to my own internal problems are not separate from my family, either. What I do affects them and what they do affects me — that can bring pain but it can also bring joy and strength. We depend on each other, and that dependence requires a lot of us and offers a lot back in return. Truly healthy and safe families where every member feels free to offer what they have to give are a treasure greater than gold. That’s what I want to provide, to cultivate, and to be a part of — in my own little family and in the great cosmic family that includes all of us. Doesn’t it feel like that cosmic family is really disregulated right now? Everyone isolated, scared, spiralling? We’ve lost that sense of inter-dependence, of mutuality, of care for those that need it bubbling up into interior happiness — that radiating and embodied feeling of safety, which is so much more important than we give it credit for. We don’t only get that safe feeling when others care for us, we get it when we care for others too, when we look around us and see that everything is ok for right now.

Here, hold my hair, be held a while, and hold me too. This is good for all of us. Can we lay our burdens down a little and rest in the moment’s simplicity? The future needs us to be regulated, to be ready to figure the big questions out when they actually need figured out without a spiral of panic, to be able to keep taking care of what needs taken care of. So how can we come back to the present, and savor what is truly good right now? Seeing this bloom in my family, in myself, I feel sure that it’s possible for the world too. If not now, then someday, somehow, in some way. How can we all sink into the truth that inter-dependence, mutuality, and care is the only way? I don’t know. To all the scary questions, the the answer I keep finding — just be here. Just let your baby hold your hair, just hold him till he falls asleep. Just breathe, and hold your baby. Offer love, receive it in return. Tomorrow will be whatever it will be.