Writing Us Out of The Dark

Lisa-Jo Baker writes in her blog post today:


I etch words over memories. Over emotions.
I write and scratch at all the complicated inside-outness of my own head. The words, no the writing the words down, they help make sense. I draw my own road map in reverse. It happens and then I write it.
Looking back I can see the direction where we’ve come from and it feels less scary.
Sometimes other people can find themselves in the backwards map I write too. In the one you write as well.
We color in a road map for the lost and we find ourselves in the process. All these words leading me home.

I write to make sense of things, but not often. Usually when I am at my most desperate, I know I can not keep functioning unless I sit down with my journal and sift thoughts.

I am a verbal processor. Sometimes I don't know what I think unless I say it out loud. Writing is saying it out loud, to myself and then to the world. 

I started to blog way back when to share stories of Sophia with the many people around the world who could not see her day to day. Then Eleanor came, and with her the the brutal transition of our eldest child changing overnight  into a distraught elder sister who was really just 2 1/2, whose world was upside down. And Eleanor, who was super happy until she wasn't and then she screamed and screamed and screamed.

I have a friend who has a new-born baby with health issues and a three year old who screams the same way and I wish there was a way to put my hand on  her heart so she could know, just know that I was there, and I was at my worst, and it does change, it does get better.

But we draw our maps in reverse. It happens and then we write it. Or for me, I have not written much of it til now, for many reasons. Things felt too unknown, for a long time. too overwhelming, the road map not visible days afterward, but only years, so I draw in reverse now.

This is a picture of newborn Eleanor wearing a sign that 2 year old Sophia wrote that said, "Don't hit me" That we used to need to pin to Eleanor to wear all day to keep Sophia from sneak-attack beating her. When I showed this picture to the girls the other day,they thought it was hilarious. Ha ha ha.

But I still see Sophia's little head from behind the day she came up to me with a new born Eleanor in my arms, and hauled off and hit that tiny baby so hard, and I was so angry I simply reacted and hit her back, on the back of her head as she turned away. As soon as I did it, I felt the impact of it go up my arm, and through her body and I was the most horrified I had ever been at my own behaviour. (Oh, I've surpassed that moment since then. I just don't need to tell you every ugly thing here today.) And later that day when Wade came home, Sophia said, "I hit Eleanor, then she cried, then Mum hit me and I cried and then Mum cried. We all cried."

I think of the time I yelled so hard at the kids I peed my own pants. (My bladder has never been strong. these three kids finished it off. And I am still glad I have them.) Or how, just two night ago, after weeks of feeling like I had finally been calm for a long time, my screamer, who can still really scream when she needs to, made me so mad I just screamed right back in her face, just a big, frustrated wordless scream. And it didn't even fix anything.

Then I apologized and she apologized, because now my two daughters are old enough now to talk with, to reason with, to express independent thought, and  they know I love them and that I am broken, and that I apologize when I mess up, and they do the same. I have enough moments with them under my belt to see that it is enough when we mess up to say sorry, that they know how much I love them, and they tell me often how they love me. That we do more good than harm to each other, by the grace of God.

We are writing road maps out of the dark, for those who are in the trenches, in the dark right now, and who will need weeks and months, instead of days, to see the way out. That is the point of being mothers, sisters, friends. Why I read Lisa-Jo's blog for a year before I really began to believe I was as a good a Mum as she said I was, because I had suspected it all along, but I spend so much time noticing what I do wrong it was hard to hear.

Believe it, you and this story and this time is worth the refining, that very very hot heat, it is worth it. You will be able to say to another one day, "I know."

And right now we are in the midst of some potentially dark stories. Our dearest friends, our loved ones, are walking through some of the darkest moments life can bring, and our hearts with them. But the practicing this backwards-map writing brings me such comfort in that I know I will see the way out, and that my access, our access, to the light, the wealth, will be much quicker this time. It will not take years, I hope, I hope.