Loving This Juicy Body
the magic to be / rather than / the magic of being
I didn’t know I could have so much love while having so many meltdowns.
Lately, getting to know myself as I metamorphosize is the most interesting thing I’ve ever done.
I feel like I am supposed to be here.
Alive, that is. Experiencing. Creating. Noticing.
It isn’t all in the name of staying alive now.
I remember–in elementary school–reaching my hand out before me, feeling its weight and lightness as I floated it above my face. Bending my fingers and making myself aware of the magic of it all. The magic of how my thoughts could move my matter (not that I had the word for matter, yet).
In this way, I taught myself how to make it all worthwhile.
I don’t remember if this was before or after I tried to stab myself in my center, below my sternum, where my flesh gave into softness, with a kitchen steak knife, at eight.
My older brother happened to open my door after a few millimeters in. After spending my childhood together, the scar I left there has since left me.
It’s different now.
All my scars have faded.
My life is different now.
I feel like I am supposed to be here.
Alive, that is. Experiencing. Creating. Noticing.
It isn’t all in the name of staying alive, now.
It is what I am to be alive for.
To experience, create, notice.
To prepare, nourish, nurture,
love.
I love being pregnant, housekeeping, puppy-raising. Building my family.
Yielding the temple of my body to a purpose far beyond pleasure or pain
(or the avoidance of).
I haven’t been depressed in months. For the first time, for as long as I can remember, suicidal ideation isn’t a song away.
Overwhelm and discomfort and "my best” never really feeling good enough, on the other hand… words falling from my mouth that fit an old me but I can feel they don’t suit the becoming me (are they escaping my being to find a new home? Is that why they keep running off my tongue? Not to represent me but to show me
they don’t
belong here
anymore?)
Anyway, I have those looming moments in spades.
It’s an interesting trade.
Worth it.
Not one I ever expected.
When you’ve been navigating the darker realms of mental health for three decades, it’s a place you get used to knowing.
How quickly things change when you leave the state of Maiden for Mother is unexplainable.
Of course, for everyone, it is different. Life and death and sex and becoming are all so common and all so different and nuanced for each and every one of us, during each and every phase of our lives.
I am me, now. I am also me, then. I even believe that I am you, and you are me.
But while my attention is here, in this juicy body of creation and change,
Oh, Oh, Oh!
Am I enjoying it?
Indeed.
A hui ho,
Julia
I'm so glad you're happy!