Humor or Aggression.
Two options in the moments that break you: humor or aggression. Her laughter took years of work – everything comes in its time.
Bella's report from the newborn front reads like stand-up: meals at a run, a shower in ninety seconds, the toilet whenever the baby grants it. She doesn't hide the other half – the tears on the bathroom floor, the evenings that feel like the last one before breaking. And exactly there the post turns on a single fork: in those moments there are two options. Humor or aggression.
Choosing humor is not looking away – she looks closer than most (the crying always has a reason; her thought experiment about it is unprintable here and perfect there). It is Amor Fati in a bathrobe: loving life not despite its hardships but with them in the room, one catapult joke at a time. And her last line carries the deepest part: this capacity grew out of years of work with herself. Five years earlier it would have broken her. Everything comes in its time – nothing ripens before its season.
The rest is hers, emojis and all.
Being a newborn's mom means eating when she allows it, usually at a run or one-handed, because she's on the other arm🤭
The shower is basically the same story: you dash in, wash the important parts and dash out, slathering on cream as you go🤭
Every hour – yes, at night you wake up to feed her; sometimes it feels like there's no strength to get up. But there is🤭
The toilet I won't even mention – that one's down to luck, whenever Sara grants it.
Sometimes it's tears on the bathroom floor, or the kitchen floor – on the floor it's somehow easier.
Some evenings it feels like you can't do this anymore, like tomorrow you'll break. But by some miracle the strength shows up.
And then she smiles, coos, grabs your hand – and your heart melts. The tiredness passes, the toilet can wait, you can live without a shower – you could stop time and just look at her.
And back to the theme of this channel: the way I see it, there are two options in this situation. Humor or aggression. In the moments of crying for no reason (there is always a reason – not everyone wants to find it), or of no sleep and so on, you can be that aggressive woman who screams at her child, shakes her, and blames her for every mortal and posthumous sin – I'm afraid that child will be a long time coming out of the therapist's office. Or you can take it with humor and understanding. If you pooped your pants and could only change them with someone else's help, how loudly would you scream?) Pretty loudly, I think🤭 That's why I always take motherhood with humor and understanding – I'll joke, for example, that the baby bouncer would make a good catapult and we could launch her over to the neighbors😃
And I understand that all of this is my long work with specialists, with myself, with mentors and so on. If I had become a mom five years ago… I'd have hanged myself by now, been depressed, taken it out on my daughter. As they say, everything comes in its time.
Thank you for reading.
If her words reached somewhere mine don't – good. That's what this blog is for. Take what fits and leave the rest.
– Jan