The Perfect Picture.
An unspoken code says mothers keep the truth to themselves – she breaks it, down to the belly that hasn't gone away.
Bella wrote this during the night feedings, and it begins with a conversation most mothers will recognize from one side or the other: before you give birth, you hear almost nothing, and all of it soft; afterwards, the same women tell you everything, in full color. An unspoken code, she calls it.
Her point cuts further than childbirth: every filtered story adds to someone else's collection of fears. What Being Whole practices from the inside – that being whole does not mean being unscathed – she does here in public, with a photo and a fear she cannot resolve yet: the belly that hasn't gone away, the work that shows almost no result, the hope that stays anyway.
No lesson at the end, no bow on it. That's the point.
Thoughts during the night feedings🤭
Recently an acquaintance of mine asked me about giving birth. And I told her everything honestly, as I remember it.
And we noticed that for some reason there's an unspoken code: moms don't tell the truth about childbirth. Usually they say very little, and make it all sound so gentle – but once you've given birth and tell those same moms what a fucking ordeal you lived through, they agree and describe their own experiences in vivid detail. Hey, women, why do you do this?
Why do we put everything through a “filter”?
Show your life – but only the luxurious part; of course everyone's birth was perfect, and afterwards everyone's perfect too… How long will we keep pretending it's all this perfect picture? And adding more fears and insecurities to our collection?
My belly isn't going away. And my big fear is that it will stay like this forever. I work with a rehabilitation specialist, and now I've brought in a trainer to work on the whole body. I'm trying to sort out my eating, I walk four hours a day with my daughter. So far the result is very, very small. But I'm trying, and I hope that someday it will go away after all(
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