THE HEAVY

I think for me one of the hardest parts of becoming a mother was the sudden, immense and ineffable love that I felt. There are of course so many psychological, hormonal, relational shifts and practical challenges that all come with the birth of a child. You are faced with recalibrating who you are and how you see the World. You straddle the overwhelming devotion for this new life and mourning the loss of independence, the body autonomy; the freedom. And while all of these things are so significant (I will speak to this at a later time), for me, anyway, it was the combination of this sudden monotony, the very seemingly smallness of your life, suddenly cocooned with this little human, getting to know them, but already fiercely and completely loving them; the days and nights feeling tedious and so domestic and yet it being juxtaposed with deeply knowing how overwhelmingly not ordinary all of this was- how completely enigmatic, and transformational this kind of love is. And when I say this was the hardest part for me, I think what I mean is I felt constant heart-bursting love for this human, but also a deep longing to go back to a time of "not knowing"; not knowing how much this kind of love can break you open and bring you to your knees, not knowing the anxiety of often feeling like you are now in a dress-rehearsal for your worst nightmares coming to life- losing the very person you created and love with every fibre of your being. I remember trying to explain this feeling to my therapist at the time, concerned that I was dealing with PPD/PPE because it all just felt really "heavy" and when I explained the heaviness, it didn't really fit into the box for PPD because I was incredibly attached and in love with my baby boy and "happy" (to oversimplify it). I think what was hard to quantify was this "heaviness". In clinical practice, usually when people talk about things feeling heavy, we want to attach that to something negative, something being "wrong"- whether that's depression or anxiety or trauma, but what I have slowly been processing throughout my motherhood journey is that that heaviness I talked about came from this overwhelming awareness of the beauty and subsequent fragility of loving someone so much.

All my life, I have been someone that feels a lot. I empathize deeply and I have found that after experiencing any profound beauty- whether that be deep moments of connected and vulnerable conversation, seeing beautiful works of art, watching the sunrise in Temagami with my Dad...the list goes on, I need time to process. I need reprieve from the intensity of which I feel it all. I need to find levity and space. It's my cycle. But especially at the beginning, when I first became a mom, there was no reprieve. As I said, it was CONSTANT heart busting (painful) love. And we usually hear people talk about all the "heart busting" moments as being the best part of motherhood. I agree, but I add the perspective that it's not light. It can be heavy, even if we associate that feeling with all things good. Our society has gotten really ept at polarizing and categorizing. One emotional experience is "healthy" or "normal" or "good" while another is "unhealthy", pathologized and considered negative. I believe it's far more complicated. We are complex beings and in the big moments (becoming a parent, losing someone we love, moments of massive upheaval and change), we can exist and hold space for all the parts and the duality of feelings. I think whether you identify as spiritual or not, these moments in our lives do have a very existential component. We come closest to our humanity- we build bridges with others, connecting us to a more wholesome and shared human condition. Is there anything more beautiful? Is there anything more "heavy"?

If you're feeling many different things during these transformative times, know that it's what makes you human and I would say, it's what makes you beautiful. One of my favourite writers, Glennon Doyle has a wonderful way of taking those deep, seemingly inexpressible human experiences and building metaphors for their articulation. She often talks about these feelings and this existential pain of being alive as "Brutiful": beautiful and for all its beauty, also brutal. This resonates with me and perhaps it does with you as well. My wish for you is that you know how valid all of your feelings are. Feeling the full spectrum of our humanity is heavy. It's also beautiful.