For context I was pregnant with my first child from summer 2021-winter 2022 when my daughter Pancha was stillborn. I was grieving but postpartum. Then three months later I was pregnant again and I gave birth to my 2nd daughter in March 2023. New research suggests the body is in a postpartum period for seven years. So I’m in a transition period where I am again 10 months postpartum but this time also caring for a baby who is 10 months old. She’ll be transitioning from babyhood to toddlerhood and I can already see those shifts in her. She loves to push our boundaries, she wants to help with everything, she loves playing and running...
It’s strange to think about both myself as a person and myself as a mother (to my child and my body) who are both on the precipice of change and that that change is hurdling towards us quickly and not in uniform shape.
I couldn’t find your exact question you wanted answered here. Was it where do you feel the change in your body? Well, all over! My body is changed from the steeping in pregnancy chemicals for two years straight while also being postpartum for two wavering years. My hips are bigger. My breasts are different. My muscles capacity are both stronger and weaker. My brain is a hotshot of anxiety as I am on the lookout for any potential signs of harm to my baby. I have also gone from someone who is not at all forgetful to not remembering what we talked about a couple hours ago.
Becoming a mother is like being in pubescence again but with the adult language center alive to speak to the experience and yet, in our country those in power don’t listen. This is HARD. And we don’t know how to show up for each other in the hard - in a transition.
And I wonder about how that lands for you? Did you move just across town and find yourself feeling left out, uncared for, not held? Did no one show up for you because you were just moving across town? Is this curiosity held in the seed of why don’t we show up for each other? Why don’t people show up for me?
I with certainty can say it is because showing up for each other in times of hard (even subtly) hard is un-American. We believe in pulling from our bootstraps. The underdog hero. We don’t help people because those who need help are taking advantage of us... and we have so little to give (or maybe to gain). Helping each other succeed isn’t something we do even in school.
But that is not an all encompassing answer, I know. Nor could I give one. But I know that helping people is a new felt sense I am trying to tap into.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
Shakespeare’s often quoted line doesn’t mean to say that everyone is an actor playing a role. What it does imply is that we are products of many factors, such as our age bracket and stage of life, our occupations, and our family roles – in short, the part we play in society and the larger culture. To all of that, add our biology, our personality, and our life experiences.
"What should I be doing?"
This is a hard problem to solve. We need to take into account everything large and small, close and far -- our spouses, families, and friends, micro- and macro-economics, the local, national, and geopolitics, environmental concerns, and so on. There are trillions of variables. Combinatorial explosion increases the number of possible solutions to the question exponentially as each new variable is added. It’s literally impossible for people to organize themselves independently.
The human solution is framing. People, both individually and groups, from lone wolf incels and hermits all the way up to massive organizations and cultures, inhabit various frames. A frame is a scheme of interpretation made up of myths, stories, narratives, stereotypes, labels, and filters through which people view the world, simplify it, and make sense of it to the degree that action is possible. This is what Shakespeare is really getting at in the quote I began with. What he means by "stage" is a frame, and we all have one.
Transitions are changes in frame. Even a tiny alteration in one's frame has huge implications to a massive number of variables. The entire hierarchy of one's being, from what's most important at the top all the way down to the bottom, gets re-juggled. And that's no small matter.
Sometimes the transition is an expansive breath. Other times it's a dagger to the heart. But it's always deeper and more complex than we realize.
For context I was pregnant with my first child from summer 2021-winter 2022 when my daughter Pancha was stillborn. I was grieving but postpartum. Then three months later I was pregnant again and I gave birth to my 2nd daughter in March 2023. New research suggests the body is in a postpartum period for seven years. So I’m in a transition period where I am again 10 months postpartum but this time also caring for a baby who is 10 months old. She’ll be transitioning from babyhood to toddlerhood and I can already see those shifts in her. She loves to push our boundaries, she wants to help with everything, she loves playing and running...
It’s strange to think about both myself as a person and myself as a mother (to my child and my body) who are both on the precipice of change and that that change is hurdling towards us quickly and not in uniform shape.
I couldn’t find your exact question you wanted answered here. Was it where do you feel the change in your body? Well, all over! My body is changed from the steeping in pregnancy chemicals for two years straight while also being postpartum for two wavering years. My hips are bigger. My breasts are different. My muscles capacity are both stronger and weaker. My brain is a hotshot of anxiety as I am on the lookout for any potential signs of harm to my baby. I have also gone from someone who is not at all forgetful to not remembering what we talked about a couple hours ago.
Becoming a mother is like being in pubescence again but with the adult language center alive to speak to the experience and yet, in our country those in power don’t listen. This is HARD. And we don’t know how to show up for each other in the hard - in a transition.
And I wonder about how that lands for you? Did you move just across town and find yourself feeling left out, uncared for, not held? Did no one show up for you because you were just moving across town? Is this curiosity held in the seed of why don’t we show up for each other? Why don’t people show up for me?
I with certainty can say it is because showing up for each other in times of hard (even subtly) hard is un-American. We believe in pulling from our bootstraps. The underdog hero. We don’t help people because those who need help are taking advantage of us... and we have so little to give (or maybe to gain). Helping each other succeed isn’t something we do even in school.
But that is not an all encompassing answer, I know. Nor could I give one. But I know that helping people is a new felt sense I am trying to tap into.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
Shakespeare’s often quoted line doesn’t mean to say that everyone is an actor playing a role. What it does imply is that we are products of many factors, such as our age bracket and stage of life, our occupations, and our family roles – in short, the part we play in society and the larger culture. To all of that, add our biology, our personality, and our life experiences.
"What should I be doing?"
This is a hard problem to solve. We need to take into account everything large and small, close and far -- our spouses, families, and friends, micro- and macro-economics, the local, national, and geopolitics, environmental concerns, and so on. There are trillions of variables. Combinatorial explosion increases the number of possible solutions to the question exponentially as each new variable is added. It’s literally impossible for people to organize themselves independently.
The human solution is framing. People, both individually and groups, from lone wolf incels and hermits all the way up to massive organizations and cultures, inhabit various frames. A frame is a scheme of interpretation made up of myths, stories, narratives, stereotypes, labels, and filters through which people view the world, simplify it, and make sense of it to the degree that action is possible. This is what Shakespeare is really getting at in the quote I began with. What he means by "stage" is a frame, and we all have one.
Transitions are changes in frame. Even a tiny alteration in one's frame has huge implications to a massive number of variables. The entire hierarchy of one's being, from what's most important at the top all the way down to the bottom, gets re-juggled. And that's no small matter.
Sometimes the transition is an expansive breath. Other times it's a dagger to the heart. But it's always deeper and more complex than we realize.
Great post -- very thought provoking!