Barbie, motherhood, and a poem that blessed me.

Post-Christmas musings and thoughts.

Our Christmas was funny. I got a not-so-fun trifecta of illnesses: pneumonia, long bronchitis, and a sinus infection. We stayed in Atlanta with my parents for 10 days, my mom forcing me to stay in bed all the while helping tremendously with Emmy. I did a lot of laying, reading, and pondering, and a lot of the pondering centered around rhythms and routines that need to change to help support my mental well-being and sustainability in all my jobs, as a mother and a therapist.

Have you ever thought about how confusing it is to live in a culture that screams both SELF-CARE Y’ALL and also HUSTLE MORE BECAUSE YOUR WORTH AND ABILITY TO AFFORD YOUR LIFE HINGES ON IT? I spend a lot of time thinking about how broken our culture is, how fractured the systems that we operate within really are. And sometimes self-care platitudes and reminders just feel like someone handing you the smallest band-aid in the box when what you need is the extra large one.

The moral of that story is this: sometimes we do need to do more self-care and sometimes we also just need to get honest (and mad) about how not-doable certain things are within the confines of our unique limits and circumstances.

Anyway, I need to digress and talk about the Barbie movie. One of my best friends has been begging me to watch it for months now and I was like, “Nah.” I never was super into Barbies as a kid, and I thought it was going to be stupid. BUT NO. I was very wrong. It was DEEP. And honest. And very existential. Basically, in a nutshell, the movie is about mothers and daughters and how modern-day feminism has failed us and also about how it is OKAY - and not just okay but stunningly beautiful - to highly value being a mother. I SOBBED my eyes out at the end of the movie. SOBBED.

Because becoming a mother myself, nurturing Emmy, and watching her flourish within the context of healthy attachment has given me more purpose than I ever dared to dream it would. Day in and day out I bear witness to stories of relational rupture, attachment trauma, and deep loss. And while my work as a therapist gives me sometimes gut-wrenching reminders of the dark and fragile nature of life, it also stirs in me immense gratitude for the gift and the beauty in front of me, daily, in my moments with my daughter. Her giggle. Her smile. The way she says, “Milk” and “Pouch” and “Maw-maw.” It rattles me.

Sometimes the fragility of life really scares me, like viscerally scares me. Just because I’m a therapist doesn’t mean I’m a stranger to anxiety. In fact, in this season of postpartum, anxiety has been a frequent visitor of mine, inviting itself over more than I’d like. And yesterday, as I broke down in tears to someone who is a mentor, supervisor, and friend, she reminded me how much our work as therapists compels us to not take beauty for granted.

And in the same conversation, she shared with me a poem, one I’d read before but not in a long while. It’s called Beloved is Where We Begin by Jan Richardson. It goes like this:

If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.

Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.

Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what
this journey is for.

I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.

But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.

I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause

than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:

Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.

Beloved. What a mystery. What a blessing.

This world is disgustingly tragic and also stunningly beautiful and we are Beloved.

And being a therapist and a mother has me keenly aware that it’s all so tender. I am so awake - more than ever before - to the tenderness of it all. Sometimes that’s really hard. Most of the time, it’s a gift.

With love,

Rachel