What does healing feel like?

Adele gives “kisses” by leaning close to my face and opening her mouth on my chin or eye. The slobbery deliciousness is almost too much to handle.

We now have this little bubbly wonder who is, all of a sudden, a person with a mind of her own and plans of her own.

And when I go into her room in the morning and see her standing up in her crib, holding onto the rails, smiling, her eyes adjusting to me turning on the light and her curly hair sticking up all over the place, something big and strong just TAKES me. This force I can’t explain. Of love and passion and wanting to protect her and scoop her up and give her the world. 

Playing dress-up with Cecelia <3

And when it’s just me and her, like it was last week, and I was giving her a bath, and she was splashing in her little baby tub (soaking my leggings and the floor around us), I was just so content and at peace. I felt like this little space, with just me and Baby, in our upstairs bathroom, with her in the tub just exploring and splashing, and me just sitting there and watching her, and showing her how to use little cups to pour water, I just felt so at peace. So content. I can’t explain it. Like we were frozen in time in our little world.

My heart is literally exploding with excitement when I think of all the things I can do with her as she continues to grow. This spring as we rejuvenate the flowerbed in the front of our house we are going to prepare a little garden for Adele. It will be on the side of the house and it will become her very own place to plant whatever she likes. My mom did the same thing for me.

Obviously this year she will be a little too young to pick her own flowers and plants, but she can help me plant and get her hands dirty and discover the earth and the flowers and the little bugs below the surface. The thought of us doing this together makes me want to burst with joy.

As she turns 11 months old tomorrow I am just so incredibly overwhelmed with the person she’s already become, and can’t wait for more. She blows kisses and gives high-fives and waves hello and goodbye and reaches for Mom, Dad and Campbell, and plays music on her lips. She makes her own “decisions” about when she will fling her Cheerios all over the kitchen or if she wants to wear a bib or not. (Sometimes, and none of the time, respectively).

Now that she’s crawling and basically cruising, getting her dressed and changing her diaper are no longer still, peaceful smiley moments when I look into her eyes and we “chat” for a few minutes. Now she wants to “leave.” There is no keeping her still during diaper or clothing changes. It becomes a whole new thing. A whole new physical activity as I try to keep this 22+ pound baby in one spot. Sometimes I dress her on the floor, sometimes I dress her on the bed in the guest room, and sometimes I have to put her in her crib, sans diaper, until I can regain my strength, energy and composure.

And I love EVERY SINGLE MINUTE. I wrote recently in a post about how exhausted I am. That by the time I get to work at 8 a.m. I am literally spent just from our morning routine. But since I wrote that post I am more energized. I am better. I’m not entirely getting all of our laundry done, but I am getting a lot more done and am a lot more energized. I did fold about 80 percent of my laundry last week, which was a huge accomplishment.

It was definitely a slump.

Dr. Kelly thinks the being JUST SO DAMN TIRED is a combination of new motherly tasks and adjusting to them (dressing and collecting a now-mobile baby) and the fact that I really have been go-go-go the past four years if you think about my wedding, breast cancer diagnosis, building a house, six surgeries, LFS diagnosis, getting a dog, the adoption process, two new jobs, adopting a baby, becoming a mother …….

Not that NOW is the time to rest, because it certainly isn’t. But maybe now I am finally catching my breath and I am just SO tired. Maybe now, with much of my previous anxiety from a lot of that aforementioned stuff mostly gone, I am realizing I am tired. I don’t have the cancer/wedding/adoption process places to put my energy. Without anxiety fueling my energy maybe I am just tired. And that’s a good, healthy thing. As per Dr. Kelly. And as per myself.

Some of those things were deliberate, and some were unexpected and I just had to deal with them. Dealing with the unexpected (aka: breast cancer, LFS, and everything that came/comes with it) causes anxiety. Dealing with the deliberate (aka: building a house, getting married, switching jobs, adopting a child) also causes anxiety. Anxiety fueled a lot of my energy. Anxiety turned into energy as a coping mechanism. Was it good energy? Not necessarily. But it was energy nonetheless.

And now I don’t so much have that anymore.

Stress = energy

No stress = no energy

Climbing on Mama is one of Adele's favorite activities, and it makes Mama very happy :)

Before, the stress of certain things was fueling my “crazy.” It was causing me to continue to add things to my plate to manage my anxiety.

I do still have anxiety with the LFS and breast cancer, and of course I have stress with being a mother and working full time. And I DO still add things to my plate, like plans and Tour de Pink and trips.

But a lot of what was causing pure, unfiltered anxiety (planning my wedding, waiting to finalize the adoption, waiting for surgery, recovering from surgery), is not so much there anymore. Does that make sense?

Now I have TIME to be tired. Does that make sense? 

It does to me, in my mind; I just hope I am writing it in a way that does.

I have a moment where my anxiety is less than before, and in this moment I am allowing the energy to wane.

Letting the energy, that was specifically fueled by anxiety, to wane.

And the energy that’s fueled simply by life (by Sean, by Adele, by work, by our social life, by love and passion) has emerged.

For me, there are two types of energy. One (anxiety-fueled energy) is slowly dissipating. Without it, I am tired. Tired, in a different way.

No longer consumed by the need to keep or make things perfect as a way to have “control” over my life.

Maybe before I would never let the laundry go unfolded, and never let my boots stay on the steps instead of my closet BECAUSE I NEEDED CONTROL, BECAUSE I FELT OUT OF CONTROL.

Maybe before I wouldn’t allow myself to rest on the couch at night instead of making plans and doing things BECAUSE I NEEDED CONTROL, BECAUSE I FELT OUT OF CONTROL.

Maybe, perhaps, now, I don’t have that. Plain and simple. Nothing terrible will happen if the laundry goes unfolded. Four years ago I would have strongly disagreed.

This is healing.

Healing disguised as yawning. But healing nonetheless.