Me & My Hallway

I turned our ugly construction-junk-filled hallway into a coatroom today.

I wish I'd taken a Before shot, but here is the After. (If you peek at my September post, you can see a little of it there!)

Um 

...Big deal, right? Why is this worth a post? Making a room more useful is kind of an ordinary thing, J.

Except for me, it's not. After a super hard year and a reno gone wrong, I'd lost all motivation to do anything for my house. Keeping it clean and running to provide for the constant needs of four busy kids was super hard without a kitchen or even a sink for most of the year. So when I looked at my hallway filled with construction junk, I didn't see the possibilities it held. All I saw was the mess.

And that's how I felt about me, too. Deeply. For a really long time.

Well, back in the spring I reached out for help.

I called a counsellor.

I told her how I was feeling.

Worse than worthless.

A burden on my people.

Hopeless.

Like every day was going to be harder than the next.

Like there was nothing good to come.

Like I should apologize to everyone who had to bear the burden of looking at me, interacting with me.

The only reason I didn't drive into the front of a truck is that it would have hurt the trucker.

Feeling that low. So low.

She asked me if I could tell her approximately how many days out of the past 2 weeks I felt like that.

12 (13?)

We talked for an hour. 

Mostly me.

Apologetically, excusingly, embarrassedly me.

She promised me she would call me back the next day and set up a schedule of appointments.

She reminded me to feel my feelings, to make sure I got enough sleep, and to take 10 minutes outside, walking. She encouraged me to build in a little deliberate joy - do something that made me happy - and didn't hang up until I planned it (downloading a funny podcast to listen to on my walk).

And she asked me to call my doctor to discuss antidepressants.

I took a big gulp at that.

One of my constant shames and discouragements was my weight. And I knew people gain weight on antidepressants.  So although I'd been fighting this feeling since a miscarriage in 2009, I hadn't ever been brave enough to consider it.

It's not bad enough for that, is it? I wondered.

But yeah. It was.

So I started taking antidepressants.

Within a month, my bad days had gone from 12/14 to 3/14. 

And it's been almost six months now. And yup, I've gained weight. But you know what? I don't care anymore. My fixation with that was a symptom of my depression. 

And I had a seismic shift in perspective. 

If I don't like something, I can do something about it.

What?!

If I don't like something, I can do something about it.

That's the bliss of adulthood.

When you're a kid, you don't get to make a lot of decisions about your own life, but the bliss of adulthood is agency.

If I don't like something in my life, I can do something about it.

And maybe you're like ... Um, of course. What's the big deal?

But the big deal is this:

Depression lies. It told me I was stuck and any action I could take would just be worse and everything was awful and my only choice was between awful and horrible.

But I have agency.

If I don't like something, I can change it.

This week, I saw my hallway - I really saw it. And I didn't like it.

So I changed it.

And I feel super vulnerable and weird sharing all this but I just thought - maybe someone else is afraid to reach out for help. Maybe you don't think your feelings are heavy enough or maybe you're scared of what treatment will be like.

So I wanted to share that if my painfully-long-depressed brain was able to heal enough to find joy and hope and rearrange a hallway that held unused construction junk for a year, then yours can too.

Make that call.

Reach out for help. 

You're truly worth it.

And if you need someone to talk to about it, I'm here. 

Xo.

Every Child Matters

We went to the Indigenous children's memorial last night, an event held by the our town as part of Truth and Reconciliation week.  As we walked through the park, carrying lights in the darkness, I found myself looking around for our other children. It was so strange - I felt very close to our miscarried babies last night, and was surprised to find just four kids walking alongside us. Isn't that odd? I've never had more than four of my kids walking beside me, and yet every now and then I unconsciously expect the others to be there.

We held our lights as the darkness closed in and there was nothing to see, only words to hear. Trembling men and women shared their stories with us, stories of loneliness, abuse and horror and loss that they carried and continue to carry.  One man sang a prayer he has written for his children, and for all the stolen children and their suffering. It was beautiful and so simple.

Creator, see my children. Creator, watch over my children. Creator, save my children.  

He sang in the dark.

In the middle of the night, Pascal woke me up because he was having bad dreams. I took him back to his bed and cuddled in with him. "Mama," he whispered, "did you know that my second-favourite bird is a bluejay?" He squirmed and tossed and squirmed some more until I realized that his one-piece pyjamas were growing too small. I found comfy pjs and changed him into them, then he laid down and I smoothed his blankets over him again. "I'm the comfiest boy in the world," he sighed, and soon drifted off to sleep.

I lay next to him, heart cracked wide open.

Hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children tossed with discomfort in the night. Mothers and fathers never had the opportunity to soothe them back to sleep. Who noticed when their pyjamas grew too tight? To whom did they whisper about their second-favourite bird?  Who saw their eyelashes finally fan out in rest against soft cheeks, who heard their breathing grow slow as they slipped into dreamland?

Creator, see my children.

Two of my babies didn't make it into this world. I believe their faces and personalities and habits are known in heaven, seen and witnessed by God. They have not known pain or suffering and still my heart aches for them, longs to know them. Even after all this time, even though they never cuddled to sleep in my arms, their absence seems wrong and my heart keeps the tally.

Residential schools in Canada kept an official record of how many children died in their care: 51.

Over 6000 graves have been discovered this year, and we're still going. The bleeding wound of unresolved grief has kept the tally.

Creator, watch over my children.

The aching injustice, the pain and grief and sheer agony of parents whose children were ripped away - this is unimaginable.  And yet, it's the lived experience of every Indigenous family in our country. 

I don't think it's a coincidence that the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is September 30, and October is Infant and Child Loss month. The history of settlers in our country is a history of genocide, infanticide. We can walk around holding lights in the darkness but precious people are missing. The voice of our brother's blood cries to us from the ground.

Creator, save our children. See our children. Watch over our children.