Spring

My new job starts tomorrow, and while I am going to be extremely circumspect about it here on Flux (just because the rules on social media sharing in workplace are still so new and changing and I don't know what is expected…) but I will say I am so. excited. The deets are that this is a remote position 32 hours a week with a 3 month contract. It's a new position for the company and I have to convince the company that my position is worth extending into a secured career. I am going into this with everything I've got. If the contract isn't extended, it will not be because I dallied, retreated, waffled, shrugged, excused, lazed or gave. 

Ever will be with an in home nanny, so she'll be downstairs, essentially, or off at the local park. This way I can eat lunch with her, keep an ear out. My baby. Three years I have been her full time provider and 120% adorer. After each child, I sacrificed- our whole family did- an enormous amount monetarily so that I could be the caretaker during the first few years. Every single child it has been worth it a million times over. Every mother and every couple has to decide for their family what works best, and for us, this was it. The bond that I have with each of my children, the level of physical and emotional connection, it is absolute. And it lasts and permeates our entire relationship from toddlerhood on, through elementary and middle school and high school. If Dakota and I had not been what we were in the first five years, our relationship would have flown apart in the teen years when life blew up. It becomes a permanent glue that is comprised of ordinary moment after ordinary moment after ordinary moment on and on for months and years… Ever is only 3 and already I feel like I've had a lifetime of love with her. For 3 years she has fallen asleep curled up underneath my breast like the mammals we are. For 3 years she has leaned away from me like an extra arm, reaching and feeling and exploring but always attached. And 3 is the year that attachment changes, it is the year with each of my children that they find their borders and understand their singular personhood and with biological practicality, cleave. 

A new and terribly exciting part of my life has begun. I am done being pregnant and having babies. I now am the mother of four children none of which use baby powder on their butts. It is time for me to embrace the wholeness of myself as a person. For years, I have revolved my life entirely around my children and my husband. It was absolutely fabulous. I never felt reduced, degraded or less of a feminist, because it was entirely my choice, and it fed a part of me that had been starving all my life. I have been given and created a richness of relationships and connections with each of my children that, if nothing else is ever given to me, were more than enough for a lifetime. I truly mean that. My biggest dream has come true, and that dream was to love and be loved this deeply and totally. We are a pack, and with that in my heart, everything else is extra.

Now it is time to claim other power. I have an Ebook coming out with Shebooks, am writing furiously into the corners of the night, am in love with my novel and starting a new job, a job that I can see myself expanding and growing in. I can feel myself opening up and catch my reflection in the mirror, and for the first time in years, think with surprise That is me. I keep thinking of those famous lines ' I'm nobody / who are you? / are you nobody too ' I am actually seeing myself, thinking about myself and what I want to do in the world, and it feels amazing, like waking up after the longest and most beautiful sleep. I am restored. Now I want to go kick some ass.