Steam filled the air and carried the scent of pomegranate body wash. On my lips, I could taste the salt of hot tears as they mingled with the lukewarm stream of the shower. With bleary eyes I only dared to half-open, I scrubbed and loofa’d a body I didn’t recognize and couldn’t look at.
These are my most vivid recollections of my first shower after giving birth.
My body had just done one of the most intense and incredible things it will ever do while it exists on planet Earth as it was sliced open to deliver a child into the world. And now, after that life-altering experience, I was supposed to hop back into my sensible family safety-rated vehicle, drive back to our house, hop in the shower, eat, sit, breathe, exist like … the same person as before? My mind short-circuited as both the magnitude and normalcy of it all warred with each other and were reflected back to me tangibly on my body. I still needed to brush my teeth - the normal - and I also needed to check on the healing wound and sutures on an abdomen that didn’t look like mine - the magnitude.
Part of me wishes I could have had more grace and gentleness with myself, and still another part of me sits in the reality of the shock of not knowing myself. Oh, how time transforms and transfigures us all.
Have you ever used an outlet controlled by a timer or an app? We have a few around our house; I like to use the timers to set routines for specific rooms or areas.
Earlier this year, to accommodate some projects we had going on at the house, my husband and I moved into the guest room in our basement. While we were living in the basement, I put the bedside lamp on a timed outlet. When we moved back out of the basement, removing the timed outlet didn’t make it onto my list of things to do. One night, a weekend or two after resettling, we were turning off the lights on the main floor to make our way to bed when we noticed a light coming from the basement. I quickly realized that I must have left the timer on the bedside lamp.
It’s been weeks now, and I can’t bring myself to change the timer yet.
In the evenings, when I see the soft glow of the lamp coming from the bottom of the basement stairwell, I smile as I picture the two of us going through our nighttime routine and settling into bed for the evening, aware of but perhaps not fully comprehending all the change that was about to come our way. Through the tender mistiness of time, I send the two of them – the two of us – my fondest thoughts of love and compassion. I send up endless gratitudes for every second of the peace and tranquility that filled that season of our lives. I hope that the me of two months ago can feel the grace and understanding of me today through the makeup of time. I hope she knows that we make it to the other side.
The moment passes, and today-me continues through the kitchen, fixing a bottle or washing a dish, leaving past-us to enjoy the cocoon of the lamp’s glow before our lives change forever. Somewhere down the line, I hope another future version of myself is looking out for us as well, smiling on our newly forged family as we carve out a new way forward. The world today is the same that we’ve occupied every day of our lives, but somehow nothing feels the same, and the world is somehow different today.
That’s the thing about transformation, isn’t it? It can rip us apart, put us back together, and at times – often, if we’re being honest – presents us with something or someone unrecognizable. It then leaves us to begin unwrapping and understanding the newness. That process, that new getting to know you, getting to know ourselves, getting to know can feel rootless and unmoored.
I’m learning to embrace the feeling of being unmoored. I’m bobbing on the waves and hoping that currents of time are gracious enough to bring me back to even keel on the docks.
Until that happens, I’ll enjoy the sway of the water and the wind as it beats against my cheeks. After it all, because of it all, I know I won’t be the same person who turns up on shore.