Yesterday, we went to a birthday party for one of Sofia's little friends. And when the cake came out, I noticed something fascinating: all of the parents and grandparents in the room were smiling - ear to ear, genuine cheesy grins. Some of them, including myself, for a little girl they hardly knew.
One of the greatest gifts parenting gives you - should you choose to accept it - is Community. I think of my early days of Motherhood and the importance - no, the *essentiality* - of other moms in my life. And that has held true over the past 3 years. I have found genuine friends through my daughter. People who laugh and cry with me along the ebb and flow of daily life. People who have come to care for and cherish my daughters as if they were blood relatives. My go-to community with any parenting doubts, as we dredge together through the confusing waters of pre-school and potty training and what to do on a rainy day in Perugia.
These days, I often find myself citing the old "It takes a village" because, yeah, well, it does. I am even more aware of it now, with little Samina in our lives. Like when we are all at the park (as we almost always are), and someone stealthily grabs her from me so I can sit still for a minute, or when I turn around to find that someone else has dried Sofia's tears before I even had time to notice she was crying.
We parents do often seem smug from the outside, I am well aware of it. We often seem like one of those pompous clubs which requires the worst kind of hazing to become a part of. But that's from the outside. We are really just a bunch of lost, confused, disheveled souls feeling so incredibly fortunate to have found we are not stranded on a desert island. So relieved to cut the boredom of toddlerhood with the laughter of a fellow parent, so aflutter at the notion that there is someone else who might actually be interested that your little kid finally pooped in a public toilet or stopped his war on vegetables or will only wear pink to pre-school.
And so, as I looked around that raucous birthday party room, with what seemed like 1,000 tiny little voices belting out "Happy Birthdayyyyyyy to youuuuu," it was hard not to feel the pride. Pride resonating from the 1,000 parents of those 1,000 tiny little voices, as they saw the birthday girl's eyes grow wide and her electric smile turn to blow out those 3 little pink candles. The community. It had gathered around one of its families and bear hugged it, with the strength that only common experience can provide.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Oversharing
As many of you may well have noticed, I like to share. Pictures, stories, anecdotes, information, links, opinions. All of them, all out there. I am pretty much an open book, and most days I'm fine with that. But, yeah, some days I do feel like a bit of a circus freak.
See, I was sorta just born this way: an oversharer. I look at those people who are dark and mysterious and I literally ask myself how they do it. Some of them, I note in wonderment, don't even *try* to be that way - they aren't even calculating being cryptic. THEY JUST ARE. I know. Total madness, from over here in Shareytown, where everybody knows your name.
People seem to like me this way, for the most part - or at least that's what they tell me. To the Italians, I am very "American," sharing every last detail of my life over our first cup of caffe' (and urging them to do the same). They use words to describe me like solare (sunny) and simpatica (nice).
To the Americans, I am Good Ol' Jodi. Bridging the gap in my eclectic world of friends with a smile, a joke and some sort of narrative.
These are pretty great ways to be viewed in the world. I realize that, and I do cherish it. I am shy in many things but, over the years, I've learned that sharing myself and my thoughts is not something I mind doing anymore. It helps me connect with people; it gives them a sense of comfort, I think, knowing I am putting myself out there. They in turn open up to me more easily and fully and, poof, a friendship is formed. Empathy is achieved.
The bad side is obvious. The more I talk about me, the more I make myself open to criticism, or just plain opinions. Which I know is the natural part of discourse. It would be highly arrogant of me to think I could just put myself out there and people would simply tell me how wonderful my thoughts are. But, sometimes, the criticism is unexpected and painful, or keeps me up at night because it reveals a side of a situation I had thoroughly missed. Or, worse, it makes me see an aspect of myself I had heretofore completely overlooked. One that, perhaps, was best left secret, overturned under a large boulder-sized rock, as long as we both shall have lived.
Truth is, though, I don't think I am going to change anytime soon. I like connecting with people (this blog post being, ironically, Exhibit A). As much as I spent most of my high school years just wishing I were one of those enigmatic girls who seemed to flow through the hallways naturally raising eyebrows. I am who I am, in all my blabbering glory.
p.s. In doing some research for this post, I discovered that Webster's New World Dictionary announced 'overshare' as 2008's Word of the Year! Validation!
See, I was sorta just born this way: an oversharer. I look at those people who are dark and mysterious and I literally ask myself how they do it. Some of them, I note in wonderment, don't even *try* to be that way - they aren't even calculating being cryptic. THEY JUST ARE. I know. Total madness, from over here in Shareytown, where everybody knows your name.
People seem to like me this way, for the most part - or at least that's what they tell me. To the Italians, I am very "American," sharing every last detail of my life over our first cup of caffe' (and urging them to do the same). They use words to describe me like solare (sunny) and simpatica (nice).
To the Americans, I am Good Ol' Jodi. Bridging the gap in my eclectic world of friends with a smile, a joke and some sort of narrative.
These are pretty great ways to be viewed in the world. I realize that, and I do cherish it. I am shy in many things but, over the years, I've learned that sharing myself and my thoughts is not something I mind doing anymore. It helps me connect with people; it gives them a sense of comfort, I think, knowing I am putting myself out there. They in turn open up to me more easily and fully and, poof, a friendship is formed. Empathy is achieved.
The bad side is obvious. The more I talk about me, the more I make myself open to criticism, or just plain opinions. Which I know is the natural part of discourse. It would be highly arrogant of me to think I could just put myself out there and people would simply tell me how wonderful my thoughts are. But, sometimes, the criticism is unexpected and painful, or keeps me up at night because it reveals a side of a situation I had thoroughly missed. Or, worse, it makes me see an aspect of myself I had heretofore completely overlooked. One that, perhaps, was best left secret, overturned under a large boulder-sized rock, as long as we both shall have lived.
Truth is, though, I don't think I am going to change anytime soon. I like connecting with people (this blog post being, ironically, Exhibit A). As much as I spent most of my high school years just wishing I were one of those enigmatic girls who seemed to flow through the hallways naturally raising eyebrows. I am who I am, in all my blabbering glory.
p.s. In doing some research for this post, I discovered that Webster's New World Dictionary announced 'overshare' as 2008's Word of the Year! Validation!
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Beyond Baby Blues
I suffered from Postpartum Depression after Sofia's birth.
This is something I have only recently felt ok enough to admit to the masses. It took me a long time to admit it to myself, then to Andrea, then to my closest friends and then, now, to you, the world at large.
Postpartum Depression, popularly referred to as PPD, is a bitch. It goes beyond that first-time mom, totally normal feeling of "Holy shit, I'm really *in* this now." PPD makes it hard to breathe, because you feel suffocated, suddenly, by your own life. It is obviously different for everyone but, in my case, it made me resent everyone and everything - myself included. Or, maybe I should say, myself especially.
I feel like I need to be careful writing this, because Sofia might someday read it and feel, somehow, that it was her fault I had this problem. And so, before I go any further, let me stress to her and to other moms and to all of you out there that PPD is first and foremost a hormonal imbalance. In fact, most moms who figure out they have it cure it with anti-depressants. I did not. Not because I am against them - quite the opposite - but because shrinks are pretty hard to come by here in Italy, where PPD is still a taboo topic. I just never felt strong enough to ask for help or figure out how to get it. And so I battled through it alone - with poor old Andrea at my side, never knowing what words out of his mouth might make me bite his head off (pretty much all of them...feeling backed into a corner, I frequently lashed out).
PPD brought me to depths I'd never been before. I remember once, in the very early days, my mother-in-law saying conversationally "Now that you have one of your own, can you believe those women who kill their own children?" And my heart sunk. Actually, it went and right broke in half, my poor heart, because my answer was too shameful, too horrible for any mother to actually think, and so I kept it to myself: "Yes. Yes, I can." Sofia was never at risk, mind you; luckily, I never felt that sting of violence other PPD moms might. But, suddenly, I *understood* them in a way I never thought I would and never would have wanted to. Which was such a dark realization, and so difficult to really allow myself to feel. Because I did love my daughter. I did. But, in the beginning, I loved her from afar. While someone else was holding her, if she was asleep, or in my dreams, on those rare nights I was able to rest my weary mind.
I'm not sure I can pinpoint the exact moment I felt my PPD had passed and I was in the clear. I am absolutely certain it lasted Sofia's first 6 months, pretty positive it went on well past her first birthday. But it's all a blur now. Maybe it stopped when we finally got to sleeping through the night (that sounds about right, actually, but that was at 2 years...). Somehow I'd gotten through it without medication. Somehow, I found myself willing and able to leave the house alone with her and do all sorts of Mommy-daughter things that filled me with joy, not anxiety.
Anyway. That's all history now; history I'd just as soon not dwell on. But I decided to write this post because there are a lot of new (or 2nd-time) moms in my life right now, and I just read an article that made me think of them, and made me think of that dark and by-now-hazy time in my early parenting days. (This link here: http://www.postpartumprogress.com/the-symptoms-of-postpartum-depression-anxiety-in-plain-mama-english.) It may seem cliche', but it's true, and from my heart: if I can save just one other mom from silently enduring the guilt of Postpartum Depression, it might have made it all worth it to have survived it myself.
This is something I have only recently felt ok enough to admit to the masses. It took me a long time to admit it to myself, then to Andrea, then to my closest friends and then, now, to you, the world at large.
Postpartum Depression, popularly referred to as PPD, is a bitch. It goes beyond that first-time mom, totally normal feeling of "Holy shit, I'm really *in* this now." PPD makes it hard to breathe, because you feel suffocated, suddenly, by your own life. It is obviously different for everyone but, in my case, it made me resent everyone and everything - myself included. Or, maybe I should say, myself especially.
I feel like I need to be careful writing this, because Sofia might someday read it and feel, somehow, that it was her fault I had this problem. And so, before I go any further, let me stress to her and to other moms and to all of you out there that PPD is first and foremost a hormonal imbalance. In fact, most moms who figure out they have it cure it with anti-depressants. I did not. Not because I am against them - quite the opposite - but because shrinks are pretty hard to come by here in Italy, where PPD is still a taboo topic. I just never felt strong enough to ask for help or figure out how to get it. And so I battled through it alone - with poor old Andrea at my side, never knowing what words out of his mouth might make me bite his head off (pretty much all of them...feeling backed into a corner, I frequently lashed out).
PPD brought me to depths I'd never been before. I remember once, in the very early days, my mother-in-law saying conversationally "Now that you have one of your own, can you believe those women who kill their own children?" And my heart sunk. Actually, it went and right broke in half, my poor heart, because my answer was too shameful, too horrible for any mother to actually think, and so I kept it to myself: "Yes. Yes, I can." Sofia was never at risk, mind you; luckily, I never felt that sting of violence other PPD moms might. But, suddenly, I *understood* them in a way I never thought I would and never would have wanted to. Which was such a dark realization, and so difficult to really allow myself to feel. Because I did love my daughter. I did. But, in the beginning, I loved her from afar. While someone else was holding her, if she was asleep, or in my dreams, on those rare nights I was able to rest my weary mind.
 |
| Me in the beginning, enduring. |
I'm not sure I can pinpoint the exact moment I felt my PPD had passed and I was in the clear. I am absolutely certain it lasted Sofia's first 6 months, pretty positive it went on well past her first birthday. But it's all a blur now. Maybe it stopped when we finally got to sleeping through the night (that sounds about right, actually, but that was at 2 years...). Somehow I'd gotten through it without medication. Somehow, I found myself willing and able to leave the house alone with her and do all sorts of Mommy-daughter things that filled me with joy, not anxiety.
Anyway. That's all history now; history I'd just as soon not dwell on. But I decided to write this post because there are a lot of new (or 2nd-time) moms in my life right now, and I just read an article that made me think of them, and made me think of that dark and by-now-hazy time in my early parenting days. (This link here: http://www.postpartumprogress.com/the-symptoms-of-postpartum-depression-anxiety-in-plain-mama-english.) It may seem cliche', but it's true, and from my heart: if I can save just one other mom from silently enduring the guilt of Postpartum Depression, it might have made it all worth it to have survived it myself.
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