Contracts with Our Selves

My son cried all night, inconsolably, for the first two years of his life.  I was exhausted; never sleeping at night; trying to work during the day.  I felt there was no way I could possibly have a second child.  I did not think I could survive a second child.  And yet, every time I decided that there would not be a second child, I could not stop crying.  A friend suggested to me that perhaps a second child was written into my script; that it was something I was meant to do in this life; a contract made with myself before I was born.  Nineteen years later, I have two children; one is 21 and the other is 18; and I cannot imagine my life without either one of them.  But I also see the lessons that each has offered me.

My son taught me about the limits of my beliefs.  When he was born, I had separated from my parents and re-built myself out of beliefs collected as a young adult.  I called myself a feminist, a socialist, an environmentalist and a Pagan.  I worked for the labour movement.  I studied with a Shaman.  I gave birth at home with a midwife.  I breast-fed on demand.  I would not let my children cry without being picked up.  I would not use disposable diapers.  I made my own baby food.  Trying to be super-woman with no sleep almost put me over the edge.

My son’s sleeplessness in the first years of his life taught me about the messiness of life; about the things that are beyond our control; about the limits of our beliefs.  Those years taught me that, while beliefs may be beautiful, clean and crystalline, they are often fragile and unrealistic, untempered by life.  This was a lesson I needed to learn.

My daughter taught me about healing.  When my daughter was born, I felt I had been stripped to the bone; raw and exposed.  She came along like a salve for my soul.  My daughter is the merger; the diplomat and the counsellor.  She hangs on to friends and family and belongings with both hands clenched.  She is loyal and accepting; compassionate and loving.  When she was little, she would come into my room each morning, rub her chubby hands on my face, and say, “I love you mommy!”  When I would get mad with her as a little girl, she would deliver me hand-written notes that said, “I love you Mommy even when you are mad at me.”  My daughter has given me the unconditional love that I had never known as a child.

I look back on the young woman who did not think she could survive two children and I see so clearly the important role that each of my children has played in my growth and development.  I see how much more I like and love myself today than I did back then, and I know that much of that has to do with each of them.  In those moments, I “know” that there was a contract that I made with myself before I was born, and that both of these children I love were part of it.