Mothers, Sisters, Daughters - Part Three

on being girl; on being woman

illustration by Michael Linog

Last month, on the eve of my thirty-fifth birthday, a sign of my age and the stress of these childbearing years made an unexpected appearance. A long-standing and very mild hemorrhoid I’d had since giving birth to Zoe, finally ballooned out of my anus. Five years after Zoe, and just three months after Noah. What had been an internal, scrape-like abrasion, became a perfect little bulb, tender and present.

The reality of this new annoyance, this need for more self-maintenance, brought all my attention to my physical state.  Three months post-partum, my body was just beginning to feel stable while squatting to pick up the baby. But the regularity I’d hope to have with things like exercise still felt far off. Bathing suit season was upon me.

Thirty-five years and four kids into this life and I’m still learning to accept and appreciate what my Grandmother called my big-boned stature. The chiropractor though, says it’s an athletic build that receives his adjustments beautifully. “Not every body responds like yours,” he tells me on my monthly visits. These big bones, laden with cellulite-rich flesh, are functional, even beautiful. They’ve afforded me these four kids, these two daughters who I want to prepare for their embodied female lives.

For a long time, I lived in a dissonant state that had symptoms like depression and anxiety. I didn’t understand that being nervous for a math test set me off into a fight or flight response. My period was just blood, not a monthly bout of despair, or a life event to be celebrated and coaxed into life like an ember. I leaned into comforts because what else was there for me to do?

It wasn’t until after having Zoe that I began practicing yoga and learned that while I’ve always had a muscular build, I had some vital weak points. After Theo I learned about breathwork and the ability to control much more than my anxieties. And now I’ve found this new rhythm, this voice that challenges me to tell the truth with a boldness that frightens me and rescues me all the same. These are things to teach them, my girls.

That blood is going to come, and they’ll know what it feels like to spend whole days obsessing over whether they’re bleeding through their pants or not. As I get older, I wonder if, when life allows, I might be able to enter a kind of red tent at those times of the month. Maybe I could sit in bed on a rag and pray and read and write the days away.

When I had my first baby there were so many things I had never considered. I wish someone had told me how difficult breastfeeding for the first time can be. Or that those first few weeks would be complete delirium. It would have been helpful if someone had talked to me about the burning hate for my husband that would creep in as the result of being the one with the equipment to sustain the baby’s life.

I could have been prepared for the months, even years, of struggle that would follow as my body tried to gather back to itself all the flesh that made room for the life inside. Maybe I could have considered, with my husband, how my changing body would affect the way we both looked at me, and our sex. Would it have been less emotional to go out that first time, shopping for clothes that fit over the loose skin I’d acquired on my belly?

Honestly, I don’t know that knowing any of this would have relieved much of the burden. And I know that I was too ignorant, too proud, to ask these questions. But I think that conversations, more than reading books or watching documentaries, would have helped me face these challenges with more grace and patience.

Zoe’s five and I’m seeing ways to plant seeds of understanding for herself and her probable path toward marriage and childbearing. These are threads I observe dangling in the creation that is this little girl, my little girl. They need a place to be woven into, a narrative to lead her into further self-discovery of what it means to be girl, and eventually woman.

These are little studies I’m making with the hope of aiming her at understanding and loving herself, of knowing she’s loved and worthy. I want her foundation to be my life. I want her to see me talking about the hemorrhoid, my discomfort about bathing suit season, and my tireless desire for others’ affirmation. I want her to see me fighting and unashamed, clinging to my own worth, believing in my own beauty.

In this effort, I took Zoe out a few weeks ago to get new bathing suits. I was dreading the changing room and the inevitable failures, but I knew this was an important step for building the transparency I want to share with her. I wanted to face her when I looked at myself in the mirror, a cute bathing suit cutting into the flesh on my ass. I wanted to wrestle that beast.  

Zoe tried on suit after suit that were adorable on her perfect little body, unblemished by life. On the way home she asked me which one I’d chosen. There were tears in my throat when I answered that I hadn’t bought one for myself. I knew she heard my voice wavering when I told her it was hard for me to feel comfortable with my body having just had a baby and all the changes that come with it.

Her voice got soft. “The flowery one looked really pretty on you,” she said. The tears left my eyes then and I said thank you. Her answer was the result of observation and care. The flowery one was by far the most flattering. I was reminded of one of my earliest memories. When I was about Zoe’s age I walked into my mom’s room while she was changing. The summer morning light beat through the curtains. I told my mom she looked pregnant. I realized, probably for the first time, that I’d hurt her feelings. All these years later that memory still uncovers a crevasse of shame.

Mainstream standards say that Zoe is an exceptionally beautiful daughter. She’s blonde and blue-eyed with a smile that enraptures everyone it greets. Strangers comment often on her looks. I’ve been training her to be gracious with these compliments, though she wants to cower. I figure they won’t stop. She has to confront the fact that people will judge her appearance.

But what I desperately want is for her to believe that beauty is much more than appearance. It’s the gracious receipt of a compliment. It’s being kind and having a quiet and gentle spirit. It’s caring for others well and forming habits that put them first. Beauty is knowing how to care for yourself, and being a person who can lead others in dignity. The beauty of her youth will pass away, but these internal beauties can grow while skin wrinkles and sags, hair falls out, and joints deteriorate.

I’ve made the habit of showering with Zoe, which is how she’s been exposed to a lot of my female experiences. She’s watched my body change with a level of intimacy and explanation that I hope will be helpful to her. In the shower she’s asked about sagging flesh. About blood. At the end of my pregnancy, she observed that my belly was so big it might be hard to share the shower or kiss daddy.

I don’t want to shield my daughters from what’s true about bringing babies into the world, that a lot about it is just plain suffering. How do you describe to a child that pushing a baby out is like being ripped in half? And that somehow you forget about the ring of fiery pain as soon as that peanut is in your arms? What did she think when she saw the amount of blood that left my body post-partum? How is it affecting her to watch her Tita Em lose baby after baby?

Last week I had your average mom freakout. I’d been bold enough to take all my kids to the library. When we got home, I had to feed Noah and get her down for a nap. The boys were restless and rowdy. I gave what felt like endless verbal corrections and redirections. My head was beginning to spin from the noise of it all.

Theo took a leftover milkshake out of the fridge without asking and dropped it promptly on the floor where it exploded all over the inside of the fridge. The brown ooze bubbled at me, mocking. I already had a wet towel in my hand, which I promptly threw down on the floor in anger, yelling that nobody cared about me. The boys erupted in tears.

But Zoe, sweet Zoe, who was vacuuming the carpet for me, turned the machine off and came and gave me a hug. She knew I’d been up at night multiple times with Noah. She said she was sorry that I was tired and angry. She led me to stop, to step out from behind the mountain of feelings blinding me. She invited me to reflect on my experience as woman, mom, and wife. Zoe turned our many conversations, snuggles, and hugs right back on me.

I wonder if my mom had the same anxieties about the mystery that I was to her, with internal and physical lives that were inevitably disconnected from her own. My growing up and leaving only added to it all. I hope my daughters will be prepared enough to help others endure these things. Zoe is already teaching Noah how to be attentive and gentle by the way she treats her little sister. She’s learning to feed Noah oatmeal and changes her diaper when she notices it’s wet. I’m excited to see this grow. I know I will see a lot of ugly things that are familiar as well.

I want to relate with my daughters about the jealousies and doubts that we all face as women, the disconnects we live with and through. I want our connections with each other to be the thing that holds these gaps and coaxes them back together. I want them to share with each other what I’ve found with Emily and Tamara. I want us to be each other’s healing salve for the various and sundry wounds that life has for women.