Liminality
Standing at the threshold of another new chapter with what seems to be every human feeling spilling out of my heart, I am learning to live in liminality. I am learning how to be.
A little over a year has passed since I finished work for maternity leave. I knew that welcoming our precious child into the world would be one of the most significant and profound transitions we would ever experience. Despite that awareness, nothing could have prepared me for just how much this first year of motherhood would impact my identity, my sense of self. And I was not prepared for how daunting and difficult this next phase - me returning to work, little one starting nursery - would feel.
I am both ready for it and absolutely not ready for it.
There are so many ‘how will I…?’s racing round my head that I fear if I started listing them they’d never end. But the biggest one is ‘how will I be both?’. Or, maybe more accurately, ‘how will I be all?’. Mother and professional. Wife and daughter, sister and friend. Homeowner, caretaker, creative, dog-mum - the list goes on. And I never want to be half hearted in any of these roles. But, after a year almost entirely focused on my new mother-self, the thought of finding a way to fit all my other selves back into my life feels overwhelming.
My matrescence has been dazzling in both its wonder and its exhaustion. It has been all consuming. It is far from over. And I don’t think that’s something we talk about enough. How the transition into parenthood doesn’t end when whatever parental leave we’re lucky enough to have finishes. In fact, from conversations I’ve had with the many fabulous mums in my life, I’m reaching the conclusion that the process of becoming a parent never really ends. With every phase of a child’s life comes a new one for the parent(s) as well. We are constantly born and born again into new seasons, each with their joys and challenges, their worries and their wins.
I am genuinely excited for so much of what lies ahead. Excited to watch B continue to learn and grow and thrive. Excited to get back to the job and team I love. Excited to take new adventures and excited to enjoy the million tiny pleasures hidden in the mundane day to day of life.
I also feel completely overwhelmed with the question of exactly how I am going to balance everything.
I know, in reality, that the answer to that question comes in two parts:
I will just make it work however I can, because that’s what we all do.
Sometimes I won’t be able to make it work. Balls will be dropped, spinning plates smashed, dinner burnt, appointments forgotten, projects left unfinished, juice poured over cereal instead of milk. And none of it will be the end of the world. It will all be okay. And my little one will continue to laugh his head off whenever anyone sneezes, making me smile no matter how gruelling the day has been. And that’s not nothing. In fact, that’s everything.
Despite being generally anxious of big changes, I think I have somehow always been a transitional being - drawn to autumn and spring, dusk and dawn, the natural thresholds of the world around us consistently hold a feeling of peace and homecoming for me. So maybe, in spite of my nerves, I am actually in my element. Maybe there will be magic in this too. I anticipate that the liminality of this season will ebb and flow as I find new rhythms and ways of living in this next chapter.
And so, Dear Hearts, we go forward. Into the unknown. With courage and gratitude and a really big cup of coffee. Forward we go, gently.
Everything begins
With a blank page,
That is not blank at all.
Every story has a story before it
And some go untold,
Until we tell it.
If you have a story
You want to tell
But fear that endless blank space
And the responsibility you feel
To fill it,
Remember:
The page is not blank.
The stone has the statue inside it;
we only set it free.
The colours belong in the painting;
we only bring them together.
The story exists between the pen and the page.
Tell your story.
It's waiting for you.Thank you for reading, friends.
x
These are such beautiful words. You've really captured what this moment feels like and I felt myself reliving standing where you are now four (long) months ago. There have been so many times when I wondered if I made the right decision to go back to paid work when J was one. She still cries at every drop off. And also I know it's a huge luxury to even have that choice. I do know I left it far too late to put C in daycare and that trying to do full time parenting and work and study and volunteer and have a clean house nearly broke me! I've come to the conclusion that I can really only do three things. I can parent, do paid work, and write -- and that's it. My house is barely contained chaos, I don't do the volunteering I would love to do, and I probably won't finish the diploma I optimistically started in my first trimester with C (when I still thought a baby would slot neatly into my life haha). The only reason I'll have time to work on the garden this summer is that I'll have a break from paid work. Better to put those plates down gently than have them shatter all around me.
I loved reading this Jen. I love what you say about living in the thresholds and transitions, in some ways I feel like that’s where a lot of the fullness is. Wishing you much luck in your new chapter xx