The maternal death no one talks about: your former self

How to live in the long hallway between identities

I don’t know what I'm doing with myself anymore. None of it feels worth it or makes any sense.

I’m raising two children. I’m building a home. Those matter, but what about me? What about my impact on the world? As a teacher? As a woman?

So much feels inconsequential. Why bother using half a paper towel, when they’re burning everything down? So, I take a second square and then another and another. I sleep less and less. I drink more and more.

I want to stand up and start gathering. I want to start helping, but then I think, “Who am I to help if I can barely help myself?”

My child has a meltdown one morning that leaves me shaking. “He will just have to get used to it,” my husband assures. Yes, he will have to get used to it, but what about me??? How do I get used to someone crying and climbing up your body, like a cat refusing to be bathed?

It seems like a good time to take up smoking again. There are no rules anymore. Lay in the sun without sunscreen. Or better yet use that toxic shit.

I weep when I hear how much humans have fucked this whole thing up…when I hear of another extinct animal or melted snow cap or displaced people. Another war, another genocide, another kidnapping and deportation.

It’s too much.

Photo by Dmitriy Frantsev on Unsplash

I want to make a difference–to be the difference. If not out there, then in here. But it often feels like none of it matters anymore. So I fold the laundry and I shuttle my children to and fro, and I try to focus on their tiny voices and plump feet and the moistness of their chewing rather than the noise screaming out of my phone.

Stand up.

Sit down.

I’m reading a book right called Signs. Stories about how people’s loved ones communicate with them, even after they left this earth. Like, numerical sequences and electrical occurrences. Animals and symbols.

You might think this is horse shit, but I can tell you stories that will make the hairs on your neck stand up. I have received numerous clear signs from my Mum and my “Team of Light” (as the author calls them).

They’re not answering this question, though.

What am I supposed to do with my life???” I ask desperately.

Nothing.

I go to the Tarot deck. I close my eyes; I dream. I listen to the sounds of nature, hoping to hear the answer. Nothing.

I devour another business course. I take another workshop. I pick brains and ask questions.

Nothing.

Maybe the answer is nothing. Maybe the answer is to simply be in this liminal space.

Why are the hallways I find myself in always so damn long? Where is the door? Does anyone have a cigarette?

I want to trust. I do trust. I want to have faith that I’m exactly where I need to be and doing exactly what I need to be doing. Then there’s that ache again.

“It’s not enough.” “What a waste.” “Your time has sailed.” “You failed.”

I was meant for more.

Other mothers succeed. Other mothers thrive. Why is it so hard for me? Why put me on this earth with this burning ache only for me to simmer in a puddle of spilled milk and legos?

My littlest rouses earlier than usual. He’s shaking the door to his room and the entire house feels like an earthquake. I rush to stop him, lest he wake up the rest of the family, and the first thing he says when I open the door is, “I want you.”

His little arms wrap around me as he nuzzles his head in between my neck and shoulder.

This is something. This is everything.

For this moment, this is all I need. All I will ever need.

Then he asks me to put him down and runs off to play, and I’m left asking, “What am I supposed to do, now?”