Sick Mothers Aren’t Automatically Bad Mothers.

I don’t often admit how sick I really was last year…

This is a Part Two… A continuation of yesterday’s work.

(So if it doesn’t make sense or have a good flow… Be sure to read in congruence with yesterday, pretty please!)

Maybe it stands alone without the connective threads?

Writing can definitely be a choose your own adventure that way.

Thanks for being alive with me… and most of all, alive and reading.

Yours,

B

** NOTE: These photos will not be from the surgery I just had (those are to come), as I am trying to be off of my back as much as possible while it heals, so I’m uploading images from the holiday break, and images from the surgery this time last year **

I don’t often admit how sick I really was last year…

Because I’m so used to protecting when and however I can.

But I’m also tired of being defensive for doing what we all should want a mother to do: F*cking survive.

“You’ve been in the hospital multiple times a year, every year, since I met you over a dozen years ago,” my best friend (and “Auntie Em” extraordinaire) said when discussing my guilt at the shame we throw at sick people for one reason another.

Mostly, I think, it’s because it works. People bite. They want the sob story. They understand that narrative better. (They forget what’s the opposite and equal reaction.)

“If you were so damaging as a mother and it was so worrisome to your children then…” She continued, ready for the punt:

“Where was everyone?

Why was I… or a couple of your students… or your sweet Dad- the only people to visit you, if anyone visited at all?”

My mom helped distract my girls when they were too young for me to allow them to visit. They only started going to the hospital a couple of times in their teenage years. And now: I regret that.

I see friends online who make hospitals less of a scary place, posting photos with their toddlers and the like. I so rarely did that - Brief visits, mostly FaceTimes. Why did I let society’s narrative get so deeply in my mind? The person who shamed and blamed me the most for my unstoppable DNA was… me.

The truth is: We all have our sh*t. No child is the same, no parent is the same- and I make it a firm practice to stay out of the business of the family’s and loves that I love. I’ve never wanted to thrust my opinion of they should raise a child or exist in their bodies or proceed with work at them. It’s just never interested me.

Normally, I’m just happy to chat with them about life’s ups and downs, and be a shoulder so should they lean.

We all show up in each other’s lives in different ways … but what hurts is —

Also, what hurts is the surgery I had yesterday. But more on that later. Here is —

It seems that the only thing I am deeply okay with shaming is the act of shaming others for simply living onward.

And I’m okay with that.

But….

I’ll never get Sickness Shame culture, if I’m being honest.

Because I don’t really get shame culture at all.

I don’t tell my best friend how to raise her baby, if I can help it: I just try to show up and witness the world she’s creating. Lucky to be in it. I Glide my other best friend nearby everyday and pinch myself that she tells me things. “How did I get so lucky to be let into your world?” I’ve asked her before. I revel in our differences. I giggle at our commonalities. I don’t want her to be me. (One is enough.)

Exist. Stay alive. If you’re not hurting anyone (and if you learn from it when you do), you just have to keep going… because it’s a shame that people get enjoyment out it shaming. That they often can’t even tell how much they do it. But that’s on them.

You just have to stay alive.

It’s not going to be easy for any of us… and we can’t always control what happens even if we tried… but if you’re still trying:

You are not bad for not being perfect.

I just had surgery and the last two days I’ve written a thesis about how much it sucks to be judged for having surgeries. But if someone wants to wish that ill of the ill… I think I’m just happy that- for the most part - I just hope for others to be happy? I don’t want to manage other lives; I don’t think I should cast a vote?

Maybe there are only two kinds of people in this world. I don’t know. But one of the kinds spends time writing sh*t like this and one doesn’t realize they make someone feel they need to write sh*t like this.

We get to choose which we are.

I’m alive.

My surgery is done and now I have to heal a spine yet again.

I’m watching my daughter have a (weird) blast out of hospital cafeteria food and scavenger hunts. And if I could go back in time, I’d hide less as a Momma… Not more.

You are not bad for not being perfect.

None of us are…

It’s just that some of us know it.

Thank you for staying here… for catching your breath for a moment through the somewhat-dying-art of writing (and reading anything longer than a 2 sentence caption)… And for caring about the freelance weirdos of the world who sometimes need to survive, but who’s bodies sadly can’t yet fit into the 9 to 5.

xo

PS: Kindly consider booming a supportive Word Nerd if you’re able (every little bit counts and helps keep this ongoing memoir going, or… Share with you someone you like?