Building A New House With Old Bricks

my newest foundation

I almost started smoking cigarettes two months postpartum. I knew what I was gonna smoke, too: Lucky Strikes, for my hometown’s sake. I had convinced myself briefly that they would pull me back to earth. They would help me remember who I was. Surely a new habit could remind me of the joy in autonomy, the joy in being human, if nothing else would. I just needed something. Every limb was a bag of rocks. My heart was mostly outside of my body, though some fragments dripped into the baggy panties I still reluctantly wore. The rest of my heart crumbs lingered in rumination. The sweet romance of birthing had decayed. Life was way heavier than the infant I was told to pass around rooms to fulfill the myth of exposure and richer development. The accumulated brain fog was beginning to take its toll on me. I barely showed up in the world and rarely did I show up as a real person. Decisions became hard to make, yet there were so many solely for me. My memory fell off the bone. Transformation’s only desire was to wrap me up in its postpartum cocoon, so of course: I resisted, alongside my environment. I couldn’t bring myself to beg for help from anyone outside of the one who seemed to help me the least. And though, I had virtually set myself up for success: a new home, nested and prepped, a postpartum doula willing to visit 2-3 days a week, a meal train of food so I didn’t have to stand by the stove, plenty of people willing to come hold the baby so I could do anything else, it was the last thing I wanted. I couldn’t bear my rejected and neglected body alone. I wasn’t enough to care for myself and for my child. That disappointed me. I was invisible and incompetent. And all I wanted was to feel connected.