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Showing posts from 2020

motherhood & grief • a mirror

The space in which you exist that is your life- after-giving-birth, I've learned, is really a lot like living in grief. But no one tells you that. Maybe most don't even see it. Or maybe it just sounds ungrateful or sad, or too confusing to say out loud. I don't mean that it is like grief in the way that we feel, but rather it mirrors grief in the way other people treat us, as mothers to infants.  Have you ever experienced a great loss, and    notice that people give you a sort of "deadline" to get back to your old self? Maybe they apologize for your loss, come around a bunch at first, check in on you and show you support. Even judge you, perhaps, if you don't seem sad enough. You're supposed to be sad, and you are. And the social norm of expectation is right where's its supposed to be (insert: sarcasm).  But after a short time, they expect you to move on, to be the same person you always were, and maybe not talk about the loss anymore or exp