I've had an idea rolling around in my head for a while now, which has been surprisingly difficult to put into words. Every time I've tried to capture the thought, it has slipped out of my grasp like a fish, racing away until I can't really see it any more, but I can still sense it. Even now I'm still not convinced I'm going to be able to capture it in black and white. So bear with me.
I started this blog as a journal. Feeling battered and bruised from my run-ins with pregnancy loss, I was brimful of emotions that, up to that point, had been blessedly absent from my life except in very small doses: anger, despair, grief, desolation. I had lost my faith and felt utterly alone. More than once it had been suggested to me that I start a journal, but the process of recording my life in a notebook and re-reading it at a later time seemed somehow narcissistic to me. On the other hand, I wasn't sure I wanted to write these dark thoughts down for my friends and family to read, either. A blog was a good compromise: I could write what I needed to write and 'publish' it to the ether, where it might or might not be read. I could spew it out and then forget about it if I so wished.
Almost instantaneously, blogging became my salvation. It was a safe house, a place where I could explore my feelings and give voice to thoughts that in my 'real' life, I am far too polite to say. I could allow myself to fully experience the dark emotions, knowing that outside of my blog, I could put them back in their boxes. While blogging, I could immerse myself in despair, give vent to my anger, rail against God, and relive those esprit d'escalier moment (where you think of the perfect comeback only after the target of your wrath has gone) and say what I wish I had thought to say in the moment.
I have been amazed at the comments my posts have received. Especially responses to my angriest posts. I made a promise to myself that when I am in my blog I will not censor myself. If I offend, then so be it. I can do this because I know that a reader can choose to stop visiting my blog if it begins to make them uncomfortable or angry (indeed, I have stopped reading blogs for these reasons; I don't deride the blogger, I simply go elsewhere). But even in my most (to my mind) offensive posts, the support and understanding has been palpable. I consider myself lucky to have readers at all, let alone readers who feel secure enough in themselves to allow me to express myself without fear of recrimination.
I have grown enormously in the few months that I have been a blogger. Whether because my posts act a bit like therapy sessions or simply give me a bit of practice, something about being able to express myself so honestly has spilled over into my 'real' life. I am still unfailingly polite and probably still care too much about what other people think (yes, really, ask Fatima or Cara, they'll tell you). But I am less of a doormat these days. If someone hurts me or makes me angry, I may still choose not to confront them, but it is no longer because I feel unable to do so. I can defend myself yet without rancour or overreaction. I have gone from being someone who always rather assumed that everyone else had some sort of edge over me, were smarter, more together and more likely to be 'right' that I was, to someone who is beginning to see her own value.
Jim Lovell, the commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission to the moon in April 1970 (the "Houston, we have a problem" mission) tells a story of flying a night combat air patrol in the Sea of Japan in the early 1950s and finding himself circling in the darkness, unable to home in on his aircraft carrier for landing. Utterly lost, he switched on a light to consult his list of radio frequencies, causing a short in the wiring and plunging the cockpit into total darkness. At that moment, he looked down at the water beneath him and was amazed to see a faint trail of light, a phosphorescent trail caused by the aircraft carrier's screws churning the algae in the water. He followed the trail back to the carrier.
In the movie Apollo 13, Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell recounts the story.
"It was the algae!...And it was leading me home. You know? If my cockpit lights hadn't shorted out, there's no way I'd have ever been able to see that. So, you never know what events are going to transpire to get you home."
My cockpit shorted out big time this year. Mr Badeggs and I endured the loss of four babies, the crippling emotional upheaval and, for me, the physical effects of two D&Cs. But in the pitch black aftermath, I have re-examined my beliefs, found them immature and wanting, and am working on rebuilding my relationship with God, the Creator, the Universe, my Higher Self, whatever you want to call it. Sitting in my dark cockpit, I have begun to learn how to express myself honestly and with integrity...to value myself and to believe in my own worth.
You never know what events are going to transpire to get you home...
