Birth, Community, and Perspective

Yesterday, I birthed a book baby. Yesterday, someone tried to take my firstborn away.

Someone tried to abduct my daughter yesterday.

He tried to kidnap her.

He was going to take my little girl from me.

And no matter how many ways I say it, the full meaning of it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. More than ever, I feel like I should have immaculate perspective in this moment. I should have total motivation and determination like never before.

But I’m still in shock. You can’t force things like this, no matter how you want to.

When I told people about what had happened on Facebook, there were questions like, “How did you react so quickly?”

Well, I just did. Of course I reacted quickly. I trusted myself.

I didn’t feel comfortable with this man in the room, so I stayed aware of the situation. My intuition doesn’t lead me astray, but it took me a long time to fully trust myself with kind of responsibility. Know yourself is the fundamental message in Rebel Mama! Yesterday was the soft launch, right? Shouldn’t I be championing my book more than ever? What I talk about in this book clearly matters. I might not have my daughter with me today if I had acted differently. If I had chosen to ignore how I felt.

But right now, I feel numb. I don’t want to talk about the book. I want to pull away from all of this. I want to be selfish and stay home with my kids and not leave for days.

How can I possibly act as if nothing happened? How can I focus on a fucking launch plan when I almost lost my daughter?

But at the same time, shouldn’t I press on? Moving on is how I’m used to coping. But I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to let myself feel these feelings. The pain of what losing my daughter would have felt like. The torture of knowing how vulnerable I am simply because I am a mother.

And I keep coming back to two questions. What really matters? What do I want?

Both of them are shorter lists than they have ever been. And I think that’s okay.

I want less than I ever have. What I want is ease. To not work so hard all the time.   To spend more time with my family. To be part of a community. (And not just one that exists online.)

I’ve been going to church the past couple of weeks. I know. I know. I never thought I’d go back. But the community that they have built – the real, live, in-person community – is incredible. And I want to be part of that. I can handle some Jesus-speak for people like this.

It helps that now I’m working on getting past some issues I’ve more or less left unresolved for the past (yikes) ten years. It’s not so much about God as it is coming to terms with some painful events that have happened in my life. Maybe I’ll find God again. Maybe I won’t.

Here’s the book if you want it. If you don’t buy into the “motherhood is martyrdom” myth, you’ll probably really like it. I’m going to go spend time with my kids. Because the internet isn’t where I live.