I feel like I've spent too many years fighting (I don't know who) for who I am and approval that she is OK. In the last two years, I've really gotten to know who that is and why she matters. Two years isn't a whole lot of time to know someone, but already she's changing and becoming someone else.
Like any terrible toddler, I find myself digging my heels in the ground in a tantrum and saying "No!" I'm not ready to wave bye bye to her yet.
Growing up, like most of us, I was encouraged to get the best education I could and get a good job that could one day support my own family. Without realising it, I grew up attaching this ideal to my value as a human and my idea of success. Two years ago that ideal was flung into mother nature's version of the Nutribullet and destroyed. I quit my job. Yea, a western child's luxury - to have a job and then quit because you don't like it. I thought I would get a new job easy-peasy and carry on towards "success."
What happened instead was almost a year of unemployment. I was so unprepared for how much that would crush who I was. Crushed beyond recognition.
Looking back now, it wasn't the loss of income that took such a toll. It was what that loss of income represented to me as a functioning, independent adult. Even now I struggle to put it across in a tangible way. Who I was as a whole was tied to clocking in. My validation for existence was tied to that monthly wage slip and being able to keep a roof over my head. It might seem feeble for some and the fact that I have now re-joined the ranks of daily commuters isn't what's pushing me to write this now. Unemployment is irrelevant to the point.
I've tried to put what happened to me into words for some time now, but I've not been able to capture the emotion of what happened, even now I feel I'm failing miserably. I wish I could pour the churning in pit of my stomach now onto the page and present it to you wordlessly. Still today, that feeling shocks me.
During that year I went through depression. I wouldn't get out of bed for weeks at a time, was physically afraid to leave my house. Afraid of bumping into people, in case they asked me what I was doing out and about during working hours. I was deeply ashamed and any other facet of my being didn't matter because I couldn't earn a salary.
However, out of that time, I birthed a new business; She Dressed Up. I always smile when I tell people she was born from £20. Literally £20. And from her a new Rose blossomed. Rose knew that her value wasn't because people loved roses for Valentine's Day, or because she was a great option for Mother's Day. Her value wasn't attached to a season or monetary value. Rose knew she was valuable because she was a Rose. Simple as - and my God the freedom that realisation has brought into my life is still breathtaking.
Have you ever watched a flower blossom? It's mesmerising! The petals open and stretch proudly and with purpose. Without apology and it doesn't matter if it rains, or if it's sunny. It blooms anyway. That's the Rose I became two years ago and I love her fiercely. Today, I have a new name as a wife, a new responsibility and will God willing become a mother in the near future. How do I reconcile these new identities with who I am today? My fight (albeit a mere push to some) knocked me on my ass for a long time and I'm not willing to give up the winner's belt for the medal of motherhood. The examples of women who carry both are far away from me, so how do I bid farewell to the love of my life and make friends with the new girl?
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| Photo Credit:JOT Photography |
