I relate so well to this post right now. I feel like a “shrunken sweater” in most aspects of my life: as a mother, a woman, a person who got married, a person who is single, a resident, a professional (formerly?) interested in public health and preventive medicine and obstetrics and all sorts of things that seem silly and impossible today.

This is difficult to cope with. It’s an existential crisis. I have to get a little philosophical to survive each day. I have to remember that even though my external identities and roles are under constant challenge, my actual self is just as safe and solid as it ever was.

In yoga, a person’s essence isn’t their body, or their mind, or any of the things they do. Those are just external trappings. The real essence or identity is the non-material, eternal spark of life. That essence can’t be modified or injured. Even though it’s often forgotten and ignored, it never leaves or changes.

Or as James Marsden put it on Modern Family…
Cameron: You’re living in our daughter’s princess castle?
Barry: No, don’t be ridiculous.
[Points at heart] I’m living in here.
[Points at castle] I’m sleeping in there.

C is for Crocodile

The majority of my friends, both online and in real life, are parents. This was fairly intentional. I became a part of a vibrant lesbian blogging community when I was trying to get pregnant with Caemon because the support through that process was so important. In fact, with each stage of becoming a parent and then being a parent, surrounding oneself in one’s tribe is the smart thing to do. New parents need to be able to talk about new parent things to ask new parent questions and complain new parent complaints. These communities of parent friends, both online and in real life, were an essential piece in helping us maintain our sanity through Caemon’s illness and in keeping us afloat after his passing. After all, who could better understand the fear or pain of losing a child than those who know the way that parenting bursts the heart open…

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