Mother’s Day. A family tradition I’ve been holding onto for years now, because traditions are something I’ve learned to love deliberately. Not the way I was taught to love them, the perform-them-because-the-calendar-says-so way, but the we keep coming back to this and that means something way.
There was a lot going on. Family dynamics had been loaded going into the day.
My body knew first. Before I knew. Tight stomach. Heart picking up its pace. The fast that says something is happening and we should already be doing something about it.
Years ago, I would have sat in that and said nothing. The old version of me knew exactly what to do with a body that was warning her: ignore it. Smile. Keep the peace. Be the one everyone could relax around. People-please my way through the entire afternoon and then collapse on the drive home, exhausted in a way I couldn’t have explained to anyone, including myself.
But I’m not that woman anymore. Ok, well, that’s the dishonest version of the sentence. The honest version is: I’m not only that woman anymore. She’s still in there. She still has access to the controls. But she’s not the only one driving anymore, and most days, she’s not even the one I’d hand the keys to first.
So I did the new thing. I named what was happening, out loud, to a family member.
I’m having some real physical symptoms of anxiety right now.
It was a small sentence. It cost me something to say. It was the truest sentence I had access to in that moment. But, the woman I used to be doesn’t say sentences like that.
This time, I said it plain.
What I was hoping for, even though I couldn’t have named it in the moment: any small acknowledgment. I hear you. That makes sense. Is there anything I can do. The body doesn’t need much. It just needs to know it has been heard. One sentence back would have been enough to land me.
What I got was four words.
Oh just stop it.
