In the weeks after I gave birth to our daughter, I regressed to being something of a newborn, myself.
For about two months, I didn't leave the house all that much.
I couldn't wrap my head around how to navigate the world now that a piece of my heart existed outside of my body. We were too vulnerable, in my mind, and there were too many hazards to our safety and well-being.
I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the thing I'd just done; I was overwhelmed by all the new ways that I was now responsible; I was overwhelmed by the thought of interacting with others when my mind felt like it had shrunk significantly—leaving room only for thoughts and concerns about my baby.
But slowly, and with a lot of help and patience from my people, I practiced re-entry.
A walk around the block to start.
Eventually, that gave way to a walk around the neighborhood.
At some point, we attempted a trip to Target. I didn't get out of the car and when my baby woke up, I nursed her in the backseat, in a quiet corner of the parking lot. Some time later, we actually made it inside Target.
We built on Target with a 20-minute drive to a state park and a long, meandering walk around the campground—and once we had that under our belts, we went on a longer drive, an hour away to Lake Michigan.
With each new outing came a slow-drip of new experiences: from getting the baby into and out of the carrier, to nursing at a picnic bench, and everything in between (including learning that the backseat of our car really isn't ideal for changing messy diapers... Turns out, the slope of the seat is too great and babies roll really easily...).
Once family outings felt stable, we added in some social stuff, bit by bit.
Five months out and we're continuing to re-introduce those elements of life that we enjoyed before we were a family of three. Very deliberately and very (very) slowly.
This means that Summer 2019 didn't really happen for me in a recognizable way. Same, so far, with Fall 2019. As much as I want to have all the photos ops of our daughter experiencing her first pass through the seasons (hayrides! Pumpkin patches! Hiking through fall foliage!), I'm just not there yet.
I'm getting there. But I'm not there yet.
What I’m saying, though, is this: If, back before the first time I left the house with the baby, you'd asked me when I'd be ready to do so, I couldn't have told you. I might've even said, Never. Everything is different now. Because that's absolutely how I felt.
I couldn't fathom having the bandwidth to drive a car or carry a conversation ever again. It seemed impossible that I'd ever walk the mall or visit a coffee shop. Forget doing seasonal stuff. That was for people who were better than I am at this whole new parenthood thing. (In fact, they're not better at it; it might be that they're able to add stuff back into the mix more quickly than I.)
But with each new outing and each new experience, my feeling of capability has increased.
It continues to increase.
So, a question for you:
Where can you build, just a tiny bit, on what you're already doing?
(And can you allow yourself to feel patient with and proud of your expanding capability, however slowly it may be expanding?)
Share your answers with me in the comments below.