Saturday, April 18, 2009

Feelings of the future and of the past... all in the present

It all boils down to having emmunah (faith), doesn't it.

With the 2nd year anniversary of NF coming around, I am trying to keep turning to faith.
It can help me to stay out of living in the past, and looking toward the future. Emunah can help me to understand and trust that things are the way they are supposed to be. I went through all this stuff for a reason; the Sarah before NF wasn't getting other messages clearly enough, so she had to be hit on the head to get it.

I wanted to have another baby. But you know what? We don't get to decide which souls come into the world and when.

Today, I looked at the "messages" that I missed along the way. The first message was with my 4th birth, an emergency cesarean (after having had three beautiful, natural births). Then, that year after the cesarean, I got mononucleosis and was run down and sick for many months. But, I still felt I wanted to have another baby when that was over. I went to fix my hernia with the goal of having a "fixed" body (like a vessel, a "kli" in Hebrew), and wound up close to dying, leaving future pregnancy not an option. I think the vessel, the "kli", my body, was too full of unspiritual "stuff" to be the receptacle for another soul. ["stuff" can be anger, judgementalness, expectations for another person, and the like] No matter how much you try to fix a broken vessel, if it is full of stuff, it'll keep breaking. It needs to be emptied to really be fixed properly. Only an empty vessel has room for Gd. This is an intrinsically Jewish spiritual concept, I am not making this up off the cuff.

I am learning about a life that has much more room for Gd (having room for Gd for me means having room for His gifts, my children). I used to work two very damanding careers simultaneously. I was hardly *ever* truly available. And now I hardly work much, even at only one career. I know that this is how it is supposed to be for me now, it feels good, for the first time, ever.

(however, the challenges of the pain and the PTSD are still obstacles in the way of being with my children 100%. The quality, however, is so much better than how it used to be)

Somehow, though, I still feel pulled to the stories of the past. They come at me often. I somehow know that that aspect of the trauma will fade. But for now, the past is so palpable, still. Maybe when the physical pain is resolved and the area reconstructed, then I'll be able to put the past behind me? Will I then build my doula practice again? I'll know when I know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Timeline of the anniversary: (my chest just tightened as I am about to write this down)
2007:
April 25th- Yom Ha'atzma'ut (Israel Independance day) wonderful bar-b-que with family.
April 26th- hernia surgery
May 2nd- hospitalization for unknown horrific pain
-things are fuzzy from that point until-
L'ag B'omer (33rd day of Omer)- woke up out of induced coma
Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day)- Skin graft surgery
Shavuot (here)- HOME. beginning of this long journey...

Thanks for riding this journey with me. It's getting less roller-coaster-y, isn't it. :-)

1 comment :

  1. Sarah, I too felt the need to re-visit your journey, and went back and looked up your posts between your hernia surgery and your trip to the ICU. What struck me is your tag saying:

    "When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen: there will be something solid for you to stand upon, or, you will be taught how to fly"

    I guess learning to fly is taking a while, but from where I am, you certainly are learning to fly and have come a long, long way. Mourn your losses, acknowledge your limitations, and celebrate your successes! You are one awesome woman, don't ever forget that.

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