This postpartum go-around I was on a mission to find myself - quickly and desperately. Will making sure my nails are painted red at all times help me get there? Definitely ending breastfeeding after a short four months is key - being chained to the suction baby blue pump, and constantly rummaging for outfits that worked with a saggy Target nursing bra made me feel empty, sweaty and sad last time. Accepting more help from my mom would also probably be a necessity - to shove our complicated boomer mother/millennial daughter relationship to the side, and just happily with open arms welcome the extra support.
Of course, the baby weight was top of mind. How do I lose all of this weight? Weight leftover from the first pregnancy, now even more from this one. Body positivity, body neutrality, intuitive eating - none of that has ever worked for my damaged, eating-disordered, Jessica-Simpson-on-the-cover-of-US-Weekly-in-those-high-waisted -jeans mind. I must lose the weight to get back to who I used to be. So I found my way to a tactic I had shockingly never tried before - counting calories. I bought Dannon Light + Fit French Vanilla Yogurt at Target that only had 80 calories. Perfect. Diet Coke has zero calories - which seemed like a gift from God himself. Greek yogurt chocolate ice cream bars with only 90 - what a dream. I snacked on Chomps bars, and ate frozen Trader Joes dinners with the least amount of calories I could find. And never stopped drinking that Diet Coke. It was working a little. This route to my old self, and the extreme deep-down-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach pride whenever I grip tightly to a controlled diet. There’s no high quite like it.
I was missing one last factor on my journey. Exercise. A constant love-hate relationship in my life. The second I let it slip out of my hands - it could be gone for years. The pandemic and then having my first child didn’t help my motivation. But I knew that carving out the time for myself to move my body (as everyone says), to work up a sweat, to do something hard would help me find my way back to this pre-baby mirage. I class-passed a few different hot yoga studios and ended up with the one that felt the most free-spirited and welcoming, that had sweet instructors with honey-smooth voices and uplifting mantras, on Figueroa, in the heart of Highland Park. I quickly and absolutely loved it. The studio would get SO hot, and I pushed myself to never scamper out in the middle of class for the relief of cool front desk air. I would go to 8pm classes, sometimes four days a week, after both girls had their bedtimes, and the guilt of taking some time for myself was not quite as intense. The routine and the rhythm of chaturangas and warrior twos, of sinking deeper into positions with each class - I found another source of deep down in the pit of my stomach pride.
One Tuesday night in class the teacher introduced us to a pose I had never heard of - the Bird of Paradise. It’s a standing pose where you somehow wrap one arm around the back of your thigh, the other arm around your back, clasp your hands together, and then lift your leg straight into the sky. A puzzle to wrap your mind around. She laid it out to us step-by-step. And somehow, I did it. First try. Twisted my arms in ways I never thought I could and stood on one sturdy leg and just kicked the other way up high. This felt - powerful. It felt cathartic. Something opened up in me. I could feel the strength pulsing through me. Something I hadn’t felt in years. And maybe this was my pathway to finding an old me, somewhere in there, a strong and confident girl. Sweaty and red-faced, still not skinny, but unbridled and fearless. For at least a moment.
I left class giddy. Drove home, walked in the house and saw my three-year-old daughter and husband in the kitchen. “I have to show you what I learned in class!” And there I went twisting and turning and wobbling a little, and then kicking that leg right up. “Wow Mama.” “It’s called the bird of paradise!” It was her bedtime, so my husband took her to bed while I showered, smiling, still gleeful. I met my husband back in our family room - full of strewn about toys, a markered up couch, a tv smudged to death with toddler fingerprints. “Can we talk?” he said. Shit. Shit. He proceeded to go on about his intense depression, about never really knowing himself, about trying to find happiness. And that over the course of some months, he and his therapist had come to a conclusion. “I’m not straight.” He kept talking as I quietly froze and as twelve years of memories frantically plowed through my mind. “I’m going to move out.” I gulped enough air to ask a couple questions - “So we’re getting a divorce?” “So you have been hooking up with other people?” The answers were yes. And yes.
And just like that (as Carrie Bradshaw would conclude), after six years of marriage, twelve years of partnership, a toddler and a baby, after I had conquered the bird of paradise - it was all over.
Sending you so much love <3