the fog of early motherhood

when you're heard, you feel seen

Dear new mum,

Do you find yourself wishing that all your work was acknowledged? That someone would really see the depth and relentlessness of it?

I thought so.

I know it’s difficult to track the work, to count the hours, to explain the half-done-before-it’s-undone-again nature of this season. I think the word that often comes to mind is defeated. And then perhaps, overwhelmed. I also remember a visceral anger.

Yesterday I walked along the beach with my dog. I do this most days, even in the wet and cold, because it gets me out of my head and into my body which is always a good thing. My thoughts tangle easily and I become so focussed on them that I ignore the tension in my body. Walking helps me breathe and helps me make sense of things. Often I write these letters while I wander; a sentence every few steps.

Walking on the sand and seaweed and across the rocks while I breathe in deep lungfuls of salty air is my reset. I’m a better person because of it. Occasionally, the sea mist rolls in across the ocean and blankets my little town in cloud. And walking through it is some kind of magic because the air is like gossamer and it glimmers when the sun hits it but it also brings with it an eerie sense, like something is not quite right.

This is exactly what my early days of motherhood felt like. A fog that shone and yet I couldn’t ignore my nervous system; a persistent undercurrent of anxiety and uncertainty regardless of where I was and what I was doing. And as the weeks and months wore on and I no longer had a newborn, there was a general expectation that I should know what to do and be doing it with ease.