I write because it’s part of my process. Recently (meaning: ‘at some vague point in the last two years’) someone asked if writing helped me process things. I detected a tinge of “why are you putting yourself through this?” mixed with sadness. I think it’s hard for the people who love me to read what I’ve been through and how much I struggled in the last two years. Especially in the context of the pandemic: we haven’t had eyes on our friends and family as much as we used to. I know many people who were traditionally out helping others now facing their own struggles. As we slowly emerge from restrictions, we realize that « returning to normal » will take years, for some a lifetime. There will not be a return to normal. There will only be a life post pandemic, a new normal will set in as we forget how life was « before. » Some of our children will never know what « before » was. It must have been the same after the two World Wars, or any large scale event that soaked through a population for long enough to seep into every nook, cranny and permeable surface.
This was made real for me when my son Damien — who was in kindergarten in March 2020 — asked what next year’s school schedule would be in terms of « school on and school off »: how many weeks are we going to be in school before we go online next year? Are we going to start online or in person? When is the break when I switch grades?
Last Spring, Damien would ask me every weekend: “am I going back to the same class with the same friends and the same grade on Monday?” To him, there is no rhythm to the school year, no predictability. He’s been off school for a month here, three months there, online, offline. I don’t think we appreciate the banks that keep the flow of our lives moving in a predictable direction, at least in some aspects: summer breaks, holidays, winter breaks, celebrations, festivals, and so on. I look at pandemic measures such as mandatory vaccination, painful nasal swabs, masking, and capacity restrictions as temporary disruptions, as a “time” in my life. For children like Damien, there is no reference point to peg the disruption against. He was traumatized by his COVID vaccine and we can’t get him to receive any kind of healthcare anymore, from a simple palpation at the doctor’s office to a dental cleaning. He has no living memory of receiving healthcare from someone he knows, whose face he can see. He was vaccinated while being physically restrained by two nurses. We had gotten ready by using an Emla patch but in the chaos of getting it done, they poked him on the other arm. The first words out of his mouth were: “You said it wouldn’t hurt! YOU LIED TO ME!” I had agreed to the restraints under the mandated threat of not being able to eat out, travel, or send him to school unless I did. It was the first healthcare he had received in over 2 years.
This is a long preamble to say: the two years of aggressive pandemic mandates and restrictions were fucking hard and most of us suffered alone. I was so lucky to have a large immediate family and a live-in best friend who kept me from unraveling alone.
Every time I write a post about my separation and recovery a friend or family member apologizes for “not being there” or “not being there more”. I think that everyone was there as much as they could. Which was not at all in some cases, or on a one-time basis for many, or for a concentrated period for some. I received gifts of money, gifts of time, and gifts of being someone to text or talk to. Some people, like my boss and colleagues, have been generous with their tolerance of my uneven presence and commitment.
Everyone gave as much as they could, and if you couldn’t give anything, be ok with that. We have been through a lot. Some have lost parents without saying goodbye, some have not been able to be at their baby’s birth, people have birthed and died alone, and some people have made it their jobs to guilt those who haven’t shown the same tenacity and commitment to isolation and anonymity. I haven’t given much myself. Except for these pages.
There is a process to publishing these posts and revisiting the pain of the last two years that is therapeutic in itself. I start with an idea. For instance, in my last post, I wanted to explore the arc that had taken me from « pushing through » to “giving up”. How “pushing through” had hurt me and “giving up” had healed me, contrary to popular belief. That arc developed over two years. To make the point I was trying to make, I had to revisit where I had started, and how I had gotten there. It took over 3,000 words to do it and I split the post in 3 parts.
So let me clarify something: I’m doing well. When I write about my separation, major depression and recovery, I revisit events from the past with new eyes. Which is to say: I’m able to write about it because it’s over. Most of the events I related in my last post — the failure of the family home, Paul meeting someone new — happened in late 2020 and 2021. We separated in April 2020, almost two-and-a-half years ago. 2021 was — by a long shot — the worst, hardest year of my life. 2022 hasn’t been kind but my coping skills have allowed me to weather the storm with much more equanimity. My support systems are better, my boundaries are better. My life is stable: I have routines, people I can count on, a cozy home, enough money. I have a good job with benefits. I have an emotionally intimate relationship with someone who brings me comfort and joy. Someday I will get married again. Sarah is already planning my wedding.
The curve balls are still coming, have no doubt about that. Life happens: money runs short, decisions have unintended consequences, children have mental health struggles. But this summer I am taking 5 children to France for a family reunion. With my own money. I’m signing my separation agreement in two days. Paul and our daughter Clara bought a house in a rural community 50km from my house, which has made my house Marie and David’s « pied-à-terre » in town. Seeing both of them more often, sometimes overnight, has been a real joy. I’m weathering events related to my children’s mental health that would have crushed me last year.
When I write my posts, I delete hundreds of words for each one I publish. If my posts feel confessional to you, they don’t to me. I remove so much more than I publish. Still, sometimes it feels like I’m scratching my own itch in public.
I used to ask myself « why would anyone read that? » but there is a positive feedback loop that comes from doing something successfully. Every time I think no one will care, I receive feedback that my writing helped someone figure something out. Or encouraged someone in their journey. Or made someone feel normal instead of worthless. People share things with me they haven’t shared with anyone. My posts give them the courage to open up. Every time I think I may have shared too much, someone’s words come back to vindicate the perceived overshare. Everything I write seems to be needed by someone.
Words are my gift. Experience is my gift. The ability to put profound personal experiences into words is my gift. I can paint emotional landscapes in front of people as they wander in the dark, suddenly giving them a sense of where they are. I give names to the beasts that prowl in the night so my readers can tame them. You thank me for the words, but I thank you for showing me your fears, for your vulnerabilities. Without them, I wouldn’t know what to write.
This is my big gratitude post. I started reading « The Overstory » by Richard Powers (I’m hosting a book club meeting about it, here is the link to the Facebook event). In one of the chapters, a young girl and her father conduct an experiment. Holding up a seed he asks her: « Where do you think all the wood comes from, to get from this little thing to that? » She answers « the dirt? » They put 200 pounds of soil in a wooden tub, weigh a beechnut seedling and push it into the loam. In 6 years, they’ll weigh the tree and the soil again, to see if the tree has grown in the same proportion as the missing soil. When the girl weighs the plant and the soil it fed on again, the beechnut now weighs more than she does but the soil weighs just as it did, give or take a few ounces. « There’s no other explanation”, she thinks: “almost all the tree’s mass has come from the very air. »
I started my blog the summer of 2011, when I was pregnant with my twins. They are turning 11 in September. Your messages and your support throughout the years have been the success loop pushing me to put my experience into words, to paint these emotional landscapes with more and more accuracy. Some people have called me “courageous” for sharing so intimately, but intimacy doesn’t require courage, it requires safety. I can share my experiences because you make it safe for me to do so. My stories are not personal, they are shared by many. I just have the gift of putting them into words for you.
My 10 year writing anniversary has come and gone without a celebration but when I revisit what I’ve written, it starts looking like a significant body of work. It is not printed and bound anywhere. It lives on the Internet, and on backed-up clouds of bits and bobs. Yet it lives in every corner of the world in the friendships and connections I have made and continue to nurture.
Like the beechnut, “a mass come from the very air.”
Oh how I love these posts. I read them in bursts and they offer so much human-ness and light. Thank YOU for putting them out into the world.
Chère Véro, Je suis vraiment impressionnée par ta facilité à écrire, dire tes émotions et à relier ça aux vies des autres. Je comprends très bien que tu aies touché beaucoup d’ami.es et que tu crées une solidarité d’expériences. J’admire toute l’expérience acquise et absorbée, l’énergie de poursuivre très positivement. Bonne fin d’été! Huguette