The Thing About Forgiveness, aka Indefinite Hiatus

As the new mom of an amazing little girl, I’ve reached a point where I need, more than anything else, to protect myself, and my family, and my heart. And to do that, I'm going on a blogging and internet interaction hiatus. Very specific things have happened that have made me feel completely violated, disrespected, and broken, and left me wondering why I bother hoping that people around me will respect me, my family, and my decisions. And no, I will not be airing any dirty laundry in public (at least until we need to be sunning diapers and it’s warmer than 46 degrees outside, but we all know that’s not the sort of laundry I mean).

But there’s a lot of work I need to do toward forgiveness before I can even think about going back to saying things publicly—here, on facebook, on message boards, anywhere. I simply need to manage the things that I can manage and keep out the toxicity that I cannot handle. My energy needs to go elsewhere—to Michael, Mari, and my own self and self work.

Forgiveness has to be part of that work, and I have to recognize that it’s only going to happen on its own time. It’s not just work, but hard work. I’m sure there’s a labor or nursing metaphor in there somewhere, but I haven’t slept for more than three consecutive hours since the 4^th, so literary technique will have to wait.

I’m grateful that I go into this knowing that forgiveness is work. It’s difficult to think, examine myself, be conscious of my own role in the situation. It’s also difficult to think about why and how I was hurt so badly without giving into the rage that is so close at hand to pain.

More than that, though, I’m grateful that forgiveness is a solo activity, or if you believe in a God/dess , a two-party journey. It doesn’t require anything of the person who hurt me so badly. It’s somewhere I have to get myself, by myself. Forgiveness simply means that I will stop carrying around this giant sack of emotional rocks and move to a place where the pain no longer consumes or defines me at any point in my day. It means getting through this, learning something, and leaving it behind, as part of my past from which I will grow. It does not mean forgetting. It does not mean pretending particular behaviors and attitudes are ever acceptable. It does not mean pretending things are okay. It does not mean I will forget. There are no connotations of trust, or relational healing, or interpersonal re/connection.

Those things require reconciliation. That’s different. That requires actual apology that does not end in “but;” true apology that does not offer self-centered explanations that seek to minimize my feelings, experience, and subjectivity; genuine apology that does not attempt to make me see things from the point of view of the source of my hurt. It requires that someone take him/herself out of his/her own viewpoint and empathize in order to understand how and why s/he hurt another person, and to genuinely regret that hurt and work to prevent doing something like it again. There is no “but I just…” in reconciliation, any more than there is “well I’ll just carry around this one rock just in case I need to throw it…” in forgiveness. Reconciliation cannot start with me, because if it does, it will be read as accusatory, judgmental, punishing, and damaging, and I don’t want any of those things. I just want to live my life and love my family, respected by the people around me, without people trying to change me or my mind, tell me why I’m wrong, or why I should be more like them.

And that’s the thing about forgiveness. It’s an integral part of reconciliation, but it doesn’t require reconciliation. Forgiveness, when I can finally accomplish it, means that I don’t need reconciliation, however much I may wish it would happen. It means that I never need to hear “I’m sorry.” because I will have seen my world change twice—once because of the injury, and once because of forgiving it. I don’t know what that twice-changed state will look like for me. I don’t know how Michael and I will balance obligation with protection and sanity, and I don’t know how I’ll go about my life when I’m not carrying this big bag of hurt. But I do look forward to the day when I no longer cry every time I think about it, when I can go back to talking with people I love and not fearing betrayal and selfishness, when I can go back to being more of the self I want to be. There’s promise there, and hope, and I’m going to go work on myself and my family, and focus on that promise and hope.

Thank you!

An update: Mariana Ruah was born on Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 10:40pm. She was 19 inches long, and 7 lbs. 6 oz. in weight. Mom, baby, dad, and dog are adjusting well to this new reality.

As an addition to my last post, I thought that my praise and admiration for Swedish Covenant Hospital midwife group should continue, and begin to name names. Our midwife on Saturday night was Darcie, and she was assisted by Hannah, a midwife-in-training. Both Darcie and Hannah, as well as the nurses, were fabulous. The picture on the left depicts Mariana with Gina, of whom we spoke highly in the previous post. Gina came to visit us in the Mom/Baby Unit on Monday morning. We hope to add pictures of Darcie and Hannah in the near future. As you can probably imagine, Saturday night was a bit hectic and momentous for us all.

In addition to the expert care provided by the SCH midwives, we were accompanied by Andrea Bukiewicz and Amy Ortega. Andrea and Amy are doulas, women whose job and passion is to assist the woman with the birth process: before, during, and after the birth. Andrea and Amy were caring and excellent. They truly love their vocation. We are blessed by their lives.

Our childbirth educator was Holly Barhamand, who taught our course through Birthworks International. Holly was not only our teacher; she has also been a mentor, friend, and companion through this entire process.

Of course, absolutely none of Saturday's fireworks would have been possible without my fantastic and powerful partner, spouse, wife, best friend, and baby-mama - Krista. She labored for seven hours without pain medication. I was able to bear witness to her inner strength, beauty, goodness, and fortitude.

I'm sure that Krista and I will soon co-write and post the longer story of Mariana's birth, but I couldn't pass up this opportunity to thank the caring professionals for their assistance and presence last week.

To Darcie, Hannah, Gina, Andrea, Amy, Holly, and Krista -- Thank You!

Swedish Covenant Hospital: Midwives are cool!

A few months ago, one of my best friends, Sol Neely, and his wife, Kerry, gave birth to their daughter, Mila Rain Neely. Sol, a fellow graduate student in the Philosophy & Literature Ph.D. Program at Purdue University, was extremely impressed and existentially transformed by the care, love, and compassion of the midwife group with whom they worked. After Mila was born, Sol informed me that one of his current activist issues is to raise awareness and appreciation of midwifery. Today I join him (and many others) in this effort.

(P.S. Sol, Kerry, and Mila have since been infected with the zombie virus, and they are in the market for some tasty brains. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.)

Krista and I have been visiting the midwife group at Swedish Covenant Hospital since June or July, once we moved from Pennsylvania to Illinois. Krista had done her homework and research, seeking to locate a group whose values and philosophies complemented her own. Anyhow, since our first midwife appointment, we have been able to meet each of the seven midwives whose job it is to care for the woman/mother first and foremost. While we composed a Birth Preference Plan, we do not anticipate any awkward scenes or medical tugs-of-war in the birthing center.

One of the midwives in particular, Gina, quickly emerged as our favorite. This past Wednesday, we had another appointment, and after the meeting was over, we ran into Gina in the hallway and struck up a conversation, which ended up with me snapping a picture of Krista and her. It was a great morning-turned-into-afternoon.

I will have more to say about the awesomeness of the Swedish Covenant midwives, but that story remains to be completed...in a matter of days or weeks.

In a future blog post, I will also praise the virtues of doulas, including The Barefoot Doula and the Chicago Volunteer Doula network.

October 33, 2010

On Sunday, Oct. 31, I joked to Krista that tomorrow (Nov. 1) would be renamed "October 32." Given that line of reworking the calendar, today is Oct. 33. We're doing this because it doesn't totally seem real that we will most likely meet BugBear in the flesh before this month is over. While this is not the actual end of the pregnancy, reality is slowly but surely setting in: we are going to be parents...soon.

In the immortal (and undoubtedly intoxicated) words of Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray, "Holy cow!"

I have contacted a few professors at my school to see if they could cover my classes for the days/weeks around the kiddo's birth, and for the most part, my colleagues have been generous with their acceptance of the invitation/request. It will be weird to be away from the classroom and students for a little bit, but this is probably one of the best imaginable reasons to skip out on work.

We have constructed a list of possible dog-sitters, and are very grateful to have family, friends, and neighbors who are willing to help out.

What's left to accomplish? We're putting the finishing touches on the Birth Preference Plan, seeing the midwives on a weekly basis, composing a list of things to pack for the "big day(s)," and attempting to plan for those sorts of things that cannot be planned for. In short, we're expecting the unexpected.