The Nightcap

Living in a constant state of anxiety and feeling like you do not even know yourself is so hard when you’re also trying to love on your new baby and be a good mom to your toddler and a good wife to your husband and a normal friend to your friends and a good family member to your family. I didn’t even know how to be good to myself, so feeling like I needed to be good for other people felt like a stretch I could hardly make yet one that was expected of me. Why couldn’t I just be normal? Why couldn’t I be the Mandi everyone knew? Why couldn’t I be predictable?

11.16.19

“My anxiety has calmed down a bit. I think I’m starting to level out, which is good because I have just not been myself. There’s a part of me that thinks going back to work will be good for me. I need purpose and structure outside of my kids. But there’s also a part of me that is anxious about missing the precious, little moments with my babies when I’m working.

Around the time of my 6-week postpartum follow-up appointment, I reached out to a couple of friends and let them know I was experiencing some postpartum depression.  While naming what was going on to my husband cracked the door to healing, sharing my experience with friends gave that door another good shove. My friends’ responses, while different, were both overwhelmingly understanding and supportive. One reminded me of just how common this is and that I don’t need to view myself as being abnormal despite feeling abnormal. The other said that she, too, had experienced PPD and acknowledged how hard it is, but reminded me how temporary it is in the grand scheme of things. I am blessed to have such great friends in these particular women, that they then journeyed with me through the rest of that viscous hormonal cycle, reaching out from time to time to check in or offer ways they could help.

Living in a constant state of anxiety and feeling like you do not even know yourself is so hard when you’re also trying to love on your new baby and be a good mom to your toddler and a good wife to your husband and a normal friend to your friends and a good family member to your family. I didn’t even know how to be good to myself, so feeling like I needed to be good for other people felt like a stretch I could hardly make yet one that was expected of me. Why couldn’t I just be normal? Why couldn’t I be the Mandi everyone knew? Why couldn’t I be predictable?

Near the end of my maternity leave, my husband, two kids and I spent some time in Northern Michigan at a family-favorite vacation spot. Getting away from our house and just being in a different place with no expectation to do anything other than just simply be there worked wonders on my anxiety. We got horrendously snowed in, but we made the best of it, marveling at the sight, taking overly bubbly bubble baths, building snow forts and feeling as though we were the new cast of Survivor.

In the same week, I also prepared 13 freezer meals for my return to work. I noticed that a part of my life that causes great anxiety for me even without PPD is meal-planning and preparing. I started doubling up on dinners every few nights, making one for that night and one for the freezer. While we wouldn’t even end up immediately whipping those out and heating them up, just knowing I had them available if I needed them helped ease my mind about my return to work.

In short, naming what was going on and sharing that with people made space for me to acknowledge what I needed to do to get through it. Did my PPD go away the minute I made peace with those words or shared them with my closest confidants? Absolutely not. In fact, as I recount these times a year later, I know that I still catch glimmers of it here and there even today. While I imagine some day I’ll be completely through it, I now know what it’s like, and I hope I’ll extend grace upon grace upon grace to any other woman who has to go through PPD on top of the already incredibly difficult task of being a mom to a fresh baby. It doesn’t quite seem fair that on top of your major new role in life you should also be trying to figure out who you are now, why you seem so different and why you think the things you think and feel the things you feel.

A part of me has felt like PPD was the nightcap to my pregnancy experience. Let’s finish it off with one more shot of something difficult.

In the stats: 
Adjusted Age: 4 weeks, 5 days
Actual Age: 8 weeks, 1 day

October’s Book and Bike Break Down

Catch up on what Mandi’s reading and how many miles she’s riding!

Booking and biking my way through 2020.


Books

39. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (Young Adult, Fantasy)
The 6th of 7 books, I’m staying pretty steady with my ratings on this series and might end at about a 3.5/4 star average. I liked this particular book much better than the last one, and was pretty shocked by the ending. I’m definitely invested in the characters, which helps the whole series feel better to me than each individual book. However, I just can’t get to a 5 star rating on these books. I think it’s generally because they are so big and they just don’t need to be. Lots of extra stuff in there… 4 STARS

40. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (Young Adult, Contemporary)
I remember so very little of this story from my childhood, but I wanted to re-read it before watching the movie on Disney+. I was incredibly rewarded for having done so. Reading this as an adult and, particularly, during this season of the world is a game changer for this heart-warming story. Why are we all so obsessed with being liked and being like each other? Why can’t we be obsessed with liking each other instead, regardless of who or what we are? Maybe we all need to be a lot more like Stargirl. 5 STARS

41. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (Science Fiction, Thriller)
Though this isn’t my typical genre of choice, I realized I truly enjoy it by reading Blake Crouch’s newer book, Recursion. When book club chose this book, I was excited to visit his work again. This book was great – well thought out, engaging, deep, and intense. Like Recursion, it would also make a great movie (though I think I would also not generally choose this type of genre in the movie format…). If I had to pick between both of his books, I think Recursion was better. They share a lot of common themes, but it felt like he just learned a lot the first time and did it even better the second. 4 STARS

42. Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks (Short Stories)
I think Tom Hanks might be the greatest actor of our time. He never does anything that’s just okay… except for writing. He might be one of the most okayest writers of our time. I wanted to love it, but it just felt shallow and so it dragged for me. I started reading this in September and it took me over a month to finish it. But did I read every short story with the voice of Tom Hanks in my head? Maybe… 2 STARS

43. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (Young Adult, Contemporary, Poetry)
I love the idea of novel-in-verse books. In general, I feel like they’re better because the author had to take much more time to so carefully craft each sentence with eloquence and intention. However, this one was just ok to me. I enjoyed the story, but I just thought there might be more to it. I wanted to cry, and I never even came close. The idea of a plane crash that brings people together who have so little yet so much in common could be really fascinating. It felt like a bit of a missed opportunity to me. 3 STARS


Biking

While I met my goal to ride 2020 miles in 2020 on October 17, I figured I’d continue on with the tally for your enjoyment:

My current total: 2054

635 of those miles having been outside (339 of them pulling a kid).

Hope you had a great October!