Some are Old and Some are New

Yesterday I turned 40 - my younger sister has been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. The opportunity to gloat, and tease about being young still while I am now relegated to officially old. Funny, I feel young - and much younger than I did at 28, slogging through a custody trial, cyclical depression, poverty, loss of identity, and general fatigue, both mental and physical.
It has always been a tradition in my family to joke incessantly with the approaching 40 year mark - though tongue in cheek I have always disliked the implication, that 40 was where the hill started to go down and everything about you started to decline. I feel so opposite of this - I finally have a true sense of myself, I am in a strong and loving relationship. My husband is a terrific guy and father who took quite awhile for me to find; not until after the birth of my first two children. So there are a lot of years where life dragged on me, not because I was a single Mom so much, as the tiring actions and words of outsiders with widely exaggerated perceptions of who a single parent is and the assumption that life is constant hardship without the moments of joy felt by coupled families.

I am not battling with cyclical depression anymore - my body still plunges and rises from the depths of what has become apparent as a hormone swing, but I do not battle it anymore and it does not control my life. It comes a few times a year, I acknowledge its presence with a wry and knowing smile, my husband, my friend, reminds me I will come through the other side soon. I get on with life as usual and it slips silently away without much ruckus.

I am pregnant with my 6th baby and am looking forward to this life spilling out of me and into our daily, righteous, adventurous chaos. The other 5 children and and the 2 dogs, the cat and my husband and I have learned to let go and accept whatever comes. We are experienced homebirthers (birth stories and pictures to come in another future entry), home and community based learners and go with the flow travelers and neighbors. It is hard to feel "old" when you are growing new life in a verdant womb. I ovulate more than once a month - this baby was conceived the day after my period ended, proving my body isn't following the stereotype of "getting old and drying up", not yet. Because my body is feeling like doing the job of a fertile young animal, we were grateful for the vasectomy my husband chose to get this past Summer. We want the opportunity to have space to give these kids what they need and eventually foster more, when we move onto a farm one day. I also want to keep my teeth :) and though pregnancy and breastfeeding have been healthy for me overall, especially my mind, my back teeth seem to be suffering the depletion of limited resources. It rings true to me though, what Jeannine Parvati Baker says in her book Prenatal Yoga and Natural Childbirth. I cannot remember the exact wording but something to the effect of it being a shame that we get really good at pregnancy and birthing just when it is time for our bodies to stop reproducing.

I no longer think of more babies as more work; I think of them as my fuel and my purpose and my community. I have always envisioned my 40s as being a great time to have a baby - because of that gradual dawning of what really matters to me personally, the letting go of drama and battles entangled in identity, ego, and perceived illness (depression). More room to enjoy and understand the little person not as only an adjunct to myself. Life is now and kids are VERY now and I take pleasure in finding the sacred in the mundane on a daily basis. Early this morning in the bath with my toddler nursling baby, I re-read the wise words of Dr. Suess in our bath book One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish - "some are black and some are blue, some are old and some are new...from there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere." That is how I see age, not a problem to overcome, not a hill to descend, but a fun and funny adventure where it all exists, new and old, sacred and mundane, the easy and the challenging. I am up for it all now, even the teasing...