Recently, I’ve started going to yoga. The community center on our base offers it for free once a week. I’ve only been a few times. Each time, there have been a few more people, but overall it’s a small group. I learned last week that one of the regular attendees is six months postpartum.
I’ve had two kids. I can’t remember doing much of anything six months after birth. Every day, it was enough to keep everyone fed, clean, and rested. Anything extra I did manage was certainly not just for me.
I Didn’t Know I Was No Longer Pink
With both my children, I lived in a fog for the first three months after birth. I didn’t notice it at first. One day I woke up and thought to myself, “oh, hello. There you are. I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized you’d gone. Welcome back.”
That feeling surprised me. Did I have postpartum depression? I didn’t feel depressed, just more tired and fragile than before. I didn’t realize I was different until I suddenly started to feel more like my old self.
Although I feel more myself after the fourth trimester, it seems to take me almost a year to start wanting to do things I enjoy. I remember after my oldest was born, I began to feel the urge to write again. I set up a small space on the balcony off our bedroom, intending to sit, listen to the creek and the birds, and write.
Maybe a week after founding my little oasis, I found out I was pregnant again. Almost immediately, the desire left me, like air whooshing from a popped balloon.
I don’t do much creatively when I’m pregnant. It was hard to sit and write, hard to form words into anything that made sense. For whatever reason, it’s hard even to journal. It’s like all my energy and all my brain cells head south, helping to build a new person.
Finding Myself Again
But now, just over a year after the birth of child number two, I’m feeling the itch to delve back into things I enjoy. Every so often, I take out my camera and take some photos of the kids. I’ve started journaling again, consistently, putting a pen to paper. I’ve read an entire book for the first time in literal years.
And I want to write. I don’t know yet what I want to write about, or how my small space on the internet might change. Even though the words might not be great, the desire is there to once again put them out into the world.
A few months ago, I came across Lindsey Gurk on Instagram. One of the posts I saw from her involved flamingos. Turns out, flamingos, both male and female, lose some of their pink color when they’re caring for their young. As the baby chicks become more independent, the parents start to regain some of their vibrant pink color.
I had never heard that before. When I saw them, I assumed the lighter colored flamingos were sick or old. But as soon as I saw her post, I thought, “That feels like me.”
Saying Hello to Myself Again
I think this is where I am now. Slowly but surely, I am regaining some of the pink I lost. Logically, I think I knew it was missing, but I didn’t know it. It wasn’t until I started feeling more like my old self that I saw how much I missed doing the things I used to love.
Maybe you’re in this space, too. Maybe you’re trying to find yourself again after a big change. Take heart, friend, you’re not alone. We can get our pink back together.
I hope you’ll stick around as I say hello to myself and to you again. Much has changed; we have a lot to catch up on.
