I am always telling my students to avoid cliches. I ask them to think beyond the overused to something more creative...and yet, I sit here about to wax metaphorically about the birth of my child making me whole (yep, two were in that last sentence).

But this "making me whole again" captures in simplicity the entire journey for me from pregnancy to childbirth.

At nine I lost control of my body; I divorced my mental and physical realms long before my parents would divorce several years later.  Certainly there are various familial details to that ninth year that helped to create a desire to divide these two within myself but in adulthood I was fully responsible for continuing the madness.  But at that young age, I split into two enemy states - a mind that felt that the body betrayed...and a body that felt that the mind was weak...and at this point my flesh began to expand.  I gained weight in small and mighty leaps over the years.  Each year finding me just a bit more chubby, double-chinned, and self-conscious about it.

There are many people who have spoken heroically and passionately about loving their fleshy bodies.  Relishing the generous portions and ample offerings of a large vessel to carry their souls to and fro.  I was not one of these people.  I was an elementary school girl who heard boys make loud creaking sounds whenever I sat in the school desks (even now, I tear up instantly)...the middle school girl, who during javelin lessons in PE class, had Eddie Laferney (yeah, I put his real punk-ass name on here) chase me with a javelin making wild boar sounds, the high school girl, who on walking home from school, had boys jammed into a car slow down to match my pace, roll down their windows, and make pig noises as they cruised slowly alongside for several blocks as I cried.  

And I've tried diets, books, therapy, blah, blah, blahity, bloo-boo...but the fact remained that until recently there were still two firm encampments within me.  A mind that believed that I had an ugly grotesque huge body and a body that flew a flag with a motto that I had a weak mind, no will power, no strength, no possibility of success in a physical scenario.

And then came pregnancy.  From the moment that the plus sign materialized on that stick, the generals of these two armies started flying their respective white flags.  I began to intertwine the mental and physical journey of pregnancy for the sake of the little one who would, after 40 weeks and 4 days of nourishment within me, enter the world and become the daughter that I sustain through nursing today.

Peace was made.  There was no need for an official treaty.  It has been since that joyous "dip stick" day that I've made an almost instantaneous and fluid conversion to harboring two parts of myself in harmony.  I sipped in pre-natal yoga classes and swam with all my might in water aerobics.  I followed the gestational diabetes diet and didn't even blink an eye.  I found a doula that gave me such inner peace, strength, and guidance that I easily found my own natural rhythm during labor.  Never screaming.  Rarely panting.  Just riding the waves that moved my baby towards the world.

I have forgiven my body for so long struggling to eat for nourishment's sake.  I have forgiven my mind for so long struggling to push emotions out of the way for another quesadilla.

And it isn't without reserve that I pronounce I am whole again; I know that people with food issues can sometimes cycle back.  Yet, in the present moment, a place that I try evermore to reside with more tranquility and acceptance, I am fully whole.