One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
A woman runs a marathon. Just before the finish line, her husband thrusts their children in front of her. She darts around them to win the race. She chooses her success over hugging her kids or entertaining her husband’s wishes.
Yes, I have been that woman. Yes, I occasionally darted around my children to accomplish something that felt important to me. Yes, my former husband (and all of the well-meaning people who used to be concerned for my children’s welfare when I went on business trips) sometimes put them on my path, ostensibly to cheer me on, but ultimately to remind me that motherhood is the highest good.
Because races must be sacrificed for the good of the children, I, and so many other mothers, were repeatedly told.
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
“Bad mother” the voices in my head used to say. “Bad wife, bad daughter” - whenever I turned my attention away from those I loved. “You should be more self-sacrificing, less self-absorbed. You shouldn’t want attention, shouldn’t care so much about success, shouldn’t concern yourself with trivial things like writing, shouldn’t go on business trips, shouldn’t long for the thing that makes your heart sing.”
“And while you’re at it, you should regularly beat yourself up over the state of your house, over the unhealthy fast food you sometimes feed your kids at the end of a long workday, over the fact that you drop your children at daycare. You should measure yourself against the standard of good mothering that’s in all those parenting books you buy because you’re hoping they’ll help you feel a little less lost.”
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
“One day you’ll write books and get famous and you won’t need me anymore,” my husband said repeatedly, when I couldn’t let go of the longing to put meaningful words into the world. In other words, “your success = my abandonment.” In other words, “don’t try too hard because it makes me feel unsafe.” In other words, “lay down your life to save another’s.” And so I would abandon myself and my writing, because abandoning a husband wasn’t something a good wife would do.
Twice, the actions spoke even louder than the words. Twice, attempted suicides and hospitalizations came after I’d turned my attention away, after I’d gotten too close to the finish line. “If you’re a bad wife,” the actions said, “someone will die.”
“If you put yourself first, there will be consequences.”
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
“Codependent” was a word I only learned to apply to myself later, after the divorce. “Enmeshed” was another word. “Over-functioning partner” the therapist said, trying to help me extricate myself from the pattern. None of these patterns were things that I invented in myself. All of them were woven into the fabric of the mantle placed on my shoulders when I became wife and mother.
I didn’t see it then, how much it was my job to keep everyone not just happy, but alive. I didn’t see the ways I bent myself into many shapes to wrap my body around my family’s wellbeing. I didn’t see the way it ate away at my soul.
I didn’t see my own fear of abandonment either – the delusion that somehow I was preventing being abandoned by others by abandoning myself instead. If I hurt myself first, won’t it mean that others can’t hurt me?
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
It took many shaky years to stop taking responsibility. It took many years to feel less unsafe about choosing myself over the mending of other people’s lives. It took years to learn to trust that the whole house wouldn’t crumble, that people wouldn’t die when I did the things that mattered to me and said the things that tasted like truth on my tongue.
Truth that gets swallowed instead of spoken burns a hole in your belly and soon it feels like every part of you is leaking out onto the floor. You can only seal that hole and reclaim your leaked parts when you open your mouth or pick up your pen and speak your truth into the world. With trembling fingers and a shaky voice, I learned to set my truth free.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
Even now, even years after leaving those voices behind, my body still remembers what it means to be tethered to those old stories. My body still reminds me, with potent grief, anxiety, and discomfort, when I watch a viral video of a woman darting around her children to win a race, that I can cause harm when I speak the truth.
Because the body does, indeed, keep the score. And the body also says no. But then... the body also longs to say yes, and yes, and YES.
A body reminded of a cage is still better off than a body still in that cage. A body on the other side of the cage doors can learn to sing of freedom, even though the voice trembles with memory. A body on the other side of the cage doors can remember how to fly.
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
I never gave up my writing, even though it went underground for awhile. I never lost my voice entirely, even though it felt so long silenced and swallowed by other people’s fear, other people’s expectations. I never let go of the dream of having books published, even though that dream was too big to be held in the container of an unhealthy marriage.
I did the hard things to reclaim my voice. I did the scary things, even at the risk of other people’s disappointment and rage. I opened the cage doors and let my courage guide me into the light.
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
“Selfish” still rings in my ears sometimes, when my body remembers, but I hear it less and less often. Deeper down, beneath the fear of abandonment, beneath the shame, beneath the expectations of others, is a quieter wisdom, a truer self. Deeper down is the courage to step onto the path I know is mine to walk. Deeper down is the knowing that saving my own life is, ultimately, the best way to be of service to a world that needs more whole and healed people.
“Tenderness,” that deeper voice whispers. “Write about that instead,” she says. “And tell the people what you’ve learned about holding space for yourself instead of abandoning yourself. While you’re at it, say something about how thrusting children onto the path isn’t really about the children, and so you don’t have to worry about the children. Give the people the language of hijacked space so that they might understand how their own attempts at being seen as worthy could sabotage another person’s race.”
And so I write, in service to that deeper voice, in service to the only life I can save. And so I revive the dream that couldn’t be killed, even while my body still holds memories of the fear that people might die.
Credit: The Journey, by Mary Oliver was first published in 1986 in a publication called Dream Work.
For more of my writing, check out my books, Where Tenderness Lives: On Healing, Liberation and Holding Space for Oneself, and The Art of Holding Space: A Practice of Love, Liberation and Leadership.
Ready to take your own journey? Check out my new offering - a coaching/mentorship circle called Time to do the Brave Thing. Or consider working with me one-on-one.
Want to learn more about holding space for yourself instead of abandoning yourself? Sign up for our Fall offering of How to Hold Space - Foundation Program.
Are you in the Pacific Northwest? I have a few more book events coming up next week. Find the calendar here.
Dear Heather
This piece blessed me in more ways than one. It was also a gentle reminder that we cannot be all things to everyone. As women we are so often spread too thin. Thank-you for sharing!
I so needed to read this. My 35 year old self wouldn’t have been ready to read it, but she would have been disturbed by the stirring it would have created. And now, i read this and it bolsters and inspires me to continue the work of speaking and living my longings and my truth. Thank you. 🤲🏼