Nesting

It has been some time since I’ve written, and I expect the stretches between journals may increase over the coming months. I’m gathering thoughts and reflections, and I admit that the current peace in my life has been out of necessity. My focus has had to be on the health and wellbeing of my little one. 

Small steps, and taking stock of wounds that are still raw. The discarding shame that is clearly not mine. And perhaps most importantly, allowing myself to be held by the people around me. 

I was reminded recently that making a life isn’t something we do entirely by ourselves. 

Last week I spent some time with a dear friend, we took a few days for one another.  She is a person who is part of the community that has quietly held me through this period. There was nothing particularly dramatic about how we spent time together, conversation, being known to each other without having to explain every piece of ourselves. It was exactly what we needed. 

Then came my local beautiful friends and a baby shower, which gave me something I didn’t realise I needed so badly. I had been resisting it, pulling back, staying hidden and continuing to lick my deep wounds. I couldn’t seem to help myself. I kept retreating into that space. 

But they knew.  And they honestly knew better than what I was giving to myself.  They knew I needed to get out into the world. I needed to have my first celebration of being pregnant and of this little life being honoured. And they gave me the nudge I couldn’t quite give myself.  I will be forever grateful.  I stood in a room full of women who have held me up these last few months. 

It was my first public acknowledgement and celebration of my pregnancy, and it held such huge significance for me and my family.  

I was overwhelmed and so deeply honoured. 

We talk so much about great loves. The grand ones. The sweeping ones. The ones that arrive with declarations and promises and sometimes a fabulous backstory. I adore those as much as the next person, and I also know the privilege of having wonderful friends. 

I don’t think we talk nearly enough about the love of friends. The friends who turn up, who feed you, listen to you, make you laugh when you haven’t laughed for a while, hold space to let you fall apart, check in, make phone calls, sit beside you and quietly get on with helping. 

The aunties. God, the aunties. 

The women who have lived enough life to know that sometimes you don’t need advice. You just need someone to look you in the eye and say they love you and they know you will be OK. 

Not just the generosity of the day, which was exceptional and humbling, but by the reminder that these relationships are not the supporting cast in our lives. They are part of the integral architecture, the foundation of my community, the nurturing ways of loving someone through their worst moments. 

I hope I am one tenth of this amazing group of humans.  And my son will be born into this group, with this support.  

They remind you who you are and who you can be again. They remind you of your value. In the face of adversity, they remind you that you are stronger and better than the worst someone has treated you. 

There is a particular kind of strength in being surrounded by women who don’t need you to be anything other than exactly where you are. 

And I think something has happened because of that. 

When you have spent a long time in survival mode, you don’t always have the luxury of feeling everything. You suppress. You compartmentalise. You get through the day.  When you are finally surrounded by people who make you feel safe, something else becomes possible. 

You can feel the anger.  You can let the rage surface.  Not because you are falling apart, but because you are strong enough to stop holding it down. 

So I found myself asking a question to the other party that I have been carrying for some time. Can you imagine the humiliation of knowing that I have chosen to raise our son without you because I have concluded that doing everything alone is safer than raising him with you? 

Not because I don’t need your help, your protection as his father, nor because I ever wanted to do this alone. Because you broke the one thing that makes it possible for me to trust you with my life, my home and our child: fidelity. 

You betrayed my trust, compromised our son’s health and safety, and then left me with an impossible choice: trust you and put myself and my son at risk, or choose myself and my son and carry the burden alone. 

The harsh reality that anyone recognises is that no woman chooses to do everything alone unless the alternative is worse.  

Think about what it takes to make me look at the man I chose to have a child with and decide that my son is safer if I do this without you. 

That is the humiliation and shame that you must bear, I will no longer carry what is not mine, and I lay this at your feet, knowing your lack of character will mean you don’t recognise the enormity of your depravity of actions. This is not my chapter to reconcile, it’s yours. 

Your actions forced me to choose between the family I wanted and the safety I could no longer trust you to provide.  

I did not choose myself over my child. I have chosen myself because I have a child to protect. 

Perhaps the most brutal truth of all is this: you did not lose me because I wanted a life without you. You lost me because you made a life with you feel more dangerous than doing it alone. 

I am getting stronger. I am changing and rebuilding walls for safety and strength, reinforcing my values and my clarity about what you have done and continue to do. The mist of confusion is lifting, and I see you more clearly now. I am ensuring that I have the support around me so that your manipulation will no longer find its target. 

It’s a long journey, and I am determined to learn, grow and never become a reflection of the values you showed me on your worst days. 

For so long, I wanted to lie down and be absorbed back into this earth. I just didn’t want to be here anymore. I wanted to be invisible and shrink to a size that nobody would see anymore, become insignificant, irrelevant. 

Yet, I am still here. 

Perhaps that is what my tribe has helped me understand. Being held doesn’t make you weaker. Sometimes it gives you enough strength to finally put down what you have been carrying. 

I’m still taking small steps. Still trying to find my feet. And now I am turning my focus towards the home stretch, preparing to bring my son into this world with a joy that is entirely separate from his parentage. 

That distinction matters to me. 

His arrival is something beautiful that belongs to me, to him and to the people who love us. It does not belong to the circumstances that brought he and I here. 

And one of the things I am beginning to understand is just how lucky my son is to be born into this community. 

He will grow up surrounded by people who know how to turn up. People who will feed him, laugh with him, challenge him, encourage him, make room for him and, hopefully, teach him what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself. 

He is not being born into a perfect life. None of us are. But he is being born into a community with a lot of love in it. 

And so, apparently, I am nesting.  I do know I am sleeping – a lot! 

Nesting on a farm is a slightly more ambitious undertaking than just washing tiny clothes and pulling together the shopping list of must-buys before I hibernate for a few months postpartum. 

There are paddocks to think about, animals to make sure the heavy lifting is done for before postpartum comes in like a wrecking ball, sheds to sort, things to fix, things to move, things to clean and an alarming number of jobs that have suddenly become extremely important. 

I have found myself making lists, then making smaller lists from the lists, then ignoring the lists and going outside to do something completely different. 

Somewhere amongst all of that, something has shifted and is rumbling. It is a mixed bag of emotions: a quiet rage that bubbles and recedes, physical tiredness, organising hospital bags and an excitement to meet my son. 

Ultimately, I think I am starting to come together. 

I’ve entered that final stage before new life. The slower more cumbersome clunky movements. The breathtaking nudges that are incredibly reassuring and sometimes nearly send you to your knees with their strength. It is extraordinary, and reassuring, to know that this little person is healthy and getting ready to join my world. 

For a very long time, life has felt like it was being lived in pieces. 

There have been so many major changes in such a stunningly short time.  Relocations, starts and stops, and so many decisions that I have had an inability to make, with the weight of uncertainty sitting heavily alongside me. I have spent a lot of time simply getting through the day, grieving loss and feeling moments of that wounded self. So deep and mortal are the cuts that the grief just keeps coming.  I still want that part to stop. 

Somewhere in all of that, I have been looking for the old version of myself. I kept thinking that if I could just get back to her, I would know what to do.  That woman who felt certain. She had answers and the physical ability to change her world. She had a fearlessness to take on any challenge. She knew what she wanted.  

She had a rhythm to her life and a sense of where she was going. 

I have accepted that she has gone.  

There is something strangely liberating about finally accepting that. I am not the same person I was. I can’t be.  I know I am more vulnerable right now.  

Growing a life on your own does that to you. There are the physical challenges, let alone the mental ones, and the loss of independence and identity that comes with knowing the strength you once had will be absolutely decimated by the sheer sleep deprivation of the sweetest kind. 

The morphing of my body to nourish and feed a whole other life, and the gratitude of accepting that the next few years will be like seasons of growth and change. 

There has been a radical acceptance in realising that the task isn’t to find my way back to who I was, but to let myself become whoever I am now. 

Not back together.  Coming together as someone new. 

There is something very grounding about doing the nesting with my hands and my growing body. Moving things around, clearing space, looking at what needs doing on the farm, thinking about the animals and the seasons and what will need to happen when I am recovering, making things a little easier for myself. 

It is nesting, I suppose. Just on a slightly larger scale. 

It’s not important simply in preparation for life. It is important because it keeps some order in my mind, because I know physical limitation is here and will continue until I heal and regain my strength. 

I think that is part of what this next chapter is asking me to understand. My home isn’t only about the physical place, although that concept has been deeply solidified for me now.  This is my home. 

Community is also about the people who make you feel at home in yourself. 

Here, on the farm, I am slowly doing the practical version. Making room. Clearing things away. I’m not giving up hope. I’m preparing for a baby who will change absolutely everything, for the best, and at the same time somehow make the most ordinary things feel enormously important. 

My little son, my incredible, precious and deeply treasured little boy, who will arrive soon. 

There will be the friends who have stood around me, and the many others who have stood beside me before and will continue to do so. 

And perhaps that is what I am nesting for too. Not just a baby, but a life. A home. A community. A place where my son can grow knowing that he is loved by many people, and that he belongs. 

I don’t have everything worked out. The farm isn’t perfectly organised.  

My life certainly isn’t.  That isn’t the point. Nesting isn’t about getting everything ready. It is about beginning to believe that there will be a life to put it all into. 

For the first time in a while, I can feel that happening. 

Not finished. Not certain. Just slowly, quietly, coming together. 

Feeling a comfort level, maybe not comfortable just yet, in my new skin. 

Some thoughts today 

• I have a huge bee suit. I’m sure I’ll fit in it. I need to split some hives and tend to them. 

• I’m so keen to get my goats clipped before my little baby arrives. 

• The tears. While grief still seems not to be at bay, I’m grateful they fall freely, and my deep shame has found a new home, because it was never mine to carry.