Another First: Dancing In The Kitchen

I want to celebrate something tonight. There was another first. If you're a griever yourself, you will most likely get what I mean by a first. If you don't, a first is a moment that is noticeable for being the first time something has happened since a significant loss. Like say, your first trip back into Woolies. Or first time back at work. Each first is so loaded. So challenging but with practice, you get good at patting yourself on the back. They can be scary!

Off the back of our first Christmas without Charlie and his first birthday, I wasn't prepared for a first that was so gentle, so minimal but something so worthy of celebration.

Bradley was showering Gracie and I was trying to get myself somewhat motivated to clean the dishes after dinner. It's a job that has become begrudgingly menial at the moment. So, I got out the JBL and used some precious solo time on choosing a song to pick. The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations" and then because we'd obviously ventured into the 70s side of Spotify,"You Sexy Thing" by Hot Chocolate. Well, those dishes have never got done faster. I was feeling productive. It hasn't happened in days.

Bradley and I began to dance around the kitchen. There is nothing more intimate and revealing, I think, than removing the mask in a kitchen spin around. I noticed, little thoughts idle in. 'Charlie died. You're sad. How can you be dancing around your kitchen after Charlie died?' I pushed them out and tried to just focus on the joy of dancing. It felt as if I was tasting a food that I wasn't sure if I liked. I wasn't sure if it was safe. But I told myself to persevere. To trust that the food would be ok, maybe even good. To allow joy for longer than five seconds.

And then Bradley gave me a look. He was watching me and had a look in his eyes of happiness. Happy that I was happy. I felt as if the moment had become external. As if it now meant something. He said, 'What!? I'm just so glad to see you happy.' And a little voice inside me grouched, 'but I'm not happy. I'm sad.'

I noticed this discomfort retrospectively. Holding it up to the light gently. Allowing it time for the colours to seep in. Allowing myself not to feel guilt for this unsavoury discomfort for what was a very normal moment. And I realised that I felt like I had to defend my sadness. That I haven't yet learnt to allow grief and joy to sit side by side comfortably. To be familiar. To have it noticed externally, was to have the moment mean something. Perhaps the grief, that has been the normal for so long, that has taken up residence inside me, felt a little threatened, thinking that this moment of joy, if it was given weight, was to erase it. The inner panicked voice, subconsciously questioned, would that then mean an erasure of Charlie?

The reason this moment was something to celebrate is this. It's the first time I've noticed joy, the real kind, the dance unfiltered across your kitchen kind, and allowed it to linger. It's also the first time, I've felt still enough to hold up my Self and observe it quietly in the moment. To recognise there is discomfort in that. To be gentle on myself for dipping my toes in. For tasting something that is so unrecognisable in this self of mine.

I had a friend voice concern a few days ago, that I wasn't my old self. That I seemed joyless. That it's been 12 months and yet I don't seem to be improving. And yet, what's significant about this dance around the kitchen, is that I felt the joy. I consciously acknowledged, 'this is joy and it is ok.' And even when there was the stumbling block of having it externally recognised, I was able to decipher that and communicate how I was feeling to Bradley. And he was able to say, 'yeah, that makes sense.' And I felt seen and validated. And we talked about our struggles to feel joy. And how maybe, I won't have another moment for a few months but then maybe I'll have another and it won't feel so unfamiliar. And it will be ok.

Feeling in this depth and with this clarity is Charlie's gift. It's something I would not have had the capacity to feel before and I wouldn't have had the capacity to communicate this. Not only would I have not even had the complexity of trying to hold both grief and joy but grief wouldn't have been there to add any layers to that joy. And whilst I desperately miss that; that innocent joy I possessed, I also am beginning to feel anticipation, dare I say excitement, as to where this more nuanced joy might take me. What might happen if one day I allow myself to dip a whole foot in?

As always, I come to the end and I worry that I haven't selected the right words. That I haven't conveyed my thoughts effectively. That I haven't managed to capture the infinite elements of this experience of grief and loss and motherhood. And it's true because just before sitting down to write this blog, a story of a beautiful home birth flicked up on my Instagram. The twinkle lights, midwives making tea, baby on the boob kind. And I felt shredded, again. So no, I don't just celebrate and appreciate and love. I grieve and scream and sink within myself, the outsides eroding inwards. And even now, I notice my reticence to project myself as optimistic and my need to defend my sadness but I guess, what I want to express, is that it's not an either/or. I don't have to push my grief aside to feel my joy. They are seemingly contradictory experiences but what if, my grief has the ability to enhance my joy?

Perhaps, they are not the antithesis of each other but can become inextricably woven together. Perhaps, this will take a lot of gentle perseverance. But there's been a first. A start. And that is a cause for celebration.