Be enough me Archives - Page 5 of 5 -

Tele-porters and Virtual Hugs

I woke up on Friday to a barrage of tweets for one of my fellow #PPDChat mamas and immediately knew something had happened. Something good.

Our dear friend Pam reached out earlier this week on Twitter and Band Back Together for help. I’ll admit – the depth of her despair freaked me out. I spent a whole lot of time tweeting, sending DMs, and replying to her post. I just needed to do something. Anything. And it felt like it wasn’t enough.

Pam isn’t the only one I’ve desperately wanted to help. If I had any aptitude for inventions I would invent a tele-porter so I could go and see these beautiful mamas when they need a hug. I can’t fix these problems for them – each of us has to work at that ourselves. But a big part of being able to do that is having support. And that is something I can provide, even if that hug is just virtual.

So that’s what I did for Pam – sent hugs and love and support. And then I stalked her Twitter stream, because when someone’s in crisis it’s hard not to do that. I also had the #PPDChat stream open in Tweetdeck and it was constantly scrolling with new tweets, almost all of them directed at Pam. It was like watching a wave of love roll up the screen.

I’ve written about #PPDChat before. It’s an amazing and beautiful thing, and it saved me on a few occasions over the last few months when I needed help RIGHT NOW. It’s so powerful I don’t even know how to put it into words. We have a private Facebook group, which is a great place to share some of the stuff we don’t want in our Twitter streams. But often when one of us needs someone we go to Twitter because we know, without a doubt, that there’s always someone there. We can call on that army, even in the middle of the night, and someone – another mama who can’t sleep or someone in another time zone – will answer. It has never failed me.

It didn’t fail Pam, either. She got that love and it got her through.

So Friday morning, when I saw the #PPDChat stream fill up again with tweets for her, I smiled. She did what she needed to do – she’s going for help, and we’re all going with her.

I don’t have a tele-porter, so I couldn’t get to Pam to give her a hug before she walked through the hospital doors. But the events of this week made me realize that I don’t need to panic about not having some weird device to get me there. (It would probably splinch me anyway.)

We are enough.

Our love is enough.

Our words – our virtual hugs – are enough to save a life.

The Be Enough Me link-up is especially powerful right now – for one month, starting Aug. 22, Bellflower Books is sponsoring us to provide memory books for women fighting breast cancer. Details here – please write about your Be Enough Me feeling and come and link up!

The Me I Am Today

Today I start back at work after a 4 1/2 month leave of absence. People keep asking me how I feel about this.

“Anxious,” was my answer two weeks ago.

Last week, after coming home from San Diego and still on my BlogHer ’11 high, my answer was a straightforward “ambivalent.”

Now I am neither.

I met with my boss last week and got caught up on things. A few things have changed but even I’m amazed at how much hasn’t.

The problem is, my whole world has changed. I don’t feel at all like the same person I was when I left and if you’ve been reading this blog at all since April you’ll understand why.

So how do I feel about going back to work tomorrow? I feel…lots of things.

I feel ready to get back to “normal” though normal to me is different than it was before.

I feel grateful I’ve had all this extra time with my son and therefore a little sad that I’m losing that.

I feel… Well, honestly, I feel that my job is less central to who I am now.

I work in communications, which is a field I love. I used to come home and spend the evening on Twitter (my other account), chatting to people and following links and devouring information about the latest communications-everything.

I haven’t done that for months, since well before I went on leave.

My last tweet on that account was 59 days ago. Each of the mere handful of tweets I’ve posted in the last few months were either in reply to someone, directed at people I know (family or co-workers), or because my team won an award and, hey, awards must be celebrated. Oh, and one that said, “Yes, I am MIA from Twitter. No, I’m not dead.” (To which I got several “whew” and “I wondered where you were!” responses. Yeah, I used to be fairly active.)

A year ago I couldn’t imagine not throwing my whole self into my job. I loved it, so it wasn’t a chore. But in some ways I think I did it because I felt I needed to. I wanted to keep up with what was happening. I wanted to feel like I was a legitimate member of the communications community. I also had grand ambitions and when I want something I tend to pursue it relentlessly (see also: this whole blogging thing).

So I’m going back to work a different person and a different professional. My days will be spent continuing to work hard at a job that affords me lots of opportunity to learn and be creative. But my nights will be spent here, because that’s the me I want to be.

Every MONDAY join us…
Write, post, link-up, share your story and your voice.
Be part of carrying the weight of confidence, empowerment and share our mission to empower, inspire, and remind women, parents and children that the time has come to celebrate ourselves!

How you have lived the Be Enough Me feeling this week?

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On another note: While I’m away today, I’m also guest posting for Zoie at TouchstoneZ. In response to her request to write about recovery, I’ve shared a bit more about my experience with postpartum rage and how I had to let it in before I could let it out. Come and visit me there, won’t you?