I'm Just Here Because I Cannot Write with a Pen :)

"I'm just here so I don't get fined . . ."  :)

Can't remember which player on which team in which year for which press conference said this, but I do remember Kris thinking it was hilarious when it happened, and it's stuck in my head since. I'm really just here because I cannot write with a pen right now due to the pregnancy carpal tunnel (OOF). I've been craving journalling, and just haven't been doing it because it's so painful to try and write. I wish I would have sat down with this space open sooner, I think I just had a mental block with it because usually, what I write here I post about publicly, and I haven't really felt the push to write anything to share publicly lately.

That said, I make my own rules with this shit. No one but me has said that what I write here needs to get posted about. So sure, while whatever comes out tonight may be accessible publicly, I doubt many (if any) will end up reading it if I don't post on socials about it.

So here we are. In a semi-private space. Honestly, even typing is getting a little hard, carpal tunnel-wise, but I have just been so desperate to create. I'm not really making new class material, I'm not in rehearsal, I'm not taking class or improvising much. So my normal creative outlets are not being accessed, and I think I feel extra-concerned about that out of fear that they won't be touched for quite awhile after the baby comes either.

Almost immediately after I wrote that, I found myself thinking how figuring out how to manage a new baby IS a creative outlet. So I will equal parts recognize that while also recognizing that it's NOT dancing. But all of this returns me to the consideration that raising a newborn is a finite time. And I think when I really dig deep, I really DO trust that we will find the right routines for us that will allow us (specifically Kris and I, when I say us) to maintain senses of individuality as well as a grip on our own relationship. 

It may actually help me to put it in these terms: I OWE myself that trust. I am a person who craves guidelines, general understandings of how something is going to go. When I don't have that, I feel unsure of myself. For awhile there I thought it was anxiety, and while there may still be an aspect of that at play, I think it's actually more a drop in self-confidence. I have always considered myself quite a self-confident person, but I think it's taken me until recently to realize that confidence tends to be contingent on having workable plans. So moments in which I don't make the plan or cannot feasibly make an exact plan (like for what this particular new infant is gonna be like and need), I lose some self-confidence.

All of this said, I think I have proven to myself time and time again that I am capable of handling what comes at me. While I don't believe one has to earn self-confidence, if ya did, I think I've done it. So I have to remind myself of that, and use those reminders as a foundation on which to build the trust required to head into adventures like this next one, in which I will not have a guidebook.

As I said with the pregnancy that turned out to be Niko, "I'm not ready, but I'm capable," and he has turned out to be my favorite thing on the damn planet. I'm feeling not ready, but capable this time too (remind yourself, "You are capable, you are capable, you are capable).

And it's 9:15, so I actually cannot believe I made it THIS long. Time to set down my metaphorical pen and start winding down for the night. Computer keys and blog space, thanks for being here when my body wouldn't cooperate with my paper journal. We found a way to get some thoughts organized and documented :)