Finding a little part of you again

I was looking for a book on the shelf and I came across a short book of stories, published about 8 years ago by a small publishing company. One of the stories is by me. I wrote it and entered it into a competition and it was one of the stories to be added to this little book.

I read it eyes half closed, peeping through my fingers and expecting to cringe properly, but actually I didn't think it was bad. In fact I would definitely say it was ok, and maybe even good. At least a little bit good.

It was strange to read because it's all about a mother and the mothering experience, and I wrote it before I had a baby, before I was pregnant, before I was even thinking about getting pregnant. It is not inaccurate in terms of how mothering can feel. I realised how some elements were totally me, the writer, projecting a potential future version of me into the character, and how I had pretended to myself that this wasn't happening at the time.

It would be nice to pretend that having a baby stopped me writing fiction, but actually I just found it too hard. I couldn't face the almost minute-by-minute self-doubt dialogue in my head, and I didn't "trust the process" - I didn't understand that the blocks, the bad drafts, the bad days are all part of it. That from the struggle something is born (a bit like your new identity after having a baby). That you are not good at something at first, and you keep trying, and then you get better.

I don't know if I'll ever write fiction again, but I think now, I could. I was not bad at it. Now I am tougher and I understand this process more. I don't know whether it's parenting or a career change into something that feels as exposing as yoga teaching does at first has changed me. Maybe both.

Something else happened, too, as I read through it - I felt a little bit of the old forgotten me slotting back into place. This has happened multiple times since having a baby, one time on a yoga mat, another in a restaurant drinking wine with friends without nappies in my bag, once as I sprinted down the coast road, alone, in the rain, in Ireland. Identities are always shifting but it feels good when you get a coherent moment, when you recognise yourself as a perfectly messy sum of all your different parts.