I don’t believe in beginnings
Destroying dreams one by one.
A thing true I initially thought bull shit might hold a bit of something after all…
Hold on to your hat – we are talking birth stories.
As I understand it, the idea is some general something like this: How we come [in]to the World impacts how we are in the World. Gimme me a break, right? What has always tripped me up is the implied life sentence aspect. That harkens to fate. I am not a fan of fate – I prefer to be surprised. Birth as a being on our Permanent Record is a bit tricky and way too A to B for my tastes.
Consider:
What if you don’t know or are not in contact with your birthing parents?
This assumes all birthing person have agency over their experiences and that birthing terms are not manipulated and systematically perverted.
What parents believe in retrospect may not be factual, no?
Is that all?
Nothing is that simple.
And is birth a beginning at all or is it a continuation?
However, when I think of the unconventionality and variabilities of my own creation, I wonder…
Birth story transparency: I was an IVF baby and severe preemie. My mother, if she is to be believed, was a miscarriage survivor, the experience of which launched her on a heroic and trepidatious fertility campaign. With all the intervention, Mama chose to go HARD on the natural parenting tip. Her babe, me, had to fight like Hell by her side to greet the sun, and so she vowed the World would come my way low-fi from there on out. We call this over-correcting but so it goes.
I raged hard to make it here and upon arrival was cushioned. Many of you who know me, OK all of you know me by now, you might see a bit of the parallels as well. I come on strong. You can say it. However, once we come together, I am all purr and puss. A puddy of a person, nimble and scrappy, all smiles beyond the bluster. I had a boyfriend once – well like I have had many boyfriends many times- but this one particular person one said a thing that goes something like this: There are two kinds of people who go to parties – those who would assume they are going to have a great time and meet a lot of known and new friends, and those who will spend the whole night not being hated.
Need I say more?
How easy was that? I did the thing. Did you see it? I did the thing where I presented an unsubstantiated theory, applied it only my own self and interpretation and thus proclaim it a universal adage. STOP READING NOW. Or don’t if you are curious at how just exactly how this will fall apart and where I am going.
First: Time.
Looking to the New Year, there are a lot of sentiments about “beginnings” as if that, like birth, is a moment in stagnant time where a thing will or shall start. A thing new, wonderful or terrible - either will do - that has a big bang type of initiation after which everything after will be judged as such. That could be not untrue. History is an accrued adventure, sure, but I am not sure it starts per se, rather, it is a continuation.
Second: Branding.
In sessions, I talk a lot about ‘narrative’ and ‘messaging’ as packaging and presenting the “who” we are in the “where” of our experiences, present, and possible future is not simple. Not at all. What is a big sticking point in that is that so many times, and this is a bit of the convention of the industry and work culture, ‘who we are’ is approached, but both potential employees and hirers, as linear and little more.
This goes back to birth. I only told my story from the point of conception. Thinking not on the life of my mother, not considering my father, my kin, the culture, race, politics, temperature, the ecosystem, pivot of the planet. I started the story from a place of personality. Thereby pivoting the tale to a real, clean, streamlined thing not actually self-serving, but more self-limiting.
Third: A snake eats its tail. And it does hurt.
You have always been working. Learning, accruing not your skills but your person. Skills are a scramble that shuffle about into the body of a human to the means and ends and evolution said human chooses.
So, what if you ran a travel agency, did some social media marketing on the side, have an MS in nutrition, teach yoga on Saturdays and now are in UX boot camp. That is only a mess if you don’t look at the person crafting the professional life behind them.
Too, I am not my mother alone. Nor the 1980s. Washington, D.C., the lab where I was combined. My father’s sports career nor my Grandmothers wealth alone. I am not breastmilk and co-sleeping, a christening, nor a DNA strain singularity. I have been brewing for ages and will continue to impact the stratosphere. We all have, are, and shall.
Dialogue, people, dialogue: an open and endlessness at each point perfectly positioned to serve the person and the people they touch as all parties choose.
We have a lot of hope, and need, from the next 12 months. We are saying we are looking forward, but what do we know? Why not look into and out to what is and give up what could happen? It could be a shit show or a no show or a seeming reward for the burdens of so many happenings so hard and tyrannous as we need not mention. What it will be is the same and different depending. Beyond that however, you will be new. You will begin. As you, and I, have for a good deal of forever. That may not break down as control and may shake as fear, but I can tell you it is sure as shit agency. To reflect and craft the why and where we are going, mostly the why, that was and still remains, shall be.
Very last here, I will close with the loss of desired opportunity. This is real and it sucks. Deprivation – even ideological and hope deprivation - magically removes all the other options too. Remarkable, huh? That is why parakeets fly into walls. Sabotage being a disappointment go to. Don’t go flying so fast but do feel free to get angry. There is always a ‘what if” in the “you can’t”. And ‘fuck you’ can be a very positive motivator!
To think I am only how others might see me or how my wonderful, horrible parents chose to couple is flat and false. I am going to that party – whatever the theme - and I am going to meet a lot of friends and you are one. If you want to be. Like the best one. Happy New Year.
