The things we carry...

After a bright and sunny fun Memorial Day weekend, the weather turned hazy, humid and gray, and my spirits took a nosedive as well. I've been thinking a lot about negative emotions, the things we carry. Sometimes you can share the load with a friend, sometimes you can hurl the load at the one you love and sometimes you carry the load, marching forward, hoping that eventually something will fall off along the way.

While you can confide in certain friends about certain things, for me I am rarely comfortable to really open up about my feelings, especially feelings related to my marriage or how vulnerable this pregnancy makes me feel. I have a few beautiful friends, but no one who has experienced marriage or pregnancy or parenthood. Sometimes that makes it hard to relate.

I am very close to my mother, and I share a lot with her. To me, her advice is often invaluable. However, there are just certain things you do not tell your mother. That is obvious. It is also important to never really complain about your spouse to your mom. You might simply say something in passing, but this tidbit of information will get etched in the stony mind of your mother and filled in with indelible ink. The next time you complain about your spouse she will immediately bring up the closet cleaning incident of 2004. In the relationship with a mother, she only sees the perspective of her child. It makes sense

In addition to hurt feelings and insecurity we carry commitments. Right now I am quite literally carrying my commitment to my child. While it is a tough load to bear, even in this earliest and most trivial stage, it is a burden nonetheless. The nine months of pregnancy seem like a warm up, or a personal training program. You pick up more weight in your load along the way, more investment, more physical strain and more love. The commitment to your child grows stronger every day, and you learn to carry the load with finesse, sacrificing yourself physically, mentally and emotionally to support the life within, the life you will continue to support forever.

We also carry our vows, our promises and our obligations to those we choose to love. At times when we are not at our best, we want to shed these heavy packages, lightening the load as we run away. I made a promise to my husband, long before we took our wedding vows. I committed to loving him and being with him, choosing him as the one. I was 6 years younger than I am today, and making the choice to pick up that load to carry was perhaps the biggest choice I've ever made. And on days like today when I'm feeling particularly tired and wounded, I think back to that choice, not our wedding day. That day 6 years ago was the day that my life changed. I didn't need a white ballgown or champagne to take on carrying my commitment to him.

The things we carry tell us who we are. A status purse, a pink cell phone, an argument, a mother's love, a commitment to build a life with someone. The things we carry, and choose to continue to carry, make us who we are.