The best way I can explain my long road back from postpartum depression is that I had to re-find my sentence. I love those people in my life that create a colorful sentence or two.

Create a sentence?

Like the bail-bonds owner, my bleach-blonde, blue eyed, petite and gorgeous Mexican ex-roommate and fervent Catholic, who re-paid a small kindness by moving in, paying half my rent for a year -- while secretly owning several homes and a yacht in the Bay Area, staying occasionally with her ex-husband, and driving off on her once-a-week overnights with a tall, skinny guy in a black Buick.

Turns out the scraped knees explained by her stories of bounty hunting all over Mexico were more likely from her life as a high-class prostitute.

Or the hippie-slash-yuppie with a wallet re-gifted from Larry David, a pajama shirt from Bruce Willis and a refrigerator home to seaweed and kale who invited some free-wheeling friends for a tantric yoga love-fest while visiting our Australian home on a whirlwind international trip paid for by an advance on a script for a sitcom about 30-something hippie-slash-yuppies.

I love these people -- their flavors spice up my sentence-less life.

Every now and then I would try and write my sentence. It was overwhelmingly challenging. At times I could honestly not remember my past -- what I did, what I loved.

But every month it got a trifle easier. I tried not to hyper-analyze this neurotic behavior. No doubt it was about relating to me as a mother, about adjusting to the monumental change -- chemical and logistical.

I envied those new mothers who seemed to have nothing but warm fuzzies augmenting their unfettered lives. I heard their sentences daily as I walked by in my dark haze of insecurity.

For those who (like me) faced motherhood with preparatory books in hand and naivety on pristine sleeves -- keep writing your sentence. Include the past, the present and the future. Embrace your precious child, and hug yourself again hello.

By Robyn Murphy

Labels: Robyn Murphy

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