Loving This Much is Scary As Sheol

Postpartum feels & finding the courage to love

But First: Baby Update!

Alden Colter Braley was born on September 25. He was 9 lb 13 oz, and he is (so far) mellow, chunky, and perfectly content to eat, snuggle, and snooze. We are healthy and feeling so incredibly thankful that we’re home together. Thank you to each of you who has prayed for us, checked in, and offered help. This community blesses me so much, and I’m so grateful for you.

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Also, Guess What?

Jennifer Dukes Lee, author of The Happiness Dare, Growing Slow, and most recently, Stuff I’d Only Tell God, is coming to The Second Cup Show later this month.

She was one of the keynote speakers at the She Speaks Conference in July, and she is down-to-earth, hilarious, and full of wisdom…and I am fan-girling big time about getting to talk to her. Her books are on my bookshelves and now we get to CHAT IRL. Ah.

To amp up the excitement around here, I’m going to be sending out a copy of her new guided journal, Stuff I’d Only Tell God, to two Second Cup paid subscribers. I’ll just toss all your names in a virtual hat and see who’s going to get some happy mail!

If you were already thinking about becoming a paid subscriber, what about today? Then you’ll get a chance to win, plus you’ll be able to read everything on The Second Cup—past, present, and future. Win-win!

P.S. if you have questions for Jennifer, DM me or email me and I’ll be sure to ask them in our interview!

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Loving This Much is Scary as Sheol

I made my maiden voyage to the mailbox with Alden yesterday.

It’s only 1/20th of a mile or something to the end of the lane, but with his weight nestled into the Ergobaby and my insides still trying to rearrange themselves, getting all the way down to that little black box felt momentous.

I minced along, pressing one foot sure and steady into the fallen leaves before picking up the other. The sky was the bluest of October blues; its contrast with the crisping canopy above caught me completely off guard and I found myself staring upward, upward. I didn’t see the beauty as much as I felt it—and the experience was a bit like a sudden revelation of life and birth and decay and the agonizing reality of mortality.

Maybe it’s the postpartum hormones. They do crazy things. (I’m looking at you, night sweats and spontaneous tears.) But in that moment, I felt positively gutted by the remembrance that our same world that brings new and beautiful and vibrant life also always brings death. There’s no which way around it; we will eventually be separated from the very ones we live for in the first place.

I clung to the soft body that, only a week ago, was curled into my own. I gulped back the anxiety of all bad things. Suddenly, nuclear war and airplane crashes and cancer and freak accidents felt close at hand and I doubted that I had the courage to love this much.