Writing from the Messy Middle

I slept terribly last night. I, usually, sleep facing the door to our bedroom with Dae-Han behind me. I am one of those sleepers who loves to be touching at least her partner’s feet all night long, maintaining a physical connection that somehow grounds me through the strange dreams I have most nights.

Last night, I was sleeping alone. To be clear, this is not about writing in the messy middle of a fight with my husband. I will get into the messy middle soon enough. For now, I am telling you about how my husband went to Okinawa for a peace march and I had to sleep alone. I tossed and turned, trying to figure out which side of the room to turn my back to. I felt exposed and unsettled. Scared, even, in my safe apartment in this safe country.

“Ufff. That’s vulnerability,” I told my therapist, in my head, where she lives on the days in between our weekly sessions. “I used to sleep alone every night in my single life, and now sleeping alone for a weekend is excruciating.”

As I write from the quiet couch tonight, I wonder how my husband had the gall to leave me by my lonesome self for a whole three days. I find it acceptable to whisk myself off to Hong Kong for birthday weekends to shop and dine, but somehow I find it wholly unfair for DH to go to march for peace if it means I will miss him so much. I suppose there may come a day when I relish a night or two alone. I am not there right now.

Two weeks ago Dae-Han and I were together in Japan. We took a long weekend to visit Osaka and Kyoto. This post isn’t really about that whole trip, but both places were beautiful and we took some great photos and they are worth sharing.

An honorable mention goes to this moment from the Imperial Palace in Kyoto:

In my hands I am holding a $20 ice cream cone. I wanted ice cream. I didn’t actually think the gold was real. It was too late to take back the order.

My husband’s face says it all. But babe, you’ll always be my Sugar Daddy now. #winning

(You can’t digest gold, by the way…)

A shoutout to the owner of Cafe Seberg, a cool little joint down the block from our teahouse abode in Kyoto.

This cool cat is a movie aficionado and he will set you down with a menu and a list of movies to watch.

Additionally, he’ll bring your coffee with a little slip of paper with Kansai (regional) phrases to use around town.

Here are spots in Osaka and Kyoto that come with high endorsements from Dae-Han and me:

Osaka Castle•Moegi Restaurant•Doki Sushi

Fushimi Inari Shrine•Kyoto Imperial Palace•Arashiyama Bamboo Grove•Kiyomizu-dera Temple

At Kiyomizu-dera Temple we met the Goddess of Mercy, at least this is who I believe her to be, keeper of the babies that never came to be.

In Japan, there are cultural ways to process and grieve unborn babies. I learned this while reading Jessica Zucker’s memoir, I had a Miscarriage. It was in the days that I would walk my favorite trails with Zucker’s voice coming through Audible that I learned that I was pregnant for a second time.

When a pregnancy stick turned positive the day before my parents were arriving to Korea, I was in disbelief. I guess the first pregnancy wasn’t just a fluke, I thought to myself. Dae-Han and I (and the whole family) were happy. I was also full of angst and worry as this second pregnancy was coming directly on the heals of a miscarriage.

I continued to listen to Zucker’s memoir, still healing from the first miscarriage, working to feel connected to a second pregnancy.

“This is the post-traumatic experience—our past remains ever present. Encumbered by the weight of our traumas, we feel the sting of every terrifying possibility,” spoke Zucker into my ear as I walked past budding cherry blossom trees on a day in early April. I held the weight of trauma, but I also felt hope as flowers were blooming. New life outside and inside of me, I marveled. My pregnancy app told me that the due date for this little bean would be the day before Thanksgiving. So perfect and poetic.

A few days later, I began spotting and spotting turned to a second pregnancy loss.

And two weeks later, Dae-Han and I stood in front of the Goddess of Mercy at a shrine in Kyoto. I was not quite sure what to do. Do I pray? I wondered. I stand in front of her as she held a tiny baby in her arms. We softly gazed at one another. And I just breathed, slowly and steadily. I did not feel a great rush of emotions in this moment. But, I felt grateful for the Goddess of Mercy. And the moment. For the minutes we stood to honor two sweet embryos that came and passed. I was thankful to be with my husband and this deity, standing together in the Messy Middle (a term coined by Glennon Doyle).

There have been times since my second miscarriage where I have felt so strong. One day walking to yoga a thought materialized. You got this, came a message from the Great Beyond. Yes, I thought back. I do. Whatever “this” is, I got it. We got it. Dae-Han and I, we got this.

There have been times since my second miscarriage where I have felt heavy and angry and anxious. I did not anticipate that Mother’s Day this year would be any different from any other. And then it was. I carried anger and grief from that day into the days that followed. I was finally able to start to sort through these emotions openly in a session with our therapist.

(I love therapy. I seem to have become a collector of wonderful therapists. I liken therapeutic spaces to the gym. In therapy you get coaching on how to do emotional push-ups. Dae-Han and I chose to start therapy together not because anything was wrong but because we wanted to keep us — our communication, our shared vision — feeling right. We go to the gym together to stay physically fit and we go to therapy together to be emotionally fit.)

Today? Today is neither particularly light nor dark. It just is.

I have been listening to Anne Lamott’s latest work entitled Somehow: Thoughts on Love. In the Overture, she shares with her readers something her husband says: “Eighty percent of everything that is true and beautiful can be experienced on any 10‑minute walk.” This morning I went on a run and 10 minutes into it, I ran into the truth and beauty of this scene:

I stopped and I appreciated just how glorious life can still be, even when you are inhabiting a Messy Middle. I suppose I am trying to build my capacity right now for, rather than squirming out of a Messy Middle, standing in it with strength. A Messy Middle will be a Messy Middle for as long as it needs to be and we are not privy to knowing that timeline.

It’s a little daunting, having to face again and again how little control we have. As I work towards accepting that truth, I plan to keep taking walks to keep finding more beauty around me. Send me the truth and beauty that you find on your walks.