The trick is not how much pain you feel but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses. – Erica Jong

I am undressing. Peeling layer after layer away. The protection of extra weight. The comfort of not-quite-addictions. The sweat soaked second skin of fear. I am taking them off publicly and privately, baring my soul in the process. I am watching my body change in the full-length mirror, watching my judgments of it lessen as the love grows.

I was looking through old photos the other day. Pictures of me from what feels like another life. I am almost unrecognizable to myself both then and now. The inner has yet to match the outer, total alignment just out of my grasp. In the pictures of me then I am thin, fit, smiling and yet I know underneath lay a sadness, a sense of failure and disappointment that kept me from myself.  I search for the pain but there is no trace. I wore a mask well. I am undressing in order to reach that place where the smile in the photo pulls you into my soul instead of keeping you at arm’s length. I am moving toward a body that is older, wiser, and infinitely stronger, a heart that is full of compassion, love and a willingness to let people be themselves, and a spirit that drinks thirstily of connection without getting lost in the other.

I want my body to be loved in spite of its age, its imperfections, its scars. I want to be seen for who I am, not who I think you want me to be. I am undressing. Peeling away the layers of habit, conditioning, and lies I was told.  I want to live fully in trust, to live powerfully, to know that I exist without the extras. There are moments when I am shy, but until I stand completely naked with myself, I will continue to undress.

Last weekend a few wonderful writers (Lindsey, Denise & Lisa to name three) whose blogs I love attended a magical retreat on memoir writing by the oh-so-talented Dani Shapiro. One of the exercises they were given, inspired by Joe Brainerd’s memoir, I Remember, was to write for 10 minutes, started every sentence with I remember.

If you click the links above, you will read some of what they wrote in that 10 minutes. They invited all of us to join them. Here is part of what I wrote. Please join in and add your I remembers to the comments or leave a link to your blog post.

I remember…

I remember my mother’s 40th birthday party, the people laughing, the cake with the chocolate curls.

I remember the bus trip into Toronto the day my beloved Maggie died and I knew my childhood was over.

I remember falling in love with my first boyfriend in a dream and waking up to know it was true.

I remember the long-distance love, the first horrible hangover, the move across the country. I remember the flowers in winter, outside our first apartment. I remember falling out of love – or at least thinking I had. I remember being afraid to be fully me.

I remember the man who worked the cafeteria with the liquid gold eyes.

I remember never being the right one for the ones I thought were right.

I remember my crush on the teacher and the day we drew portraits of each other and I was the only one he missed.

I remember the feel of the studio space, the magical light and the way the toilets never flushed.

I remember getting the job, rearranging my life, packing the car and starting the journey of a lifetime.

I remember the river, the town, the way Lynn held Tracy’s hand and how it all made sense years later when I found out they were sleeping together.

I remember being young and foolish.

I remember the northern lights and the crunch of the snow in the quiet darkness.

I remember my grandmother’s face – but only because I can see my favorite picture of her clearly in my mind’s eye.

I remember the first miscarriage, the decorated Easter egg and the hike up the mountain to say goodbye.

I remember the words, It’s a girl. I remember the joy.

I remember the phone call on Mother’s Day, 2009 and thinking I was hearing the words, Jamie died. I remember helping her mother pack up her book collection. I remember the look in her mother’s eyes.

I remember hoping I would never lose a child.

There has been a lot of letting go in my life recently. Letting go of the way I think things should be. Letting go of expectations. Letting go of what I believe I want in place of what lies underneath.

I wanted more than one child. My daughter is the brightest light in my life and I am over the moon to be her mother. I just never thought of myself as the mother of one. When Ben died I told Steve I never wanted to get pregnant again. Then as the grief softened and the memories lost their edge, the word maybe began a slow creep into my reality. Maybe now that I’m off gluten…maybe now that my body is healing and I meditate daily…maybe this time everything would be fine.  And maybe it wouldn’t. Every month as I wait for my flow to begin, I flash back to being pregnant and the horror of it all. It seems selfish to risk my life when I have so much to live for. It is a shift in my story, in my thinking about myself, to come to terms with having an only child, particularly one who talks about being a sister almost daily.

Early on, the idea of adopting a baby was appealing.  Perhaps it might become so again, but if people think having a child is expensive, adopting one makes it even more so. Now that I am far enough away from the infant stage to feel a slight freedom, and to be getting a decent night’s sleep, I am not sure I need to go back. I am coming to a place of acceptance with all of this, though I haven’t arrived. My heart whispers that if we do want more children in our home, becoming foster parents might be the answer. Or it might not. I am letting go of knowing what it’s supposed to look like. There are moments of immense pain around these thoughts but more and more often, there are moments of grace.

As I look at the world around me – at families with two children, or four, or ten – I wonder at all of our journeys. There is no free ride for any of us. There is simply life. When I see a pregnant woman at the grocery store with three little ones already at her feet, or I watch someone carrying a newborn with a toddler in tow and jealousy begins to rear its head, I think of a story I once heard. I don’t remember the details but in it, everyone with a problem was invited to write it down and put it in a hat. Once all the problems had been discarded, people were to pick another from the hat, but no one wanted anyone else’s problems, they just didn’t want their own.

And so I remember when life feels hard and others’ look easy – I don’t want their problems. I wouldn’t trade my experience with Benjamin, the full scale healing that grief has brought, or the excitement of the path I am now walking. I wouldn’t give up the amazing people who have come into my life because he died and I chose to really live. The letting go is not always easy…and then sometimes it is.