For thirteen years, I���ve had two children at home. Now I have one. I had convinced myself that after our initial tearful goodbye in New York City, it wouldn���t be that hard. With a seventh grader at home, I was far from an empty nester after all. Plus, I told myself I wasn���t one of ���those moms��� (why do we do that to each other?!) who live through their children. I had books to write and blogs to post. I had a plan.

But my body knew. It always knows.

While I was busying myself with the logistics of launching her into the wide world (as if procuring the right gizmos and gadgets from Bed Bath & Beyond could make our separation more palatable), my body interrupted with a big fat staph infection. A bug bite gone bad because I failed to care for it, the creeping crimson tattoo reminding me of the pain lurking beneath its surface. As if it had from spawned from the very pain I���d been trying to avoid. My flawed thinking went something like this: ���I will focus on her needs exclusively now, ignoring mine. Then, when she���s gone, I���ll dive into writing projects, leaving no time for those pesky feelings of mine.��� So, how is that working for me? Not so well.

Because my body knew. It always knows.

This is not a new pattern for me. Some people say their gut tells their truth. My skin tells mine. Even���maybe especially���when I am not ready to face it. During the last trimester of my pregnancy with the same daughter I just delivered to college, I developed an intensely itchy rash called PUPP (Pruritic Urticarial Papules & Plaques of Pregnancy) that mysteriously shows up in 1 in 200 pregnant women. You see, I had a plan then too. It was going to keep things manageable with just the right mix of time in the office and time working at home. I had negotiated my contract with the ad agency to perfection. Or so I thought.

What I didn���t know was how unpredictable life with a newborn can be. I didn���t know she���d have colic and would not sleep through the night for eighteen months. I didn���t know that sleep would become so precious to me that I would snatch it greedily whenever my daughter closed her own eyes. I didn���t know that I���d love her so fiercely that I couldn���t bear to leave her, even for that carefully crafted plan of mine. My plan didn���t work. And that master���s thesis I was going to knock out during my maternity leave? I got a year���s extension and needed every minute of it. My mind was shocked, but my body was not. It had tried to warn me that this wasn���t going to be life as I���d known it any longer.

My body knew. It always knows.

Fast forward six years to the final trimester of my pregnancy with my son. This time ���the plan��� involved a full-time assistant to help me run the business I���d built up in the years since my daughter���s birth and a nanny to help me care for my new little bundle of joy. I had this. I was going to simultaneously run a company with clients across the country and be a stay-at-home mom because me office was right upstairs. This was my best. plan. ever. So, shockingly, I developed a staph infection���this one systemic���that landed me in the hospital for the one and only (knock on wood) time in my life. I didn���t even give birth in a hospital, so I was not at all pleased with this turn of events. I remember trying to tell the doctor who was admitting me that I just needed to make a quick trip to the mail store to get something out before I checked in. He looked at me like I was crazy. And I guess I was. This time, my plan and I limped along for more than a year before throwing in the towel. I didn���t see it coming.

But my body knew. It always knows.

So, I can���t pretend anymore. I���ve seen this pattern. And I���ve told all of you about it. So, what do I do now? Well it turns out, that my skin is a good teacher. First I can take care of myself and my needs. I did this with my staph infection. I set up an apothecary of manuka honey, calendula essence, lemongrass oil and grapefruit seed extract, and I went about tending my wounds. The physical ones, yes, but lying there with a sticky botanical poultice on my leg gave me plenty of time to tend the emotional ones too.

For starters, I stopped minimizing. It is a big f#*&ing deal for my daughter to live across the country from me. I can start by acknowledging that. I can give myself time to grieve. When I felt stronger, I started putting myself back in those places that feed my soul���on my yoga mat, across the kitchen table from a dear friend, and in my favorite comfy chair at my coffice. Sometimes I don���t know what to write anymore when I sit there because even in that familiar space, things feel so strange. But I sit there until words come. And I sit there even when they don���t. I show up and when someone asks how I���m doing, I resist my knee-jerk ���fine��� and I tell the truth. I can���t lie anymore because my body knows. It always knows.

And at long last, I���m listening.


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