C is for…
I’m blogging under the symbol of a cow. I know that seems strange, but please read on to see if I can make it sound reasonable….
COW: I grew up in the suburbs. My only real interaction with a cow was cute, white with black spots, cow stickers. You could by them off a roll at the store. In my life today, the cow is every negative thing I believe about myself and every positive at the same time.
Example: Divine Bovine. My beloved afternoon nanny, Oprah, would always have make-over shows for moms that, “let themselves go.” I’d then wonder about those moms while growing up. Why would you let yourself go?
I have learned over the years to be careful of the questions I ask in life, because life tends to make me live the answer.
Some woman struggle after having children and I was one of them. I had a personal perfect storm of motherhood: exhaustion, unattractive (fat, sore, stitched, breast feeding) and bitchy (hormones scare the crap out of me now). Then it got topped off with unexpectedly leaving my career and the constant stressful state of special needs high alert. My son was diagnosed with autism at 2 months. I wasn’t loving life and I sure wasn’t loving myself. My hateful self image became this big, dumb and unattractive cow (breast feeding kinda puts the cow front and center).
One day I decided to snap out it. A year later I finally succeeded (mostly!). Part of the new me wanted to send out my experiences online for other moms. In an effort to save them from having to “live” an answer. Or, at least shorten the bounce back time.
My goal is to be honest about my experiences. Including: friends, teachers, therapists, family members etc… I choose to do that anonymously, because I have a non-verbal son. If a person treats him poorly based on something I’ve posted, he can’t tell me.
So… I picked the cow. I had succeeded in turning my self image around, so I wanted to make my most negative view of myself my most positive action.
Then… I needed a logo. I did a google search on cow and this is what I found. It’s considered divine in India (I knew that, but forgot in my negative state of mind). It’s the animal embodiment of Hathor the Egyptian goddess of joy and feminine love. In Norse mythology a cow emitted the four rivers of power.
The Divine Bovine! Motherhood can bring out the best and the worst in us. Now the white and black cow of my childhood, is my yin-yang of motherhood. One day, I’ll have my own stickers 