two - one - two
The Bible says, "And the two shall become one."
One time I said this at a counseling appointment and my christian counselor balked at me for using this as an excuse for our problems. She quickly corrected, "but you are two people with different needs." Yes, yes.
And also, we have taken these two people with two different needs and conflict styles and attachment coping mechanisms and flung them into one life. One house. One bed. For us, one car. For many years, the same job. Here, opposites attract and now oil and vinegar are shook up in a jar and called salad dressing. We are separate, but we are one. And our whole lives will be merging and rearranging our needs and desires to fit our puzzle piece into the others lives. Two hearts. One love.
Then you find that there is space in your heart to add another piece, a family. And what's wild is that the mother now grows another human. I did it once and I don't think I'll ever be able to comprehend that sort of magic and power. From one, comes two. (of course it takes two to tango, you know, but it's all done in one pot so-to-speak.) Life forms in the womb, building bit by bit, growing exponentially until 9-10 months later you have this human in your arms that is yours. Those first 3 months of newborn life are called "the fourth trimester" because your baby is trying to adjust to life outside the safe warm dark cocoon of your womb and cannot fathom why they would ever be a part from you. And truly, who could blame them. In our adult minds we count two bodies, two heads, two hearts, but in every other functional way, mother and baby are one. That babies don't die when separated from their mothers is a scientific marvel.
I balked and brayed at being merged into one with my little baby. I craved my independence, tired after 9 months of pregnancy and 3 months of newborn life, I wanted a break. But my little boy, he wanted to be one still. He wanted to nurse like a new born. He wanted to be close to me when we slept, and have access to that milk source whenever he wanted it. He would never settle for a bottle, or a binky. All the man-made ways we have collected to make one-become-two happen faster, he said "nah man, not for me." We stayed one.
This baby grows and grows and each year is proof that one is slowly, actually becoming two. And now, he is just starting to find his own ways to be separate. He naps easier, alone in the stroller or laying next to me on the bed. He runs from me and doesn't look back. He says, "yes I want blueberries," and, "NO I don't want water." (In his own baby way.) He is on his way to become two years old and just starting to emerge from being one unit with me, to his independent two.
But lately, he has been grasping for me. He wants to squeeze my face or my arms, wants to pinch the skin of my belly and back. Each pinch a reminder to me that my skin was once his skin, was the place where he lived for so long, the place where all of his needs were met.
In the early mornings he reaches for me, arm flung across my face. And when I hear him stirring my arm reaches for him, to tuck him in next to me or do one small feeding which we are closer to ending than starting. We grasp for oneness still. And while I enjoy his independence that becomes my independence, in these grasping moments I am content that the process of one-becoming-two is slow and not linear and that he still reaches for me.