I will be ready.

I originally wrote this and posted it to social media two weeks ago. As of today, I have one week left before midwifing again. I am more ready than I was then, but still have some work to do.

I return to midwifery care in three weeks. And if I’m being honest: I’m not ready. I’m not ready for my heart to be split wide-open every fifteen minutes, only to step out of the room frantically to put it back together, with the full knowledge it won’t last. I’m not ready to lose hours of sleep to charting and paperwork that exists for the sole purpose of creating paper trails or checking boxes or upholding a system meant to make healthcare complicated or burdensome or capitalistic rather than healing. I’m not ready to realize, again and again, later each time, that my capacity for empathy is exhausted and I need to hurry up and rebuild it somehow or I won’t be doing the best for myself or others: and I’m really not ready to be out of ways to rebuild it, again. I’m not ready to be honest with students about how physically and logistically hard this work is while in the same breath (truthfully) admitting that it’s all worth it. I’m not ready to be constantly late to gatherings or emotionally realize I’ve been wrong when I say I’m on my way, when the truth is always ‘who really knows’ if I’ll get there at all. I’m not ready to continue feel completely helpless in an institution that works against people’s personal lives and needs and hearts and abilities to thrive, providers and patients alike. I’m not ready to have long drives home where I sob uncontrollably and rethink this work entirely. I’m not ready to feel ‘less than’ in a profession and in daily interactions where the knowledge and expertise of midwifery is belittled or siloed or disenfranchised completely. I’m not ready to midwife again. And I’m not sure how to be ready just yet.

But I will. I will be ready again.