different strokes

**today's guest post comes from Alexis Lesa of Depressions and Confessions.  I met her for the first time at Casual Blogger Conference and I fell in love.  First of all, she is stunningly gorgeous.  When you get past that, you find a real, honest, hilarious woman.  She was kind enough to humor me and post today for all of you.  When you're done reading her here, head on over to her blog to get some more!!!

Thanks again Alexis!!!

 

kim and i met for the first time at the casual blogger conference, where i was sitting next to her at a discussion on blogging through depression. i made a reference to “crunchy granola” people as i was commenting on something during the session, and kim proudly shouted, “i’m crunchy!” 

after i had stopped laughing, i realized that 1) i have a big mouth and no word sphincter, and 2) i had found a friend.

but then when i got home from the conference, i went and looked at kim’s blog, and i was all, damn. i’m not sure if this kim person and i can be friends. she likes to have babies at home and breastfeed nine year-olds and doesn’t believe in huggies. that sounds like my. worst. nightmare.

i started reading anyway, really reading. and it wasn’t long before i realized that this “kim person” was kinda a lil’ bit just like me in the ways that really mattered. yes, she likes to wear her babies like a kangaroo and i like to push mine in a stroller that preferably costs at least one million dollars. and yes, she breastfeeds until her children are ready to stop and i wean mine when my nipples are ready to fall off. and yes, she prefers to cosleep and i force my children to sleep on a mattress made of thumbtacks in a bedroom all by themselves. 

but still, i get kim.

she loves her children fiercely, just like me. she turns to god in times of need, just like me. she leans on her husband when there’s no way she can stand alone, just like me. she doesn’t attempt to hide the pain, just like me. and she is a woman, just like me.

i have lived my life based on assumptions that i now realize hold no water; for example, i stupidly assumed that women who chose homebirth must be masochists. it’s mostly arrogance that leads me to make these assumptions, but i think it may also be a dash of insecurity. meeting kim and seeing that she and i are not so different, despite outward appearances, made me realize that i have a lot to learn. 

i’m not saying that i am going to magically become a proponent of home birth, or that i will be any less freaked out by the thought of nursing a two year-old: i just don’t see either of those things ever being in the cards for me. 

but that’s not the point. the point is, i can get kim without being or doing any of the things that she is and does. and i do.