The post-partum months can really unleash the hounds of hell on your mental stability. I’ve never been one to wallow, but these last few weeks have been a challenge – lethargy, exhaustion, disorientation, disorganization. None of which I’m okay with. So this week, the eighth post-pregnancy, while prostrate among the rotting cheerios and curdled baby formula, I thought of Teufelsdröckh.
I pulled Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus (The Tailor Retailored) off my bookshelf and began to laugh at all the places I’d underlined years before. Who’d have thought the perfect 21st century therapy was in 19th century satire? Well… me. I’ve always been a fan of the ‘shut the fuck up’ and ‘quit your bitching’ wisdom. Early Victorian writers and transcendentalists were good for this. A good smack across the face always brings things into perspective, and the whining and wallowing I’ve been doing lately is annoying the shit out of me. Some tried to convince me that it’s okay to feel like this after you have a baby (especially two in rapid succession), but I say fuck that, and no way. Perhaps the standards I hold for myself are outrageous, but c’est moi. I can NOT give up and sell my soul brain to the American pharma-mafia. No fucking way. If there’s pain to be had in this head of mine, I want to feel every piercing stab so I can figure it out on my own.
So here’s a bit of Carlyle through his character Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (translates as, God-born devil shit). All I can say is I really need to work the phrases “despicable biped” and “hot as Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace” into my everyday language.
“Full of such humor and perhaps the miserablest man in the whole French Capital or Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dogday, after much perambulation, toiling along the dirty little Rue Saint Thomas de l’Enfer, among civic rubbish enough, in a close atmosphere, and over pavements hot as Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace; whereby doubtless my spirits were little cheered; when, all at once, there rose a Thought in me, and I asked myself: “What art thou afraid of?” Wherefore like a coward, dost thou for ever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trembling? Despicable biped! What is the sum-total of the worst that lies before thee?”
“Ever from that time the temper of my misery was changed: not Fear or whining Sorrow was it, but Indignation and grim fire-eyed defiance.” -Thomas Carlyle, The Everlasting No
Is it necessary to emerge from maternity’s cave with such dramatic pretension?
If you’re me… hell yeah motherfucker. Now where’s my guns?
Originally published July 7, 2009.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
So glad you wrote this. What is the sum-total of the worst that lies before thee, despicable biped?
On some days, I have the worst allergies or bouts of angst regarding the fact that D lives here with me only half-time because of work.
One look around me and I find neighbors & colleagues’ spouses losing their jobs & trying so hard to find work quick. I want to slap myself for my wallowing, when we have it so much better than many. D may live far away from me half the time, but that’s because he’s WORKING and loves his job to boot.
Again, I’m gonna print out that Carlyle passage and paste it to my forearm.
Thanks. Yes, we have lots to be grateful for if we just look around. I try to keep things in perspective, regardless of the whacky body chemistry. Anyway, Carlyle is great, very recommended.
“If there’s pain to be had in this head of mine, I want to feel every piercing stab so I can figure it out on my own.”
I love you.