I found myself pondering this phrase while looking in the mirror one morning admiring the very non-bouncy non-taut skin that I call my midsection and covers what I can only assume was once abs (which I've now been informed by my OB are almost nonexistent and she first informed me this 3 pregnancies ago!). Physically, heck yeah, I've bounced back. I ran a 5k this past weekend just a few days prior to baby turning five months old and I ran a full minute better than this same time last year when I set a new personal best after running the 5k while eight weeks pregnant with baby. My body is strong, I've worked it hard and I can honestly say I have new respect for my body. The body which has given me six children, endured six c-sections and is probably now more physically fit than ever before.
Emotions are not so easy. I've managed to resurrect some abdominal muscles from the ashes by working them pretty hard. Even then, my husband and I joke how I've maybe got a half-pack hidden in there somewhere. For emotions it's different, I can't isolate a particular emotion or flex it repetitiously. Grief is not always so easy to access. Nor is happiness for that matter. It is a conscious effort to feel or not to feel at times. Some days one or the other just doesn't work. It's the emotions that bounce back really. Nine years after Wyatt's death I can tell you they still haven't stopped.
I wonder how those close to me perceive the Mandy of now. To them have I "bounced back" from Eli's death? Am I different than I was before to them? What do they call it?
More importantly, do I even want to know the answers to these questions?
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