I have a firm belief that you don’t have to do jackshit during your baby’s first year of life. I took things very easy on myself this second time around. I believe I attempted to pump breastmilk inside a mop water closet at work for two weeks max before giving up the whole enterprise gleefully.
Nick had Jane in his office across campus and some days I would pop over there and nurse her, reclined to the point of being technically lying down, while forkfuls of whatever Nick had snagged for me in a to-go container from the dining hall littered my bare chest.
We had enough to worry about with not having consistent childcare for our infant and house hunting and being broke. I remember once sending Nick to the bank with our jar of change to give us a buffer until payday. So no, I was not interested in wringing milk from my tits with a vacuum pump and then worrying about how to keep the milk food-safe or whatever, let alone trying to be great.
Last fall, I had the idea that I’d try to sell a book of essays the following year. My agent friend said agents would be excited about me. My new therapist very gently tried to suss out whether I suffered from delusional thinking. “Essays about what tho lol,” I’d think to myself, then let the thought drift away to be dealt with in the future. I was still in my Baby Year. I had a few more months of doing nothing. Phew.
I am talking about it in terms of giving myself permission, but for me, it’s a thing that happens naturally. Babies are, as the British mum vloggers I inexplicably watch would say, “full-on.” Once some of that labor lifts, thoughts begin appearing again like migratory birds. First one, then another, then a whole flock.
Jane turned one on January 1, 2020 and we all know what gonzo choices the writing staff of 2020 made next.
The novelty of the situation meant that in the beginning I had so much to say, just like those first few weeks post-partum with my first child. I couldn’t believe any of it, every day was astonishing to me. Just beating the tattoo of how how how WHAT?!! all day long. At a certain point, I accepted our shitty fate and had to do the work of making our day-to-day existence liveable. Whatever flock of ideas had alighted on my glorious post-baby brain took flight.
It sounds sad but I am not sad, not right now. I know my brain will come back, just like it did twice before. If having young children has taught me anything, it’s that it’s okay to assume you’ll live a long enough life to get around to whatever you’re missing out on.
When I was in college, a barista told me she recognized me from my blog. When I’d given her my name for the order, she did a double take, then told me that she read my blog and that she thought it was funny. She seemed nervous to say it!
I carried my drink back to wherever I had piled my stuff, and felt the flush rising to my ears as I brightly thought, “what the…fuck???” I was writing back then solely for the purpose of amusing my friends to whom I’d sent the link directly. The idea that it would mean anything to someone who didn’t know me was a trip.
Writing this newsletter means I get to have connections with people like that all the time, and it feels better than success, or maybe it is success.
Tomorrow is my birthday. Tonight I will walk out to the edge of my yard, where the grass is soft and too-tall. Maybe I’ll smoke a joint or maybe I’ll just drink a store brand seltzer. I will look at the stars in the country sky, fat and swollen like zits, reflected in my neighbor’s fetid in-ground pool. It will be nice. Not just quarantine-nice, but actually nice. I’m looking forward to it.
yr mate,
Evie
###
This is the place where I would normally stick my hat out for money, but the best birthday gift you could give me would be to donate to your local abortion fund or to the National Bail Out.