Timewhine #7
No matter the spirit in which they're received -- arms crossed or arms open -- birthdays predictably arrive, and for better or worse demand at the minimum a moment of self-reflection. Life is good. Life is bad. Life is meh. Life is here we go again. Life is remarkably and surprisingly suddenly different.
40 has secured its spot, accurate or not, as the point where you pivot from up and slip back down. And despite your distance between here and there, there is an unmistakable ringing (the volume may vary) letting you know age is coming, or has arrived, or is vibrating off memory and missed opportunity. But the nice thing about a sudden jostling is the pardon of hitting the snooze, ignoring the call to be somewhere you're not. I never was good at being on time. My 40 will be followed with winks.
Trying to distill postpartum emotions into only four distinct feelings is no easy feat. For one, where pregnancy looniness ends and baby induced brain fatigue begins is blurry -- there's a lot of overlap, and my aim in this was to capture all of the changes triggered by the birth of my little girl.
A few weeks ago I talked about my experiences postpartum and how ill prepared I was for the wacky things that happened to my body once I had my daughter, likening the fruits of my labor (I love an accidental pun) to the badges you earn in scouts.
Ihad an easy pregnancy. Even so Google was never far and I looked up every imagined and real symptom and milestone. I wasn’t uninformed, quite the opposite.
“What have you been up to?”. I dread that question. It always feels like a lot and I in turn should have a long and involved response, but I don’t have a list of recognizable accomplishments.
In 2007 I worked all the time and did little else. Any creative endeavors I once had long been dormant or forgotten. After a break up that same year I felt broken and unmoved. In an effort to pick myself up and challenge myself -- to learn, to do, to at the minimum