I started this newsletter back in the halcyon days of my daughter’s infancy. When she took two naps a day and slept for 12 hours at night. When I could carve out a little bit of time between my day job to think about all the things that bother me and frustrate me about being a mom. All the ways life is unfair to us.
And I was passionate. About how the society we live in make being a person with a career and a family and hobbies and friends nearly impossible. About how we’re never going to crawl out of the capitalist hellhole that we have built for ourselves.
And then I got a promotion. I started a new job at a new (to me) publication that needed so much time and attention. At the end of the day, I didn’t have any time to think about what to make for dinner much less give myself space to write. So my lovely partner started to make dinner every night when I went to pick the kids up from school.
Things calmed down a bit at work, then picked back up, then calmed down, and then changed again and again, and I did what I could to keep my head above water.
October hit, daylight savings time did its thing (started? ended? reared its ugly head?), The Holidays brought more demands and depression. I could tell I was depressed because I wasn’t even getting up early enough to read in the quiet of the house before everyone else woke up. Forget putting words on paper, I wasn’t even consuming words.
January came and went. I got different meds. I started to get my feet under me at work. And suddenly it’s May. Over a year since I last wrote here.
I’m getting up earlier. I read a book this morning instead of social media. Out of my bed and on the couch. You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith (the other one).
In it, I found a beautiful quote by Rilke:
“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
If I could improve on the famous Bohemian, I would add: “But also, write it down”. Those tiny bits of life. To paraphrase Maggie, start to horde those memories.
I’ve always had a great memory for tiny little details that happen to me, but I want to capture the world. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things I need to remember:
How my daughter told me to call her Elsa because she was wearing a blue dress.
How my son cannot play baseball outside without putting on a full getup with cleats, teeball gloves, cap, sunglasses, and a “baseball shirt” (it’s a soccer shirt, leave him alone, he’s 4).
How he still insists on wearing either a fireman’s costume (jacket with rain boots and fireman’s hat) or his Spiderman costume (again, the batting gloves make an appearance here) to school every day.
How my daughter started telling stories about “her office” at her grandparents’ house in DC, or the rainbow house she lives in, or what she did at PNO (parent’s night out).
How the kids now take baths in their bathing suits. They also wear goggles and each puts a rubber duck between their teeth to act as a scuba respirator.
How my son grew out of saying “boobies” instead of blueberries.
So much of the last couple of years has gone by in a blur. Highway hypnosis. I got here, everyone’s safe, but I can’t remember the turns. I’m going to start writing those down.