Dear Ava,

You’ve been asking me for two years to write a blog post “that’s appropriate for your kid to read.”

And I haven’t been lying when I answer “Sorry, but I haven’t written it yet.”

It isn’t that I don’t want you to read what I’m thinking, read what I laugh about, read the insights – profound and absurd – I share with this world. It’s that what I’m saying on the blog isn’t quite what I want to say to you, my little girl, 11 years old, standing on the brink of a new time and a new body and life.

Sometimes I can’t believe you’re going to be 12 in November, our first baby, and I think about the way you’re growing up, and how things are changing for you and for me and the way we talk and laugh. How sometimes it’s like it’s always been and sometimes it’s very, very different.

Soon I know it will change a little more and I won’t be the one who’s by your side as much as I am now, and you will be bursting forth into your own, in ways that don’t involve me. Maybe then you won’t be quite so interested in what I have to say to you, in a blog post written for you, my first daughter.

So I’ve written it now, the things I want to say as you head into 6th grade then junior high then high school and oh my. Here are the things I want to say, now, and in five years, and in ten, and twenty.

• I want you to keep dressing up, and playing what you want, long after you’re sure all the other girls have moved on to more “mature” things.
• I want you to know they haven’t.
• I want you to hold on to your wry sense of humor and quick wit. Not everybody will get you, but the people who get you will really, really get you. And it will be worth it.
• I want you to look at the people around you with a seriously questioning eye, figuring if everybody else is doing it, it’s probably a ridiculous thing to be doing.
• I want you to believe you are more smart than beautiful, even if perhaps you are equally so.
• I want you to know people will always fail to meet your expectations, at some point. It’s up to you to decide whether you should keep them around anyway.
• I want you to embrace your inner geek. It’s generally our most interesting feature.
• I want you to stay close to your Greek and Norse myths and books and books and books because they say it before we can and they change our minds.
• I want you to never leave the house without saying “I love you,” no matter how bad the argument.
• I want you to remember your parents are flawed humans. Emphasis on the “flawed.”
• I want you to remember you can never walk so far away you can’t come back.
• I want you to learn to drive a stick shift.
• On a regular basis, I want you to let go of every old idea you’ve ever had.
• I want you to know you will always be required to attend family vacations.
• I want you to see that girls do some seriously stupid things when it comes to boys, and there’s nothing wrong with shaking your head in disbelief and movin’ right along.
• This also applies to you, when you do seriously stupid things.
• I want you to speak your mind even when the other kids are speaking what’s cool.
• I want you to be the kid who talks too much in class, because I know you want to.
•  I want you to understand that brains are half as important as tenacity and a profound work ethic.
• I want you to cuddle with me sometimes, and hold your dad’s hand, and know how the younger kids look at you.
• I want you to visit your grandparents.
• I want you to never question our adoration of the girl you’ve been and the woman in you, who we can’t yet see but love completely anyway, with every flaw and mistake and disaster and temper tantrum she’s got in her.
• I want you to know we’ve done it, though you’ll never believe it.
• I want you to pray.
• I want you to know you are more than your body and mind, that you are crafted of the stuff of the cosmos, and when you came from my womb I knew you were on loan from the universe – a celestial body encapsulated in your body – and I want to know that I always knew I’d have to let you go someday, even as my heart broke and my arms begged you to stay and I couldn’t imagine the parting.

That I know someday you’re going to go, and I’ll have to watch, from here. With only a few things left to say, and a wave.

Nevermind, I can’t do it. You can’t read this yet.

You’ve gotta wait a couple more years.

I want you to know we’ve got a few more years.

And many more things to say.

Love,

Mama

Welcome to the first installment of Fuck the Man Friday! Henceforth, we shall refer to it as “FTM Friday,” because it’s more open and inviting and proper.

I just wet my pants laughing.

And yes, I realize it’s Saturday.

WHAT? I’m not a miracle worker here.

Anyway, for those of you who aren’t yet familiar with FTM Friday, here’s a rundown: In the last couple months, I’ve become obsessed with making my own body care products, and I’d like to tell you all about it, share what has worked, what hasn’t, link to recipes I’ve used, adapted, etc.

It all started with some damn body scrubs. Body scrubs are the new gateway drug. One day you’re making body scrubs; two weeks later you’re washing your hair with fucking baking soda.

But I digress.

I’ve managed to replace shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, shaving cream, face wash, face lotion, facial toners, body washes, hair/dandruff tonic, baby shampoo, baby massage oil and deodorant with relatively inexpensive, chemical-free homemade versions. To illustrate, I give you this:

Did you notice how I put the “before” stuff in a cute little basket? Yeah, I know. IMPRESSIVE. We won’t talk about how it’s sitting on the toilet seat.

But check it out, considering I once referred to Soulemama as “Soule-Crushing Mama,” it may seem rather hypocritical, out-of-character, or JUST PLAIN WRONG that I would one day, when nobody’s looking, turn into some over-zealous eco-friendly body-product-making SouleMama wannabe, like it’s nothing.

And I agree. There are multiple possible interpretations of this. One is that I’ve been lying to you this whole time and I’m actually a super-organized power woman who just pretended to suck at homemaking and life. I, for one, wish that were true.

But alas, the truth is this: We got poor. And disillusioned.

[And this crap is so easy even I can do it. It requires no precision, creativity, or talent.]

So yeah, we got so poor I started feeling every penny I spent, and I started thinking about how much money was going out and out and OUT, for everything, and I started wondering if I really needed to be doing this. It all just started feeling wrong and excessive and ridiculous. $9.00 for deodorant (or $5 for the kind with aluminum)? SERIOUSLY?

I was getting more and more bitter every time I went to the store – 10 bucks for this or that or $20 or $30 – it was no longer fun; I was just “over it.”

So when I started making body scrubs for Christmas presents (in response to the poor thing), and I found out how easy (and absolutely freaking lovely they are), I started feeling a little more confident in my ability to make shit that smells nice. (And may even be, ahem, enters into the realm of cute.)

Oh God help me.

And the truth is that over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly disillusioned with American materialism in general, beyond body products. The whole uncritical consumer thing. Not in a holier-than-thou sense, like I’m above it or something, but rather because my house was full at one point of stuff STUFF STUFF I didn’t need and plastic and crap, and my husband and I were working, day in and day out, for WHAT?

To have a bigger house? To have more stuff we don’t need? To have a better car?

Ah, screw that. As Tyler Durden says: “You are not your fucking khakis.”

And I believe that. And yet, it was hard for me to take the TV off the wall and donate the excess toy collection to the Goodwill. Well it was hard at first. It’s not as hard now. I guess I’m becoming a little more detached.

So yeah, like many other people, I’ve become disillusioned with it all: the food we’re provided, the idea that success is money and power, the idea that I need to pay a bunch of big ass corporations a bunch of money to take care of my body and hair. And unless I want to expose myself and my family to a bunch of chemicals with unknown consequences, I had to pay ridiculous amounts of money. Seriously, the hippie brands are OUT OF THEIR MINDS. There’s a hand salve that sells at our local co-op for $15.00. NO JOKE. I make literally the same one (same ingredients, friends) for $2 or $3, and half that is the cost of the container. Trip out.

See what I mean? FTM.

So there was a little fire was lit under me and fueled by the gateway drug, I found myself searching for body scrub recipes and I found TONS AND TONS of recipes for everything. Lip balm! Shampoo! Lotion! Hair tonic! Shaving cream!

Turns out you can make it all, folks, easily and cheaply.

After body scrub, I made lip balm.

It was a disaster (sorry to those of you who got that first batch as a Christmas gift).

I made hand salve.

It was perfect.

And then I was “on.”

Also, the reason I was able to devote the initial time & energy to this is because I was off work and school for SEVEN WHOLE WEEKS. That’s the literal reason it happened. Frankly, I’m so used to running around like a maniac all the time, when I found myself with no school and no work for weeks on end, I got a little bored. Cleaning the house lost its appeal after like 10 minutes.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m like a border collie. I NEED A JOB.

And so this isn’t just about being eco-friendly or getting chemicals out or saving money (although it’s about those things, too). It’s about being independent. It’s about the satisfaction of using a face wash I made for a dollar (and have better results), knowing I never need to spend $10.00 on it again. It’s about making laundry detergent that costs $5.00 for 100 loads, and not worrying if my baby eats the counter spray (NOT THAT THAT HAPPENED).

Also, people, it’s so fun you’re gonna trip. I mean it. Get ready to turn to the dark side. And seriously, if I can do it, you can do it.

Your house may look worse than it ever has in its existence, but you’ll have amazing healing salve to fix your kids’ wounds, and you’ll feel like a damn renegade anarchist badass.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Whatever, we have a mascot (see below), so obviously we’re the real deal. Thank you, Lisa, for that little fella, we love him.

See you next FRIDAY (I promise) for our first recipe. We’re going to start with Super Fucking Easy (body scrub), because that’s where I started. Each week after that I’ll give you a new recipe, and we can FTM together.

But if you want to be ready for next week, you can prepare by making sure you have white sugar or kosher salt, grapeseed or almond oil (can buy at any grocery store), and some essential oils (lavender and peppermint are the ones I probably use the most). Optional items are raw, organic honey and baking soda.

Here’s to critical consumerism, and body scrubs.

And Tyler.

AND THIS GUY, who understands:

There are some seriously messed-up expectations in motherhood – you know, tummy time, extra-curricular activities, the Wiggles – but by far the most twisted, torturous and baffling (in my opinion) is the idea that I’m supposed to adopt some sort of “parenting philosophy,” — like there should be some voice inside my soul guiding my every move as a mother, allowing me to feel all confident and right in my decisions, so I can hop on parenting forums and websites to proudly announce (as we all bow our heads in reverence): My Approach.

“I practice attachment parenting!”

“I’m a cry-it-out supporter!”

“I exclusively breastfeed!”

“I think breastfeeding is the end of female independence!”

“I’m a VBAC, no Vax, CD, EBF, CS, SAHM mom!”

“I have 2 nannies and wear Chanel and see my kids on Fridays!”

(Ok I realize some of those are ridiculous, but have you read Twitter bios?)

And I’m supposed to stand behind this approach, totally and completely, because I believe in it and shit, and I get all smug when people don’t agree, and I hang out with “like-minded” mothers because they support me in my well-researched, educated, enlightened methodology.

Or not.

With my first two kids, I guess I practiced “attachment parenting.” They exclusively breastfed, on demand, co-slept from birth til 3 or 4 years old, and I picked them up whenever they cried, carrying them in slings and carriers and such.

However, I didn’t do it because I thought it was “the best way.”

I didn’t do it because Mothering magazine told me so, and I sure as hell didn’t do it because all my friends were doing it (um, I was 22 – all my friends were playing pool and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon).

I didn’t do it because I was pressured by family members or the community (I had a Play Boy bunny diaper bag to piss off the yuppie moms in my SUPER YUPPIE town), and I didn’t do it because my husband told me I should (see above re: Pabst Blue Ribbon).

You know why I did it?

Because it felt right. It worked for me.

No, really. That’s it. That’s as deep as it goes.

I’m selfish. I’m not going to suffer through some mothering hell because the ubiquitous “they” tell me I’m supposed to. Ya feel me?

I breastfed because it seemed WAY EASIER than making bottles all the time, and I did it on demand because I couldn’t handle listening to a baby wail. Of course, it helped that my mom was a La Leche League educator who taught me Dr. Spock is an asshole. I co-slept because it was the only way I could get any sleep, and I liked having my babies near me, and felt more comfortable knowing they were right there. I wore them in slings because I found out right away that I could get way more done if I stuck them in there – they were happier for longer, my hands were free, and by breastfeeding and baby-wearing I could leave the house with very little gear, which was less to remember, and I liked that.

Why didn’t I wean my kids? Because I never wanted to. I wrote about that here.

You know why I used cloth diapers? Because I thought they were cute.

I warned you: not deep.

And so I’m going happily on my way, parenting the way I feel like it, when I come across Mothering magazine and I’m all “Wait a hot minute! There’s a name for this? ‘Attachment Parenting?’”

Golly gee I thought it was just called “parenting.”

And though I always felt a little attachment-parent-deficient because we couldn’t afford Waldorf schools or Amish toys, I’ll admit I got a little carried away, a little confident in my “approach.” I subscribed to the right blogs and magazines and read it religiously and felt a bit smug and true and right in my philosophy.

Ah, but then I had Georgia.

My third.

UH OH.

I should have known, given the nature of her birth, that she would always have her own plans, but alas, I’m a bit of a dumbass, and clearly (as evidenced by my 3 kids), I don’t learn very quickly.

Anyway, after using two cribs as stuffed-animal holders, we didn’t even buy a crib or co-sleeper or anything for the third. Obviously she would sleep with us. OBVIOUSLY.

Not gonna lie, I felt like some sort of attachment-parenting ninja having not even purchased a crib.

I should have known then I’d get my smug ass handed to me on a pretty little platter by a ten-pound bundle of crazy.

You see, this kid hardly slept at all next to me. She would like shift her body and twist and turn all night, as if she were irritated, bothered. She didn’t settle against my breast all happy; she nursed and flung herself away from me, as if to say “Thanks woman, now leave me the hell alone.” She woke up frequently and none of us got any sleep.

After about 3 months of this I finally admitted to myself and my husband: “Um, I don’t think she likes being touched while she sleeps.” We bought a $60 crib from Ikea, stuck it in our room and put her in it. She snuggled in and crashed, with a look on her face that said “Aw, FINALLY.”

And to this day, she sleeps in her crib, only coming into our bed occasionally when she’s sick or going through some phase.

As if that weren’t enough to shatter my delusions of grandeur, after about 3 months of pumping two or three times a day at work, to ensure my baby was exclusively breastfed, I found that I just couldn’t take it anymore, and, I guess because I’m selfish once again, I (you might want to shield your eyes) started giving my baby formula as well as breast milk.

Oh, the guilt! The irreversible pain!

I’m joking. It was totally fine.

Pumping every 3 hours and dealing with milk transportation and refrigeration and ALL THE SUPPLIES every day with three kids and grad school and work and babysitters was ruining my life. The formula supplement thing worked way better. Done.

And I used one of those baby carrier stroller things (a mini-version, but still) in addition to slings, because it worked better in some situations with my older kids.

And I let her watch TV occasionally.

And she quit breastfeeding around two years old, but she still takes a bottle. HORRORS!

So I guess all this makes me, what, a practitioner of “detachment parenting?”

WHATEVER.

Check it out. I have an idea. I vote that we all stop analyzing our parenting decisions in terms of whether or not they adhere to some over-arching philosophy we’ve read or heard is The Best.

I vote that we stop comparing our approaches to some magazine or blog or whatever the fuck, and trust that we know how to parent the child that exited our own vaginas, and we are smart enough and strong enough and aware enough (Stuart Smalley, anyone?) to respond to the ever-changing realities of our lives in a way that will meet our own needs and the needs of our kids.

I know, radical shit up in here.

But I mean it. We can be doctors and lawyers and brilliant homemakers and farmers but somehow we need complete strangers to tell us how to raise the kids we know better than anybody else?

It’s crazy when you think about it, right?

So here’s what I think we should do. When we’re faced with some big ass parenting decision (or even the small ones, really) and hear those voices start chattering (“this is wrong, this is right, this violates ____ belief! They say this behavior causes this one horrible thing”)…we just ask ourselves:

IS THIS WORKING?

And if the answer is “no,” we change something – even if it means we practice some whacked-0ut version of “Detached Attachment Parenting.”

Or, as I like to call it, parenting.

I’ll come out when my mom adopts a parenting approach.

[Those of you who’ve been here for awhile know that I wrote this post last year. But since I had about 9 readers back then (you know who you are), and I added some new Valentines for each stage, I feel it’s appropriate to publish it again, in an updated version.]

***

The other day, while scowling at the absurdity of one of those feel-good chocolate hearts and roses Valentine’s ads, I placed my pointer finger against my face in the classic thinking posture and asked myself… “Hmmmm…what would an honest Valentine’s Day card say?”

And then, as this thought rolled around in my [acutely insane] brain, I realized that this is no simple question, but rather depends entirely on how long the couple has been together.

Because as you probably know…that shit CHANGES. (Relationships, that is. Men, not so much.)

So this small, profound monologue got me thinking about the fact that there are (in my opinion) three stages in a relationship/marriage, each of them obviously necessitating a different Valentine, were it to be honest and real and able to speak the truth of the insanity. Err, I mean “budding love story.”

Wow. Deep.

Anyhoo, I give you this. I ask that you please enjoy the clip art.

Stage 1

Years 0-2: The “I haven’t Been With You Long Enough to Realize How Much You Annoy Me” stage, comprised of long walks and hand-holding, starry-eyed dinners, cocktails, discussions, movie-watching, reasonable arguments, cuddling and pet names. Also, smug looks directed at women who are in Stages 2 and 3 with their men, and a distinct feeling of superiority, having obviously been deemed the first woman in history to not wonder if she could turn herself into a lesbian to avoid further intimacy with the male population. Also, women in this stage rest easy in the comfort and surety that they will never, ever want to pummel their little love kitten with a meat cleaver. Because he’s PERFECT. Duh.

A Stage 1 Valentine looks something like one of these:

And now…

Stage 2, Years 2-5: The “Holy Shit I had no Idea You Had These Sorts of Habits” Stage, also known as the “I Must Mold You Into Something More Like What I Had In Mind” Stage, characterized by a lot of discussions with girlfriends regarding the man’s deficiencies, as well as a decent amount of wonderment and awe as the female discovers The Male is not at all perfect (and may actually have some sort of disability, as evidenced by the fact that he can’t find stuff that’s 3 inches from his forehead and insists on passing gas in bed). This stage also involves the surfacing of all other incomprehensible tendencies, causing the female to realize she’s going have to fix this character if they’re ever going to make it. And therefore, she begins to WORK, which of course results in long, long, long discussions, unreasonable bickering, maybe therapy but for sure tears, cajoling, threatening, flailing and general malaise, and, most likely, the arrival of an infant or two.

Honest Valentines at this stage may look like this:

And then, if the couple in question makes it past Stage 2, they enter Stage 3 (years 6 – ?), commonly known as the “Well Obviously You are not Going to Change and I’m Tired of Fighting so I’ve Accepted you and your Weirdness” Stage. (Yes, these stages have awkwardly long titles. Not particularly catchy, I know. Don’t blame me. I didn’t make it up.) Oh wait.

As you can see, this is something of a deal-breaker stage – since it’s pretty much Stage 3 or Stage Bye-Bye. Stage 3 is characterized by a lot of glaring but less complaining, fewer divorce threats and a surface-level acceptance of small, irritating habits (such as buying odd gadgets that will never ever be used EVER, or eating onions before bed). It also involves some strange compromises (“Honey, if you pick up your bath towel from the floor every day, I’ll start squeezing the toothpaste from the bottom.”) and subtle retaliation (as opposed to the long, long, long discussions in stage 2 (or therapy)). On the plus side, this Stage results in a weird peace and vague sense of serenity and, occasionally, some intense relief  regarding the fact that you didn’t throw in the towel when things got rough (and therefore, thank god, you don’t have to deal with these hoodlum children alone). Women in this stage feel a little like badass survivors of some great calamity, like a tsunami, or fire. “We almost didn’t make it, kids. We really had to work HARD to make this marriage work. Ah, but look at us now…”

And we feel a little victorious. And yeah, alright, I’ll say it: A little in love.

Enough of the sappy crap.

Real valentines in this stage may look something like this:

Sometimes people ask where I come up with this crap.

In response, I give you one word: LIFE.

 As proof, I give you this…

My own real life Stage 3 Valentine.

xoxoxo

So I was hanging out the other day with a friend who has a newborn. A freaking gorgeous newborn boy, to be exact.

He is her first baby. She has recently become a mother.

You know, when we hear those words we hear them like it’s no big deal – “become a mother,” like you might “become a doctor” or “become a pet owner.” As if it’s just this thing that happens, without anything else happening – it’s just this exciting addition to one’s life. You add this new thing and go about your business.

Like a new-home owner, or a resident of a new town.

“A mother.”

But this particular transition comes with a cost. A BIG ONE, yet nobody really talks about it.

And if you do talk about it, you have “postpartum depression.”

I have an idea: let’s talk about it, right here and right now, and call it nothing other than a human, adult reaction to a giant shift in identity, a presence of mind recognizing the end of an entire chapter of life, a heart mourning the woman that once was, and a soul shaking under the weight of a new giant world.

I’ve talked about it a little before, and in my case I actually DID have postpartum depression, and obviously I’m not trying to say that having these feelings does not indicate PPD (um DUH). What I’m saying is that it seems to me that every woman who becomes a mother, no matter how much she loves her kid or wants to be a mom, will most likely, at some point, mourn the loss of her previous identity.

And it will hurt.

You’re sitting in the house a few weeks after your perfect baby is born. Everybody has gone home. The help is gone. Your husband (or wife) is back at work.

Your belly is still sagging. Your boobs are exploding. You’re bleeding still, maybe, but you’re definitely leaking milk. There are big pools of it on your bed and couch and everywhere. You don’t really sleep, but rather fade in and out of a half-sleep, alongside your baby, checking him every hour, acutely aware of his breath, as if it were a freight train roaring through the room: do I hear it? Yes, I hear it.

Breathe.

His temperature, his blanket. He stirs and you’re there, boom. Awake. You are infinitely connected. You seem to be melting into this tiny body. He wakes and you stare into his eyes, struck and dumbfounded at his beauty. You coo at him and notice the way he moves his mouth, as if he wants to speak. What will he say?

Someday he will speak. And you know you know him better than everybody else, and always will, and you know when he’s sleeping you’re there when nobody else is there, and you’re watching him breathe so you can breathe and watching him sleep to drift into your own.

And you’re falling into a love you’ve never known. It’s like quicksand; the more you struggle the deeper you fall. Only you’re not struggling, because it’s a gorgeous catastrophe, and there’s nowhere else to go.

But you watch people leave, too. You watch your husband go to work. You see friends come and go, bright and capable with energy and direction, as if the world is still going on outside, out there.

And you’re isolated and stuck.

As you watch them there are moments, moments when you remember when you used to run around and visit people and live your life and work and be alone. You remember when your body was just your own and you were thinner and felt contained and like the owner of your boobs and vagina and life. You remember having a couple shots of tequila or maybe a cigarette with some friends, and you did it like it was nothing, never knowing it was somebody who was going to stand like an old friend some day, a thousand miles away.

You were twenty, twenty-three, thirty, thirty-five. You were free and young and somebody else.

We were free and young and somebody else.

But now, we’re mothers.

At some point the reality will hit us: We are never alone again, no matter where we are, and we are the only ones in the world who have become this person toward this child.

Yeah, that’s right. I said it. NOT EVEN THE DAD.

It’s hard to put into words, but something becomes very apparent when a baby enters a relationship: there is something different between my relationship with this baby, and everybody else in the world.

I am the only one who is The Mother to this child twenty-four hours a day, and will be for the rest of my life.

I’m not trying to speak for everybody. Obviously. I’m speaking for myself, and for my friends, who I’ve seen living the same beautiful catastrophe.

My husband always goes back to work relatively soon after the baby is born. So his life, though obviously irrevocably changed, goes on in more or less the same way it was before. My husband’s sleep patterns haven’t changed. My husband’s body isn’t suddenly owned by a 9-pound nursing machine. My husband’s vagina isn’t, well, let’s change the subject. My husband doesn’t have stretch marks. My husband didn’t give birth.

My husband doesn’t spend hours eye-locked with the newborn, cooing and talking with infinite fascination with a ball of chub. My husband doesn’t pick at the baby’s head and eyes and ears like an attentive monkey.

My husband didn’t become a mother, but I did.

And there are moments when I know it. There are moments when I look at that baby and myself and feel my body that isn’t my body and wonder if maybe I didn’t make the biggest mistake of my life, because what have I given up? What have I done? Was I ready?

Why didn’t I appreciate my life more, when it was mine? What if I want to leave one day?

I’ll never be able to leave one day, ever.

I’ve been the same woman my whole life. What about her? Where is she? Is she just dead?

Yes, she is just dead.

Does that seem harsh? Well, it is. So is motherhood.

Perhaps we can soften this whole thing by saying our identities are “transformed,” or we are “forever changed,” but the fact of the matter is that the woman you once were is gone, and she will never come back.

Period.

You can pretend she’s not dead. You can even leave your family and act like a kid again and not a mother. But you will not be free, and you will die under the weight of your lies, because you know you’re something else, and there’s a little girl out there who misses her mama, and has replaced her with a box full of notes and cards and memories and yearning.

I’m speaking from experience.

I will never live a single day as an individual. Always, somewhere, my heart will be beating for that child. Always, somewhere, though I may not even know it, my mind has wrapped itself around her, wondering how she is, seeing a shirt or dog or book, “She would love that.” I miss her.

One thousand miles away, but tied.

And so she’s gone, that woman. Old friend who partied with you and spent hours absorbed in herself, her work. She’s gone, that girl that lived for herself, and maybe you for a moment, but always, in the end, for herself.

And yet, I’m still here. This is still me. I am untouched, unscathed. So maybe I have not died?

If I died, how am I here, nursing and changing and mothering this baby? Who’s doing this work now?

And who is she?

I don’t know her yet, but I will. I’ll know the woman who wraps her baby against her chest and storms the world. I’ll know the woman who goes back to work with one foot and her heart at home, always. I’ll meet the woman who races to preschool to get there on time and holds little hands and chases kids in restaurants.

I’ll meet the woman who disciplines. I’ll meet the woman who yells. I’ll meet the woman who works to be better, who holds a child as it grows and grows and grows and I’ll meet the woman who does it a couple more times, until she’s the one sitting by a friend and a newborn, telling her it’s alright, talking about death, and rebirth.

OF A MOTHER.

Thinking my god, I guess I’ve known her all along.

****

We’re all facing the “most sacred job in the world” armed with nothin but ourselves. 

I insist there’s beauty right there. And a shitload of humor. A SHITLOAD OF FUCKING HUMOR. Because it’s funny, goddamnit, the whole thing.

And I wrote that too.
That part was really, really fun. Alongside even the most intense parts of that book, I was laughing my ass off (IN MOMENTS, okay, I’m not a monster). I may be a monster.

Somebody messaged me today saying her favorite passage in the book was the dinosaur porn one. Here it is:

“Let’s not talk about how we all became better versions of ourselves the day we became parents, and, please, would you stop pretending you did? Because your holier-than-thou shit makes me worry you watch dinosaur porn after the kids go to bed. Your steadfast focus on seasonal cupcakes and organic kombucha concerns me. Look, I’ve got some too. I know all about gut flora. But please. Is that all there is?”