Well, hello!
It’s been some time, hasn’t it? My unofficial maternity leave from this space has seemed at once both painfully long and not-quite-long-enough, but I’ve been feeling the itch to return in increasing measure. I miss you all. I miss writing. I miss creating, sharing, producing something other than breastmilk.
My official maternity leave from my “real job” ends next week and I am decidedly NOT itching to return to that space.
When you’re pregnant, people love to ask you what your “plan” is after your leave (if you get a leave, that is – smh @america). It’s a funny question because it seems innocuous in and of itself but, at its core, its wildly personal and invasive.
How do you begin to answer a question like that when so much of the decision is wrapped up in identity and finances and the soul-sucking, self-induced shame that many (most?) mothers feel when deciding whether to work or not? (I’m tempted to point out that no one seemed to be asking my husband this question, but I’ll save that battle for another day.)
More to the point, how do you answer a question like that when you have no idea who you’ll be when the time finally comes to decide?
How intimate, how vulnerable to feel pressed to produce such a shame-soaked, financially-weighted, identity-shaking answer.
**
I would’ve told you I was certain that I’d want to return to work after our baby was born. I’ve spent the last 11 years busting my spreadsheet-loving bum to get to where I am today. I’ve accomplished many things I’m proud of – things that may not sound impressive to anyone outside of the finance / startup / tech world, but that I’m proud of anyway. I’ve made great friends with coworkers past and present. Had terrible bosses and inspiring ones. Fired people, hired people, tried to mentor where I could, tried to learn from my mistakes when I didn’t do it well.
Admittedly, my ethos towards work was pretty skewed by my time spent living in NYC. That culture, that pace, combined with my personal circumstances in that season, quickly inflated the importance of career, salary, title, LinkedIn profile in my mind.
When I left New York, I got a little perspective. Enough to see, at least, that not everyone lives that way. And I would’ve told you I learned something from that realization. But I’m not sure that I did.
At least not enough to change anything. Not enough to leave my New York-based job. Not enough to stop building my life around the resounding rhythms of stress, tuned to the metronome of Slack.
Instead, I just told everyone, and myself, that I was handling it. That it was fine. That if I could just get through this quarter/this audit/this acquisition/this month things would calm down.
I would’ve told you I was certain I’d go back.
And then, on June 19th, I had a baby. And she was tiny and squishy and wild eyed and perfect, and for a while, nothing mattered outside of being with her. And I thought, of course I won’t go back – look at this child, this body born of mine, how could I ever do anything other than be beside her?
…That was June 20th.
In the months that followed, baby would need a tongue and lip tie release, she would struggle to latch, she would develop a milk, soy, and possibly peanut (we’re still working down the list) allergy, she would have heart surgery, she would have reflux, she would never, ever sleep. (She never, ever sleeps!)
And I would think, maybe I should go back to work? Maybe I’m not cut out for this. Look at this child, this body born of mine, I can hardly even feed her. I can’t fix any of her problems. I can’t figure out what I’m eating that’s still making her sick. I can’t get her to go to sleep. (WHY CAN’T I GET HER TO GO TO SLEEP!!)
Maybe she’ll like the nanny more. Maybe I don’t have the maternal instincts I need for this. Maybe I can best serve her by financially supporting her future. Maybe – can I say this? – maybe, I need a break.
Maybe if I was supposed to be a stay-at-home mom, I wouldn’t feel this way.
… Maybe if I was supposed to be a stay-at-home mom, I wouldn’t feel this way.
**
I read a poem this morning – well, an excerpt of a poem – by Louise Gluck. It reads:
I was young here. Riding
the subway with my small book
as though to defend myself againstthe same world:
you are not alone,
the poem said,
in the dark tunnel.
And I cried because motherhood has felt, so far, like every possible analogy in those lines. A subway, a small book, a defense against the world, a loneliness, a dark tunnel, a poem.
As a subway – it has carried me from a former place to whatever is next, wherever “here” is today
As a book – I have lost myself in its story, learned from its pages and longed for more, celebrated each tiny chapter so far and scourged myself with paper cuts trying to flip ahead too quickly
As a defense – it has shielded me, in a way, against so much that doesn’t matter, so many things that I used to fight, to fight for, that seem so pointless now that she’s here
As a loneliness – it has shadowed me, untethered me from so much of what (and who) I once felt connected to, convinced me of an alone-ness that seems both inevitable and unfair
As a tunnel – it has blanketed me, at times, in a depression that felt long and silent but for the echoed drippings of the invisible above falling somewhere off in the distance
As a poem – it has unlocked in me and for me a beauty too difficult to capture in words, a love that can only be expressed in the slow unfolding of one all-encompassing line after another
And while each analogy on its own would be enough to fall in love with this poem, what I love most about it is that it’s written as if in reflection. It’s written in the past tense – “I was young here” – suggesting an older, wiser version of the author at present.
It’s how I feel when I think about myself in New York – chasing after titles, eating dinner at my desk, racing, quite literally, through the underground with book in hand, hoping to get to the office early, hoping to find myself there.
It’s how I feel when I think about the moments I was certain I’d go back to work, and the ones I was certain I wouldn’t. Both were genuine, but uninformed. Driven by emotion, (or post-partum depression), “as though to defend myself against” …something.
It’s how I feel now – coming back to this creative space after so long away, heading back to work next week after so much has changed, trying to figure out who I am, or will be, in either context when I’m not really sure who I am in any context right now.
I was young then.
I don’t know that I’m necessarily the older, wiser narrator now, but I know the tunnel still feels a bit dark.
So on we go, in search of the light, or at least of the next stop on this line.
**
What I do know for certain, is that in both very figurative and very literal senses, this new phase of life requires a paring down that is good and right and necessary. I am still working through what that looks like in many areas, but one I know for sure is that this Substack will be moving to a monthly cadence, rather than a weekly one.
I want to protect this space and the time I spend in it from the pressure of arbitrary timelines so it can continue to be the hopeful, living, breathing, inquisitive, freeing space I’ve always intended it to be. And for now, a monthly post is the most realistic way to try to do so.
And as for “work work”, I welcome your prayers for wisdom and direction and freedom from anxiety as I log back in next week. I feel all the feels about spending more of my day with Excel than with my baby. But wiser moms than I have made this decision a million times over and I trust that we are all, myself included, just doing our best to be faithful to wherever we’re called in each season.
There are so many of us who have and who are sharing this ride. My heart is full for all the mamas clinging to our little books and looking toward the light of the next stop. The light flickers on and off as we move down the tracks, but God is the creator of all the babies and their mamas and is the pilot of the train. Thank you for sharing this journey with such vulnerability.
Those months are so so intense. You describe it well. I remember weeping with my first as a newborn and saying I’d never felt so fulfilled as I did mothering him. But also he was just weeks old! Those emotions flew all over the place. I went back to work and in other seasons I stayed home. There is probably not one clear right answer!