some things old, some things new
Sometimes moms post pictures of their nine-month-olds to celebrate "nine months in, nine months out." I've never been sure whether to count Dash's gestation in our lives as two weeks or four and a half years, but here he is, four and a half years out, about to start elementary school (technically "extended transitional kindergarten," but it's part of LAUSD and there is a principal and we downloaded an app, so).
It's late summer--finally hot after months of mild weather, strangely balmy in a way that stirs my sense of possibility. New life phase? I wonder. I'm always a sucker for new starts, even though much is not new: Dash, a veteran daycare kid, will still be away from me for the same number of hours each week.
My sister got married two weeks ago. Dash cried through the ceremony and acted like a crazy drunk throughout the reception. Her husband is kind and clever and has the kind of dark side that makes me trust him more. He sees her full self, which is what I always wanted for her. They've been together a few years now, and known each other for a decade, so: new and not new.
My work angst has subsided like a tide edging back, slowly returning me to land and revealing a few new shells in the process, their insides pink and pearly.
What will it be like to be an elementary school parent? I love the school we chose--a public school six blocks away with a teacher, principal, and front office person who are warm and enthusiastic. It's not technically our home school, but it has the same demographic makeup, so I think it falls under my umbrella of what's ideologically acceptable. But who knows what needs will be revealed and what decisions we'll make for subsequent years, so I know better than to be smug. I'm just grateful for Ms. Pedroza and her monarch butterfly hatchery.
We're pivoting to elementary life at the same time that we're preparing--so, so slowly--to try to adopt another baby. It'll be a while; don't run out and buy us any onesies just yet. Planning ("planning") this next phase feels like showing up to a baby shower where everyone else is wearing floral sundresses and holding pass codes to the 529 accounts they just started. I am panting and dressed in sweats, ten pounds overweight and too many dollars in debt.
When Dash was born, sometimes I looked at his smooth face and chill demeanor and worried half-jokingly that he was too cool for me, a weirdo who thought about death all the time.
The other day in the car, he said, "Mommy, I have a surprise for you because you listened."
"Oh? Thank you! What's my surprise?" Often it is a sticker.
"It's my fingernail." He handed me a tiny wet crescent he'd just chewed.
While I was giving my toast at Cathy's wedding, he ran onstage, grabbed my forearm like a chin-up bar, pulled himself up, and licked me.
I think he's quite at home in our family of weirdos, and I'm sure our next kid will be too. Everyone is weird because everyone is particular, once they pass the platonic ideal/projection screen stage that is babyhood.
If I bring anything new to this next phase, I hope it's a little bit more gentleness toward myself and others. This past week, I had a slightly odd stomach bug that prompted me to think about cancer a lot. The week before that, I binge-listened to Broken Harts, a podcast about the white moms who drove the six Black kids they adopted off a cliff, leaving behind a chain of half-assed investigations into their parenting and a thread of glowing, well written Facebook posts about raising chickens and creating peace.
Social workers and expectant moms, if you're reading this: AK and I are on solid mental ground and most of my Facebook posts are about how tired I am, so I can't be overselling too much, right? But fuck, that shit shook me up. It seemed to me that Jen Hart suffered from a particular brand of hubris, where she believed that if she couldn't "save" her kids--if she was in over her head, as she and her wife Sarah almost instantly were--they were better off dead than in someone else's care. I think I know when to ask for help. I think I genuinely relish raising Dash in community, and one of my great delights is seeing his agency and personality blossom in unexpected ways (even in the middle of a wedding). But I'm also a recovering perfectionist who thinks everything is my responsibility; I use social media too much; I am prone to crafting imaginary worlds for better and worse (Jen was also a video game addict). So I imagine the tracks veering away from the highway and toward the bluff.
Last week I was on a panel at Book Show about writers with day jobs, which my friend Bronwyn put together for a cohort of summer interns, a diverse and artsy bunch with glowing skin and great clothes, whose general excitement about the world was palpable and contagious. I'm a young enough old person that getting old is still surprising to me. I like that a lot of the pieces of my life have been established, but a part of me is still that college kid who wants to sign up for every extracurricular activity.
The old things: anxiety and PTSD, iffy eating habits, imposter syndrome, envy, a wonderful family of weirdos. The new things: a certain amount of acceptance of the old things, a community that will help raise my kid(s), an appreciation for the fact that (in the half-ironic words of Daniel Ortberg/Dear Prudence) "life is a rich tapestry." Those balmy mornings when the palm trees shake their leaves against gray-pink skies--that old feeling of new possibilities.
It's late summer--finally hot after months of mild weather, strangely balmy in a way that stirs my sense of possibility. New life phase? I wonder. I'm always a sucker for new starts, even though much is not new: Dash, a veteran daycare kid, will still be away from me for the same number of hours each week.
 |
| "Mommy, draw me a Southwest airplane." |
My sister got married two weeks ago. Dash cried through the ceremony and acted like a crazy drunk throughout the reception. Her husband is kind and clever and has the kind of dark side that makes me trust him more. He sees her full self, which is what I always wanted for her. They've been together a few years now, and known each other for a decade, so: new and not new.
My work angst has subsided like a tide edging back, slowly returning me to land and revealing a few new shells in the process, their insides pink and pearly.
What will it be like to be an elementary school parent? I love the school we chose--a public school six blocks away with a teacher, principal, and front office person who are warm and enthusiastic. It's not technically our home school, but it has the same demographic makeup, so I think it falls under my umbrella of what's ideologically acceptable. But who knows what needs will be revealed and what decisions we'll make for subsequent years, so I know better than to be smug. I'm just grateful for Ms. Pedroza and her monarch butterfly hatchery.
We're pivoting to elementary life at the same time that we're preparing--so, so slowly--to try to adopt another baby. It'll be a while; don't run out and buy us any onesies just yet. Planning ("planning") this next phase feels like showing up to a baby shower where everyone else is wearing floral sundresses and holding pass codes to the 529 accounts they just started. I am panting and dressed in sweats, ten pounds overweight and too many dollars in debt.
When Dash was born, sometimes I looked at his smooth face and chill demeanor and worried half-jokingly that he was too cool for me, a weirdo who thought about death all the time.
The other day in the car, he said, "Mommy, I have a surprise for you because you listened."
"Oh? Thank you! What's my surprise?" Often it is a sticker.
"It's my fingernail." He handed me a tiny wet crescent he'd just chewed.
While I was giving my toast at Cathy's wedding, he ran onstage, grabbed my forearm like a chin-up bar, pulled himself up, and licked me.
 |
| I aspire to be the kind of person who will see the love in this photo before I see my flabby arms, but I also apsire to be the kind of person who has less flabby arms. How cute is my sis, though? |
If I bring anything new to this next phase, I hope it's a little bit more gentleness toward myself and others. This past week, I had a slightly odd stomach bug that prompted me to think about cancer a lot. The week before that, I binge-listened to Broken Harts, a podcast about the white moms who drove the six Black kids they adopted off a cliff, leaving behind a chain of half-assed investigations into their parenting and a thread of glowing, well written Facebook posts about raising chickens and creating peace.
Social workers and expectant moms, if you're reading this: AK and I are on solid mental ground and most of my Facebook posts are about how tired I am, so I can't be overselling too much, right? But fuck, that shit shook me up. It seemed to me that Jen Hart suffered from a particular brand of hubris, where she believed that if she couldn't "save" her kids--if she was in over her head, as she and her wife Sarah almost instantly were--they were better off dead than in someone else's care. I think I know when to ask for help. I think I genuinely relish raising Dash in community, and one of my great delights is seeing his agency and personality blossom in unexpected ways (even in the middle of a wedding). But I'm also a recovering perfectionist who thinks everything is my responsibility; I use social media too much; I am prone to crafting imaginary worlds for better and worse (Jen was also a video game addict). So I imagine the tracks veering away from the highway and toward the bluff.
Last week I was on a panel at Book Show about writers with day jobs, which my friend Bronwyn put together for a cohort of summer interns, a diverse and artsy bunch with glowing skin and great clothes, whose general excitement about the world was palpable and contagious. I'm a young enough old person that getting old is still surprising to me. I like that a lot of the pieces of my life have been established, but a part of me is still that college kid who wants to sign up for every extracurricular activity.
The old things: anxiety and PTSD, iffy eating habits, imposter syndrome, envy, a wonderful family of weirdos. The new things: a certain amount of acceptance of the old things, a community that will help raise my kid(s), an appreciation for the fact that (in the half-ironic words of Daniel Ortberg/Dear Prudence) "life is a rich tapestry." Those balmy mornings when the palm trees shake their leaves against gray-pink skies--that old feeling of new possibilities.
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