Insular Life

I feel like I live a drugged existence. Nothing is real; nothing exists except this room, the bed I’m constantly going back to but never staying in for long, the rhythm of milk, his grunting and crying and the weight of him in my arm. Sometimes I stare for minutes lost in some small detail—the way his fingers splay while feeding or his legs curl up like an amphibian’s; the way he inadvertently pillows his cheek on his fist while sleeping. Sometimes I stare at nothing and just feel trapped, jealous of people who fit into their usual clothes and sleep through a night. Sometimes I feel up to a shower or brief outing; other times I’m too savagely exhausted to talk. Most of the time I live in a state of baseline fatigue that leaves me barely functional but not really myself.

Time has no meaning, and I never realized before how much I needed time to have meaning. He has existed now for three weeks, and that is all I can say for myself for the same period of time, that I existed. I helped grow his little double chin; I kept him from wallowing in excrement. My body healed itself from a good amount of its soreness and adjusted to making milk. That is something, D keeps reminding me; that is a lot.

I am most reminded of how much he’s changed things when I look at E. I look at her hands and they seem gargantuan; she seems much too heavy to hold; I changed her diaper once and it felt grotesquely huge. She seems more boisterous, willful, and demanding than I remember, but D says it’s only because I am more tired now. I am amazed at phrases coming out of her mouth I don’t recall her knowing; she blithely counted from one to ten yesterday so fast and accurately I couldn’t believe it. I sort of miss the days she left out the four and six.

I feel sad and a little guilty about this, but I don’t miss her as much as I thought I would. She takes so much energy to be around, to love, that I can only take it in small doses and then feel relieved for a reprieve.

But most of all this insular existence is lonely. I feel the people who love me reaching out through the haze, to run the world for me—my mom and husband have been amazing in this regard. Just yesterday D took a night shift so I could sleep between feeds, and I came back to our room to find the bed made with fresh sheets and glasses of juice waiting. But in the end it comes down to the baby and me at some quiet, ungodly hour of the night, my body exhausted and my mind wandering. This is how I escape the solitude; I think and imagine and wander through stories. I read through about ten books a week, make up new stories, revisit old ones.

But in the end I come back and it’s still me in this room with this baby. I lie in bed and pray for peace for my mind, rest for my body. I look outside and realize time has passed and the leaves are changing, and this is life, this is a life growing and my body healing and I try to be okay with it all.