On My Mind

Asked and Answered

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A few weeks ago, after years without contact, I wished an old friend a happy birthday via text message. She replied simply to thank me and wish me well.

I needed a moment to get over my disappointment. And then I needed a moment to ask myself why I was disappointed in the first place.

Several months ago, one of my oldest friends got in touch to ask how I was doing as a new mother. We hadn’t spoken in a very long time but our parents are friends, updating each of us about the other. She caught me at a moment when I was feeling a little lost, a little isolated. Her touching message prompted some writing back and forth, and we have had further contact since.

Not long after writing my old friend on her birthday, I considered reaching out to an ex-boyfriend. And instead of doing that, I asked myself why I wanted to.

Because I haven’t wished him a happy birthday in over a decade. Because I don’t know anything about him anymore. Because nothing happening in his life is any of my business, and vice versa.

I think I wanted to gloat a little bit. To have an opportunity to share the news of my beautiful daughter, to mention my partner, to let him know that I, too, had turned out just fine.

Pride goeth before a fall, they say, and I kept the birthday wishes, disguised as an excuse to show off, to myself.

I had reached out to one old friend in the hopes of rekindling contact, and her answer was a kind rejection. It was in my hands to ask and hers to answer, and she is as entitled to her answer as I am to asking the question. Without the question, one would not have the answer, and the least I can do is honour what I’ve been told.

Because that’s the thing about human connection: it really has to go both ways.

Parenting

Cherish

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The time goes so fast, they said. Take pictures, take videos, so you’ll remember, they said.

I’ll remember, I thought, but I find comfort in instructions, and I followed them.

It appears that I’ve forgotten.

I asked my partner last week when our baby stopped making the inchoate newborn noises that kept me awake at night. Months had past since we’d heard them, but I’d forgotten since when. I hadn’t known we were coming to the end of that time.

I recently flicked back through the earliest videos I’d recorded, marvelling at the slowness of the movements that have become deliberate and finer, the nasal squeaks that have blossomed into a wordless voice full of expression.

In just under five months, the skinny, scrunched bundle we brought home from the hospital has transformed into a baby – one who babbles and laughs and tries unsuccessfully to roll over; one with likes and dislikes, her very own temperament, and characteristics that signal a nascent personality.

And I’ve forgotten, just as everyone assured me I would.

I’ve forgotten just how tiny and new she was, and I am stunned at the videos and photos that remind me. I’ve forgotten just how tired I was, though the feeding times scratched into a notebook every two hours provide the proof. I’ve forgotten the feeling of just getting up and ready for the day, but I imagine it to be quite freeing, indeed.

This is a fleeting time and it needs to be cherished. Nearly five months already gone, and in them I have done little besides loved.

I wrote once that love is a verb, and I understand that yet differently now. I spend my days and nights awash in it.

It is this feeling that has me writing while growing increasingly uncomfortable on the couch while the baby sleeps in my lap. I could be doing so many other things with this time . . . but I’m not. Cherish.

And I cherish the drunken glow that washes over me when I breathe in her baby smell, or when she lays her head on my shoulder when tired, or in the moments of clear, wordless communication.

Tears prick my eyes when I think of the deepest truth I have ever held and will not attempt try to explain: My daughter and I are one being.

I cherish this feeling, too.

I want to remember. They say I’ll forget, and they’ve been right, but I hope to remember, and when not with the brain, then with the body (which is a manifestation of the brain, but that’s a blog post for a different time).

It’ll be all too soon before she doesn’t want to be held anymore, all too soon before she slams the door shut.

And when she’s raging, I hope to find the feeling of tears pricking my eyes, tickling the back of my throat, because my daughter is sleeping in my lap and the world is simple. Because we are one, despite how I know she’ll pull away, despite how I know my role is to giver her wings and watch her soar.

I’ll catch her when she’s ready to land, this daughter who gave me the gift of being her mama. And I cherish that, too.

Jena, Germany – February 2024
Parenting

Time Off

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For Mother’s Day, my partner gave me a candle and a bottle of bubble bath, not something I use or ever would have bought. Late that afternoon, he occupied our then two-month-old daughter and I lit the candle, filled the bath, and soaked with my eyes closed. I emerged twenty minutes later with energy, a smile, and a newfound sense of calm.

I had been gifted time off, cleverly forced into relaxation, and found it very pleasing indeed.

This afternoon, nursing our now four-and-a-half-month-old daughter, I hit a wall I didn’t know I was facing. Her eyes started to close and mine followed suit. But Baby Girl very quickly had other ideas, and the moment was gone before it started. I hadn’t even known I was tired.

As we often do once my partner gets home from work, we started getting ready to go out for a walk, but the energy that usually comes from going out continued to elude me. I am not a person to sit around and relax (hence the need to be forced into it) and all I wanted to do was rest. Strange. I suggested to my partner that they go without me, and I surprised myself by letting them.

And then I myself drew a bubble bath.

I didn’t want to get off the couch, but I also didn’t want to face the chores I could be doing, some of which were visible from the couch. I didn’t want to do just one thing and then another quick thing, and wait they’re back already?

I got into the bath and closed my eyes, opening them half an hour later to a still apartment. I took my time toweling off and getting ready to face the world again, for once without a guilty conscience. For half an hour I had done nothing, forced myself into taking some time to relax, recharge, and rejuvenate.

It worked.

I tend to be a person whose relaxation comes from a long walk in the woods, whose time off means time in the kitchen following a recipe to avoid having to think. There was a time where I would have done some yoga to shake the fatigue and then continued with the day.

But today, I just needed to do nothing and the way to ensure that was to get into a bath. My glasses remained in their case. My phone was in a different room. My baby was in good hands. My partner had given me the gift of forced relaxation for a reason. Sometimes, the only thing to do is say yes and drift away.

Ötztal, Austria – July 2025

On loving, learning, and living