Alone Time

From where I sit on my bed behind the purposefully closed door, I can hear my family. In the morning light, dust fairies twirl to the muffled melody of my husband’s guitar. It is as if I can see myself sitting there: still in last night’s pajamas, coffee resting on my half-made bed, unbrushed teeth, and an uncombed ponytail. I’m not sure how many days it has been since my last shower. I am suddenly very grateful that, like me, my husband neither cares nor seems to count. I have asked for this morning alone, without our newborn daughter and him, and he has graciously encouraged me like a Nike commercial to “Just Do It”.

My neighbor is mowing his lawn for the third time this week and I am resentful. Give it up, we all know you are retired. Of course, rationally, I understand that his perfectly manicured lawn is not a personal attack against me. But as the pains of last night’s sleepless marathon take hold of my eyelids, it feels intentional. Sean and I do not have enough time to keep up with the rest of the street. Grass trimmings pour themselves like salt in today’s hormonal wounds. Between a baby, a new business, and a 100-year-old-house to maintain, there is no time for anything else, including yard work. Oh, I wish it would just snow already.

In the second month of our daughter’s life, we have awakened from the newborn dream we once found ourselves in. I know this is the part of the essay where I should mention something about postpartum depression, but the reality for us is that our family never fought those battles. For a long time, I felt embarrassed about our baby bliss. Everyone was so worried, so nervous, so fearful for me. I heard the horror stories. I was warned. I was prayed for. And when the doom did not grace our doorsteps, I felt bad. Shouldn’t I be miserable like all of the postpartum blog posts I read?

All of the guilt silently began piling up inside of me. Was I wrong to feel so good? The questions came at me, hard. I began to wonder why a good-post birth story was so hard to read? So hard to believe?

Our daughter, June was born in August, which old men, in particular, like to point out is confusing. Although she wasn’t perfect: she cried, she had sleepless spells, she wouldn’t latch. My husband and I effortlessly bonded over these trials. This newborn world was new to us and we embraced it as if we were suddenly living in a foreign city. Unexplored roads soon became familiar, new languages and gestures became heard with understanding. We had always been good at traveling and exploring, and this baby seemed to be our greatest adventure yet.

This is not to say that I was doing the new mom dance perfectly. Certainly, I cried and made frantic calls to my mom who lived two hours north of me. I have no idea how to bathe a newborn, could she drive down and help? I was not an expert but every day I was putting my toes into the water just a little deeper. I let the coolness of the water define me.

I spent almost six weeks in bed after my emergency c-section and soaked in every moment, every whiff of her newborn head, every coo, every opening of her eyes.

But now, I can feel the bliss slipping from me. Every time I pick her up, I can feel her changing in my arms. Her demands are growing. She needs me more than I can give right now. And, on this Sunday, the weight of it all– the guilt, the joy, the advice from strangers, the sore nipples and pinching surgery line, the sleepless night, the 3 pm cups of coffee, the extra 15 pounds– it all becomes too much. I need to escape.

So I sit here in this moment, in what so many mamas refer to as “alone time” and I write. I write to find myself again. I still wasn’t sure if my own post-birth story would be good or bad, but I became determined to make it real. Yet, somehow, with every sentence that pours from me, the nagging pangs of guilt ensue. Should it feel this good to be alone? Am I less of a mother for needing this moment?

The humming of the lawn mower ceases like the finale of Beethoven’s fifth. I look out the window to see Sean now pushing June down the road in a stroller. There is nothing to hear, even my fingers have stopped typing. And in this sudden silence, I find my answer. This moment was never about being right or wrong, good or bad, careless or guilty. It was simply about peace. My peace. I close my laptop and move it to the end of my bed. I am tired of distractions. I am tired of doing. I close my own eyes and allow myself this moment of nothingness to reach my core. I have become a mama who craves alone time, and that, my friends, is okay.