After four months, my mother has had the gall to return to her own life temporarily, and has left me alone with my own child for two weeks.
How could she?!?! I’m not prepared for this, obviously! Who approved any of this?
After over a year of more extreme isolation than even I am accustomed to (I am an especially isolated person even in normal times, but even I typically take trips to see other people every few months or so), it’s been comforting to have company for so long.
I like being alone — I don’t really get lonely like other people do. I sort of live in my own world. But toward the end of quarantine, it was starting to be enough already. And then at some point, it occurred to me that I was about to give birth and then I would probably never be alone ever again (the economy being what it is).
That was hard to wrap my mind around, but over the past few months, I haven’t pined for solitude much. Maybe a bit at odd moments. And now that Mom has left, I feel a bit melancholy. I normally do when a houseguest leaves, but I didn’t think I would this time because I have Edith. But I’m finding that she doesn’t really feel like a separate person to me. She feels more like an extension of myself, like there’s just more of me now, and it’s even more troublesome to take care of my basic needs than it was before. That’s surely healthy for both of us, right?
Probably it will be different when she’s talking and mobile and can exercise her own will.
Meanwhile, we played for awhile, and then Edith watched from her swing, appalled, as I attempted to gasp through a 25 minute HIIT video. She was pretty patient (if obviously humiliated for me) until I propped her up in her donut in the bathroom and got in the shower at which point, she was like, “BITCH THIS CAN’T WAIT TILL I’M ASLEEP?” Which was fair enough. She played some more, and then she fell asleep for several hours and I watched TV and finished the novel I was reading. It was too hot today for our walk.
When she woke up, I managed to give her a bath in the sink by myself, which I was proud of, because it’s unwieldy, and she only pooped in the tub a tiny bit. And now she’s propped in my lap while I type this over her shoulders, and for some reason, she is tolerating this. Soon we’ll go to bed.
So, all in all, a successful first half of a day? Only 13.5 more to go, not that I’m counting, because I’m perfectly capable of parenting my own baby. Perfectly capable!
Accismus 