... It's like you moved to a new country, and it's beautiful but there's a war going on.
But then the war ends and you begin reconstructing yourself."
Meaghan O'Connell, "And Now We Have Everything"
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It's exactly like finding Narnia, I thought as I put the book down. You say that about everything, said the cat. Yes, I said, petting him. I do. We both looked at the baby monitor for a while in thoughtful silence.
It's neat how you can read minds and speak English, I told him. It's very Narnian of you.
At a certain point in the weeks and months after childbirth it really felt like my time to be alone and drink hot tea and read books and scratch cats had come to an end. The idea of being the only human on any given piece of furniture was inconceivable; if anyone had told me a day would come where I could once again aimlessly wander home good stores, fit into underwear, and sleep for three consecutive hours without needing to see and touch and comfort the impossibly tiny creature that was and is my daughter I wouldn't have believed them.
Or maybe... was that one of the things that so many people told me so many times that it ceased to mean anything when I heard it? Either way. U-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-e.
And, either way, it turned out to be true.
Having a newborn was like discovering Narnia at the back of the wardrobe, no matter how bad of an attitude the cat has. (I hope Meaghan O'Connell doesn't mind me taking her 'new country' metaphor and making it nerdy. I feel like she wouldn't. I feel like it's fine. She'll let me know, she knows where to find me.) It was fucking magical. It was incredible to the point of being - I like this word today - unbelievable, and I was afraid that if I closed my eyes it would disappear. It was awesome in every sense of the word, which made it also terrifying and disorienting. And exhausting. And exhilarating. But mostly exhausting.
Et cetera, et cetera. Don't worry, I won't put you through this for too much longer.
In short: Right now feels like the part of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" where Lucy and Mr. Tumnus are having tea in his cozy house. (Minus the creepy sleep flute. That's a very different metaphor. Make a note, we'll come back to it another day.) I know it's the very beginning of a much longer story, but it's just really nice to know for sure that it isn't all wandering around in enchanted snowstorms, you know?
It's neat how you can read minds and speak English, I told him. It's very Narnian of you.
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Or maybe... was that one of the things that so many people told me so many times that it ceased to mean anything when I heard it? Either way. U-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-e.
And, either way, it turned out to be true.
Having a newborn was like discovering Narnia at the back of the wardrobe, no matter how bad of an attitude the cat has. (I hope Meaghan O'Connell doesn't mind me taking her 'new country' metaphor and making it nerdy. I feel like she wouldn't. I feel like it's fine. She'll let me know, she knows where to find me.) It was fucking magical. It was incredible to the point of being - I like this word today - unbelievable, and I was afraid that if I closed my eyes it would disappear. It was awesome in every sense of the word, which made it also terrifying and disorienting. And exhausting. And exhilarating. But mostly exhausting.
Et cetera, et cetera. Don't worry, I won't put you through this for too much longer.
In short: Right now feels like the part of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" where Lucy and Mr. Tumnus are having tea in his cozy house. (Minus the creepy sleep flute. That's a very different metaphor. Make a note, we'll come back to it another day.) I know it's the very beginning of a much longer story, but it's just really nice to know for sure that it isn't all wandering around in enchanted snowstorms, you know?
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A Note, Definitely Not Part of the Blog Post: I wrote this OVER a month ago. Feels like I wanted to keep going, which explains why I found it still in drafts, but I don't feel like doing that now so.
