Full Disclosure

Baby is happy right now, because I'm rocking her Fisher Price recliner with my left foot. Hence the typing with two hands here, which is enormously liberating. I pray that Harriet does not get bored of rocking soon, and until she does, let me provide you with full disclosure here. Or at least, a modicum of disclosure, as this is not the sort of blog in which I bare my soul. Rather, this is the kind of blog in which I write about my life usually through a bookish/literary perspective, and I've been doing a bit of that regarding motherhood. That Laurie Colwin quote remains the truest thing I've ever read. I remain amazed that having read thousands of books, watched TV shows and movies throughout my lifetime, I've never once seen the actual experience of having a new baby presented (and I'll be writing more about this later). Which was how I could have come into this so cluelessly, and why the reality was so overwhelming. Overwhelmingly awful. I will say that the first two weeks were the darkest I've ever known, and I feel like I've crawled out of the deepest crevice in the universe to get to where I am now. It gets better, I knew it would, but that didn't mean very much at the time. And even now, when "better" on some days is still its very own kind of hell, and nothing is what I thought it would be, and I am working harder than I've ever worked in my whole life, and normalcy seems so irretrievably far away-- at least I haven't cried since yesterday. But before that, it had been over a week, and there are moments when I'm so perfectly all right, and proud of how far we've come, and delighting in this strange little girl who has come to live with us. I have learned, however, how much I need people, and that I am so lucky to be surrounded by people on all sides. Friends, family, and oh, husbands (and mine has saved me over and over and over again). I remain a very lucky woman, and the good days are being strung together closer and closer all the time. (Baby is done rocking. Good timing.)