All the Horrible Girliness

I'm puting this picture up out of sheer tiredness. I don't like having pictures of myself online, normally. I don't like the way I look in photos. But in this one, I have an excuse for looking like hell, and it was a good moment.

I guess I want you to see that there are some good moments, before you read the rest of this sob story.

***

Postpartum depression and sleep deprivation are two really good excuses for crying while doing laundry, I guess.

***

I feel like I'm babysitting for that nice Filipino family down the street. Any minute now, the real parents are going to come home, pay me five bucks, and take me home.

Mr. Aran says the kid belongs here. He does. It's just me who doesn't. I'm the odd one out, the one who doesn't speak the language, the one-of-these-kids-is-doing-her-own-thing one. It's hard. It's hard when you're not weaning yourself off the Vicodin and dealing with hormone shifts and sleeping in bursts of twenty minutes every few hours.

***

He likes to be sung to. So far he's into "Landslide" and "Once Upon A Dream."

***

He doesn't laugh or smile yet. He can't see well. There's no personality. When I'm done feeding him, I usually hand him over to someone who's more excited about him than I am.

I type these things knowing what a horrible person I am. I would hide it, but I'm just too tired.

***

It was good, that moment when they first put him on my chest, covered in slime and blood. I've seen it done dozens of times. When you're pregnant, that damn "Baby Story" show on TLC is like crack. So I knew what it would look like and I even cried sometimes while watching it.

I didn't cry when I first touched him. My mother was a blubbering mess, enough for us all. I looked at his eyes and recognized him. And not because he looked like me, or Mr. Aran, or anybody. It's like running into someone you knew a long time ago, by accident.

***

My first sleepless night at home with him, I came to an ugly realization. My entire body belongs to him. It was made, inside my mother, for the express purpose of one day giving birth to this guy. I am not much, as a person, not all that interesting, and mostly without purpose. I truly believe that I was put on this earth to do this thing, and all the details that made it happen - from falling madly in love with Mr. Aran to moving his family in to getting thin and healthy just in time - happened just so he could make his way into the world.

This isn't a joyful discovery to make, especially when you used to think you were really goddamn special.

posted by Samus @ 7:07 PM