It’s been a year of this parenting gig. Officially now.
In some ways, it feels like Luca has always been here. That
we’ve always been washing bottles and reading board books and buckling and
unbuckling the car seat.
But sometimes it feels like this all started last week,
maybe just a couple days ago. There are times when I look at him and think: I’m
actually entrusted with making sure you turn into a functional, capable human
and that you are also caring and kind and know how to do your own laundry.
I’ve heard so much about the first year of motherhood. How
it’s tiring and it’s trying and it goes by fast. So, so fast. That you’ll never
be happier, but also, just wait, because it only gets harder from here. How to
balance work and how to balance housework and how to balance your relationship.
Some of that advice I’ve internalized and some, like
everything else, I’ve had to just experience for myself. But when I started
looking back on this past year, I realized that so many of the things that I
did learn—or at least, have tried to learn—are just good things to remember for
life, whether it’s in the parenting
context or not.
Here’s what I want to remember:
No one is exactly
where you are—and that’s ok.
My biggest wish, when I was going back to work
or when I couldn’t deal with all the dishes in the sink or the unmade bed or all
the
things and
goals and
thoughts, was
that there was someone I could look at—someone who was in the exact same
place as me—and just do exactly what she had done. I wanted someone to hand
me a very specific outline of what worked for her and I wanted to follow it
step by step—from her career choices to what color she painted her kitchen. But
the truth is, no one’s day-to-day life looks the same. And even though I know this, inherently, it was only in taking a step back and realizing that other
people’s decisions can’t be mine, did I start to gain some perspective. What
does
Amy
Poehler say? “Good for her! Not for me.”
Slowing down can be a
good thing.
The whole winter after Luca was born was an exercise in slower
living. We weren’t running from this to that or making plans that filled up
entire weekends. Truthfully, a trip to Target was basically the best thing ever—which
is not how I’ve always been. Things
have definitely picked up since then, sometimes too much even, but there are
times when I’m sitting on the living room floor on a Sunday morning and remind
myself that if all the grand plans for the day aren’t met, the world won’t come
to stand still.
Get in on the group
chat.
Because who else can you message at 3 a.m. after a breastfeeding
breakdown—and actually get an answer? Or exchange 867 photos with—and know
they’re actually being looked at? The group chat kept me sane and made me feel
less alone and was a way to stay connected to people who knew me when I was a
14 year old with a questionable blonde streak in her hair.
You’re still you, no
matter what.
I danced in a small-town bar until 2am. I sat on the beach at
midnight eating smores around a bonfire. I had drinks on a rooftop in the
middle of the summer. I went to kickboxing and read books in the backyard and
hung out with my husband. It’s so easy to get swept up in all the new-ness, in
all the must-do’s and have-to’s and the guilt, the ridiculous amounts of guilt.
Sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics and back to the beginning. To do
the things that make you, you.
Guilt is almost
never, ever worth it.
Speaking of the ridiculous amounts of guilt, it was
there in spades this first year. Whether it’s about going to work or not making
organic purees from scratch or letting your kid your sleep in your bed cause you’re just so tired, everything you ever read or see or happen to overhear in an elevator
somewhere will make you feel like your decisions are wrong, wrong, wrong. Whatever.
Life isn’t static and, wait, what was that first point about ‘no one being
where you are,’ again?
Everything is a
phase.
This applies equally to baby-related things and life-related things.
The guilt I felt over not making my own purees was huge. Huge. And seriously,
he ate purees for like, 2 whole months before deciding he’d much rather eat
real food, teeth or no teeth. If I had known how short a period of time it was
going to be, I definitely wouldn’t have stressed about it so much. Same
goes for just general life things. I can get so myopic and think things are
always going to be one way forever and ever that I forget that really, it’s
pretty much the opposite.
Accept help.
That
whole ‘it takes a village’ advice? So so so true. I cannot express the amount of true-ness in it. I’ve always been
surrounded by lots of family, so the idea that people help each other out was
nothing new. But I know not everyone feels this way. And oh how short sighted
that is. Our parents, our siblings, our extended family, our friends—they were
there for us this year in such a monumental way. I am more thankful for this
than I could ever wrap my head around.
Write it down.
Even
if it’s just on a scrap of paper that you stick in a notebook somewhere and
don’t find for five or six years. Even if it’s just a note on your phone or a
caption on Instagram. It doesn’t have to be some scrapbooked piece of art that
you frame and hang over your bed, it just has to be somewhere.
Trust your gut.
I’m
going to get this tattooed somewhere super visible and make myself read it,
mantra-style, every morning. It’s the tried and true lesson. When all the
anxiety and the worry and the fear is taken away, it’s just that feeling. Always.
Listen. To. That. Feeling.
And that was just the
first year. I wonder what year two will have in store.
What did you learn
your first year of parenthood? What are the life lessons you stick to no matter
what?