Solitude

For the first time in a long time, I had to be up early this morning to work. Early early morning is my favorite time to work; I have better focus and the house is quiet, and I'm in far less danger of falling asleep over my work than if I tried to work late into the night. Before I had Caetlin, when we lived in Charlotte and I worked at the other firm, I was sleeping maybe 4-6 hours a night, and getting up early every morning to work. I remember those times kind of fondly, especially when I was pregnant. I would turn on VH1 (yes, I am old, why do you ask?) because I like- and most importantly, can ignore- their playlist better than MTV's. The summer I had my daughter, I liked most of the songs in heavy rotation, so it didn't bother me that I heard them 6 times in 2 hours. I would sit there, laptop on my knees, stretched out on the couch or in a comfy chair and ottoman. Usually one or both of the cats would curl up on or around my shins. I would sit there and work, or write in my journal (when I was supposed to be working, like now), and feel my baby moving around inside my growing belly, and I would have those pop songs running through my head all day.

It feels so surreal to me now to think about Caetlin, as fully formed a person as she is now, as she was then. I thought I knew her, because we were so close. She was always with me. I knew, intellectually, that I had no idea what kind of person she would turn out to be, but I guess I thought that we had some kind of deeper understanding of each other, because she grew from me, grew under my heart. I was so wrong about that! She's so entirely her own person, who I've come to know over the past 20 months, that to have thought that I could know her while she was in utero seems naive and silly now.

It was still the most intimate kind of closeness. I've told any number of people about what a mess I was after she was born, with the crazy hormonal changes making me weep uncontrollably, even when I wasn't sad. "Don't mind me; I can't help this," I told Bruce, with tears running down my face. In the dark of the night after she was born, with her in the nursery so I could ostensibly get some sleep before I went home with her, I sobbed because I was lonely. I missed her. She had been my constant companion for the past 6 months. I went to sleep feeling her moving around. I woke up and she was the first thing I thought of.

Anyway, I'm thinking of all of these things as I allegedly work this morning. Being here, in the morning stillness, reminds me of those times. My toddler is a busy girl, and I generally don't feel I have enough alone time. I'm caught between the pincers of not feeling like I spend enough time with my family, and definitely not spending enough time by myself. At times like this, I miss the easy days when I could be alone but not.