One croissant too many, one kiss too few

#3 in the series of light-lift, unworkshopped, and unvarnished motherhood essays.

I taught my first class to a cohort of PhD students, argued my second case, applied for a summer fellowship abroad, designed my first real course and got invited to teach it at a leading law-school, all in the last one month. I also sent in a draft pleading to a client a week late, had typos in the course outline I sent in to the law-school, sat down to read a fantastic book only to find out I’ve passed out on the couch instead, missed a work-out a week, and ate one too many croissants in the same month.

Forever arrested by trees

I’ve paused to take photos of stunning trees. And I’ve ignored my wailing child, immersed in a brain fog induced by parenting reels. I’ve underdelivered at work meetings. I’ve dropped the ball on my goals for writing. I’ve neglected schedules and watched deadlines go by, unless a limitation period was hanging over my head that a court would hold me to account for.

I’ve sat with my daughter as she burned up with her first viral flu — her little arms encircling me and her little body laying on mine, whimpering in a delirium as the fever took over her body. I’ve spent hours that felt like minutes with her making up games, spotting birds, picking flowers or naming cars, and having long conversations made up of words only one of us understands at any given time. I’ve cleaned up the trail of her day’s activity when she goes to bad, sanitised her toys, done so much laundry, tidied her bed, changed her sheets, picked up after her, and sat with her through many BLW adventures as she tosses spoons of yoghurt and handfuls of mashed berries off her high chair, at our dog, and really just about everywhere other than into her mouth. I’ve got my first kiss from her, heard the words “mamma” for the first time — and about a hundred times after that — and realised nothing on god’s green earth will ever compare with the touch of a baby who needs you.

I’ve forgotten to take my supplements, eat fruit, and stay on top of my protein and collagen needs, but I’ve caved and eaten chocolate past 10 pm, and called for an unreasonably priced flat-white one-too-many times to office. I’ve nursed my baby for over a thousand hours, and I’ve lost some weight, but I’ve gained a lot more, and I no longer fit into my old wardrobe so I now wear saris everywhere I go.

I’ve been jealous of my husband when he looks hot as hell as we go to brunch, or when he gets to prioritise work or leisure on his own terms. I’ve rolled my eyes at child-free friends who do not appreciate the time and freedom they have on their side, and I’ve been angry at anyone who could not understand the isolation of being a mother with dreams. I’ve checked in on my parents during their travels, touched base with a friend who I need to say goodbye to as she moves abroad, FaceTimed my brother at the end of his workweek, caught up with an old friend, taken a long stroll one night, and done a brisk walk another, and made it half-way through that great book, and heard two whole podcast episodes.

I’ve berated myself often. To be better. Scroll lesser. Work smarter. Judge less. Resist butter. Give up sugar. Rest more. Accept the new normal. It has been softness, despair, bliss, ennui, contentment, exhaustion, peace and rage all at once, or perhaps, in waves that are too thick and fast to register as they come.

This is not a broadcast of self-congratulations. This is not a confession of my failures. And this is not a litany of my resentments.

This is some of the ways I find myself living as I try to do it all. At one end of the spectrum, barely surviving, drowning myself in mindless social media, judging people harshly, emotional eating and wallowing in self-pity. And at the other, thriving, finding a momentary contentment through the chaos of it all, realising the days are full, and that this — the urge to judge everything against the metric of how much you’ve done even as the intensity and beauty of it is wholly beyond any one’s doing — is the essence of modern life.

There’re not a lot of ways to get a lot of things done while navigating motherhood.

But there’re a lot of ways to live a little through it all.

Apparently it took me becoming a mum to see the difference between the two.