“He was still too young to know that the heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
One of my friends had her first baby earlier this year, and is just returning to work. Looking back over the past few months, she admitted it was a bit of a whirlwind, and a surprising one. She didn’t realize what the sleepless nights would be like: the exhaustion, the joy, and the sheer work required.
She seemed to feel silly about not listening to the advice she was given about the lack of sleep. I know this feeling well; I wanted to give her permission to forget. There are some things in life that just have to be experienced to be known.
You may hear what someone says; you may even believe them, but some things you cannot know until you have lived them.
- From the moment I married, people said, ‘Go on all the trips now. It’s easier before you gave kids.’ This is true, and we did enjoy Europe before baby. Today, I am at peace with the smaller, close-to-home trips we enjoy. We’ll see Europe again.
In the meantime, vacations full of jumping on hotel beds, going for short hikes, and visiting the children’s museum is more than enough. It’s wonderful in a different sort of way.
2. Likewise, as soon as I had my first child, people said, ‘Enjoy it. It goes so fast.’ To a new mom, exhausted, and in pain, the post-partum period really can’t go fast enough, and hearing this isn’t terribly helpful.
You may know as you rock your baby that one day you’ll miss this, but gazing out the window at the cold dark world below, you feel as if you must be the only person awake. It can be a lonely time, despite all the joys of a new infant to cherish.
It isn’t until later that you do miss it. Now, I ask my son if I can pick him up, or if he’ll snuggle for a few minutes in the morning. Sometimes, he does, but just as often, he wriggles out of bed, rubs the sleep from his eyes, and dashes off to find his sister.
I do remember the time when his head fit just so on my collarbone, tucked under my chin. I try to recall the weight of him, the downy smooth of his hair.
3. It is fleeing, and you may miss it, but it’s hard to appreciate when you’re in it. People say, ‘The days are long, but the years are short.’ This too, is true. But, when it’s been a disaster of a day, and no one is listening to you, all you can think is, ‘When will the day be over?’
You may tell yourself, ‘One day, I’ll miss this,’ but on those days, my favorite part, invariably, is sinking into cool sheets at night, grateful for a fresh start in the morning. ‘This too shall pass’ may be more apropos for these moments.
I suppose much of life is an exercise in hindsight, in appreciating and loving what has been, while living the present moment, and trying to take as much meaning from it as we can.
4. The one piece of advice I found to be tangible is capturing the memories you make. A well-meaning person said, ‘Take as much video as you can.’ I’m not sure I listened as well as I could have to this either, but the videos we did take are precious.
They contain moments I would otherwise struggle to remember: bits of kid hilarity in busy days, high-pitched little voices singing, playing, and dreaming.
The kids ask me about what they were like as babies, and I show them how Julia loved her high chair, and said ‘more buckle, more buckle’ as she happily clicked it open and closed, over and over, and how Michael couldn’t say hard ‘c,’ and would announce, ‘I want fookie.’
To go back to these images is like taking a walk in the past. It makes me nostalgic, but just as much, it makes me happy for all we have seen and experienced as a family. It makes me proud of how far we have come, and the life we have built.
I dearly wish I had such videos of my grandparents to share with my children.
It also makes me grateful for what we have, and excited for what is yet to come. As I pack our bags for our upcoming trip, I save space for the trinkets we will buy, the rocks the kids will inevitably want to bring home, and the memories we’ve yet to make.
“The past beats inside me like a second heart.” – John Banville, The Sea