There is, on my dresser, a picture I took when my child was very little: his bare foot, at an angle because I was holding him across my lap, and the side of my dog’s neck as she laid on the couch next to us.
It’s a picture that captured several details of my life then: the hand-me-down pants he’s wearing a reminder of the way that people showed up for us, supporting this brand-new little life; the closeness of my dog a reminder of how she was never far from me, all those pandemic months.
I like the contrast of colors in the picture, the red of her collar and the green of the couch, the neon flashes of orange and pink of his pants against the background of white cotton on his clothes. His toes were so small then that it was hard to see the nails; I remember when he was born, trying to figure out if he even had them.
You know that feeling, of understanding you’re in one of the best periods of your life, and trying to soak it up? That’s how that day felt. I was so deeply conscious of the miracle of my child’s existence, so keenly aware of the fragility of life. It was all mixed up, the end of my marriage and the fear and isolation of Covid; the joy and anxiety, humility and power of pregnancy and childbirth and parenting; the falling in love in new ways. It was all mixed up so that everything was presented in technicolor. Everything was hyper-real. Everything was everything.
I sometimes long for those days. Is that terrible, to admit that? It does not diminish my life now; I long for these days too, even as they rush by. But there was something then, something so stunningly alive. I was exhausted, delirious, drained, and yet conscious of every moment.
Mainly, I love when that photo catches my eye; I choose to have it there because it makes me happy, happy to remember that baby’s small and substantial weight, happy to remember my hand resting on my dog’s soft fur. Yet if I’m honest, sometimes it’s hard to look at that picture. Hard to know that period of my life is gone. But it is. You know? It is. And just like we do, over and over in this ever-changing life we have, we keep moving, keep going, keep finding the new moments that are, again, everything.
The Wandering Introvert 