Dear Sona and Danielle:
When I think of you now, remembering you at your best, I’m thinking of the year 2013. You’d been married for a year, together for 12. You were had just started your thirties. Danielle had just landed the tenure-track job she’d always wanted, and Sona was about to get leave a mediocre job and become part of an anesthesia practice where she would feel at home.
It was a good year. You were happy.
You spent most of your free time enjoying the city, meeting friends for ridiculously-priced drinks, wandering aimlessly through neighborhoods, eating too many nice meals. (I think that was the year you decided to eat through the entire Michelin list.) You were at that sweet spot: fresh into careers that afforded you these luxuries but without many other responsibilities. No house. No fertility bills. No toddler.
That year, you continued what was a multi-year travel spree. You went on some small, stateside trips: Charleston, Hilton Head, Baltimore. But you also went to Mexico, Spain, and Costa Rica. Those last two still go down in the books as your favorite trips you’ve ever taken.
Barcelona was particularly special. You’d gone for your one year wedding anniversary.
There, you were your best selves. You wandered. You ate. You laughed. You relaxed.
You had the best meal–and most romantic night–of your lives. You still talk about it, today.
That year showed you the promise of what adult life together would be like. That year glimmered.
Fast forward four years, and pretty much everything has changed. Fancy dinners are few and far between (and dependent on the babysitter’s schedule). You feel guilty when you spend too much money on artisanal cocktails, now (which, honestly, are admittedly obnoxious). And your travel schedule–which was your lifeline in an otherwise busy life–has been sacrificed to fertility clinic bills and home repairs and fender benders. This year has not always glimmered.
Whereas you used to spend Sundays in bed, eating a too-late brunch, binging too many TV shows, and napping for too long, you’re now usually up by 8AM. You’re awakened by your son, who is shouting “Hey, Mommmmmaaaaaa!” from the room next door. You get up, you warm some milk, and you pull him into bed, hoping that he’ll quietly watch the iPad while you both steal a few more minutes of sleep. (You feel guilty about all of that screen time, later.)
You are tired. Your face, I’m sorry to say, is showing wear. There are creams for those dark circles, but you don’t really have the time to consider them, now. You spend a lot of time thinking about 2013–and all of those other years before–and you feel defeated more often than you want to admit.
When you do get the chance to steal some alone time, you hardly know what to do with yourselves. Do you have the serious talks about money or relationship kinks or any other of the other things that have been swept under the rug while you are busy building train tracks and cleaning up fingerpaint? You probably shouldn’t, but you probably do. You probably find that it is hard to be those people you were four years ago, and you probably give yourself a hard time about that. You probably over-think it. You probably have concerns. You probably have regrets.
But then, there’s this: It’s a detail you’ve forgotten in the midst of all that idealized nostalgia. You did spend Sundays in bed. You did binge a whole season of a show, take naps, and feed bacon to the cats. But you also wished. You lazed in bed, curled up around each other like commas, and you talked excitedly about the day when a little boy would nestle between you. That was the vision you had for what your future would be: three of you in bed, curled up around each other, you two looking at each other over the downy head of a baby.
This is all to say that I see you. You are not lost. You have not disappeared. I see the 2013 you, wanting desperately to be reignited. I see the 2017 you, struggling. I also see the little boy between you, and I want you to remember, always: you got just what you wished for. You got what you wanted. And you did it together.
You have that little boy, and you love him to the point of madness, even when you’re tired. Even when you ask him to clean up his blocks and he replies, confidently, “Nope!” Even when you feel pushed and stretched and depleted. Even then.
So, please be kind to yourselves. Be generous with each other. This isn’t 2013, but this is, in its own way, every bit as good. (And maybe even better.)
Perfectly written