I complain
about having not a moment to myself until I am exhausted,
and about the chaos of my car,
my house,
my day-
about crushed goldfish and juice stains,
showers with little hands opening the curtain
to make sure I am there
when all I want to do is breathe in coconut conditioner
as it rolls down my back
and about the shifts I’m pulling:
split shift domestic duty,
full-time-straight-through
and per requested need social shift.
There is not a me shift anymore, unless you count sleep,
which wouldn’t count for much.
And I complain about soft thighs and late paperwork
(which, to be perfectly honest, have really been a problem all along),
and the whole babysitter fiasco
just for an overpriced lemon chicken and a hangover;
and the coffee addiction that I actually enjoy
But I know in the back of my mind
how all too soon she no longer needed me to carry her,
And how fast 6 months goes
when you look at a box of clothes she’ll never wear again
and you can think of sitting her on your lap
and blowing bubbles at the picnic table while cars passed by
and she was wearing that yellow onesie with the flower…
She already knows the words “go away”
The days of plastic purple play shoes and silly hats
are far shorter than the days I will have time
to paint my nails and go to gallery crawls
and I never really cared about a clean car anyway.
I chose this one for this week because Alisa mentioned a blog I wrote last year on motherhood and I thought she (and my other mom friends, soon-to-be-mom friends, or one-day-want-to-be-mom friends) would appreciate it.
March 10, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Wow… okay, going back through all these, getting a good soul rinse for the day. A few questions:
What happened to the crushed goldfish!?
Did she step on it or something?
She already knows the words “go away”
Ooo… That one gave my shoulders a shiver. I don’t know if you inteded it to sound particularly the way that I heard it in my head, with so much aching and lost nostalgia. As though she were already grown and pushing you out of your life.
“i never really cared about a clean car anyway”
Great post.
great poem.
Thanks Becca.
March 10, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Wow… okay, going back through all these, getting a good soul rinse for the day. A few questions:
What happened to the crushed goldfish!?
Did she step on it or something?
She already knows the words “go away”
Ooo… That one gave my shoulders a shiver. I don’t know if you inteded it to sound particularly the way that I heard it in my head, with so much aching and lost nostalgia. As though she were already grown and pushing you out of your life.
“i never really cared about a clean car anyway”
Smiled at that. Sums up the whole poem. About all the things that you momentarily concern life with and how little they matter when set against the rest of real life, how temporary all those little worries become…
Great post.
great poem.
Thanks Becca.
March 11, 2009 at 12:26 am
Well, yes, crushed goldfish are just a part of the life of a toddler. Goldfish the crackers, not the animals, by the way.
Yes, I couldn’t believe it when she told me “go away” the first time. I did flash forward and think how that will happen again and again as she gets older (hopefully not too much…)
Yea, it’s so easy to get caught up in these “supposed to’s” that you miss little things that matter, that make life living.
I’m glad you went through and read because I kind of forgot about this poem (not really forgot, just haven’t thought of it in a while) and it’s really good for me to remember to be in the moment because they are moving moments…