I was reading this post in the Times about the work/life balance.. oh the balance.. is there such a thing? If it exists or not, it is something I think of often. When I was pregnant with M, I worked until the day before my water broke. I took the subway back and forth to midtown, oftentimes not getting a seat, I carried my groceries up the two flights of steep steps to our apartment, I went to a photo shoot that week before giving birth, on my feet for a stretch of 8 hours, trying not to complain to the young cute photo dudes blasting Arcade Fire and watching me with a nervous eye, hoping my labor didn't start in their studio. I'm no super-woman, if anything I think I was in a bit of denial about the whole thing. I didn't take it easy, I couldn't. Taking it easy meant giving in, meant this was real, meant my body wasn't my own.. and it wasn't and it still isn't and that's a hard thing to accept when you're not used to an alien being kicking you from within, making your skin sallow, your hips separate and your nerves frazzle. Two weeks before M was born, I did take a taxi to work - and only because I brought a huge load of framed prints to decorate my office with. I was 8 1/2 months pregnant, standing on an office chair with a hammer and nails yammering away, annoying my coworkers, marking my territory. My office was small, dark and without windows - but it was mine. My room of ones own. And having an office in the Time Life building seemed to me, back then, to be a very big deal.
In hindsight, I was scared.. terrified, really, that I might not come back. That the love for this little thing moving about, hiccuping every afternoon, would be so great that I wouldn't return to my little cave-like office in midtown. I think I knew it might happen, and it shook me. So when M was born, my coworkers were the first ones invited to see him, I pumped hundreds of ounces of milk in little sterile bags marked with dates and amounts.. I interviews over a dozen nannies, called references, bought large black dress pants and read endless articles on returning back to work. I walked around in a daze, with M in my coat, sleeping huddled next to me, his lips parted and sweet breath on my chest. I was a wreck, and for weeks I walked around Brooklyn in hopes of finding an answer. I wanted to be supermom. I missed my routine, I missed my coffee breaks and the water-cooler banter and the subway ride and deadlines and photo shoots and lunch breaks. I missed getting dressed in the morning, I missed being part of that mass of people heading to work, pissed and excited and annoyed and eager. Everything I knew about myself was gone, I wasn't one thing or another, I was lost.
After extending my unpaid maternity leave as far as I could, after asking every woman on the street with a child what should I do, after finding a job I could do from home, after staring at my baby and even asking him what he would like.. I decided I couldn't go back to my spot on 50th street. Not yet, not just yet. In fact I remember the very moment I knew, and it hurt my heart in a way I can't explain.. I was at some takeout place on St. Marks street, getting a falafal with a new mom friend, and I was telling her about a nanny I had met and liked, and that perhaps bringing home $57 a week after paying for said nanny was still better than staying home, and M was in his stroller and wearing his onesie with little turtles printed on it.. and he looked up and me, and I looked down at him, and for some reason he looked scared to me (was there a noise? did I make a look? perhaps I was just projecting) and I knew.. I knew.. I couldn't go just yet.
Suffice to say I guess I knew that all along. I guess my hammering photos onto office walls days before hitting the L&D floor was my way of pretending that I would be back. I guess my extending my maternity leave as long as possible was an attempt to fake that my heart was in returning to the grind. And it was and it is and its not and sometimes I am afraid that it never will be again..
I'm not sure why I am putting this out here, because there is no advice, no words of wisdom. Going to work is hard, staying home is hard, being away from your babies is hard and not getting a break is hard. There is just no right way. But I am thinking that instead of what I used to consider being super-woman, the ones that juggle impressive careers and a family of five and a house and two dogs.. that maybe every day we are being super-moms, whether we are in our little cave's in midtown or our little caves in Brooklyn (or DC).. whether we dress in dark work pants or dark yoga pants, we're doing it our way and it will change but there is no right.. Perhaps the balance is the exception and chaos is the rule.
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