Leaning Into Now.

New parenthood is the ultimate in love and wonder.

It is also beyond exhausting.

My Beloved Mister is still working seven days a week. I miss him. He misses time with his son. I'm not sure his state of tired even allows for him to miss me, most days. Our adult interactions fall largely in the business category instead of the oh, we are fun lovers and dear friends category.

And I, as a fulltime SAHM-- stay at home mama (I'm still not digging that phrase so much) -- don't get a break from being, as Em put it last evening, so overwhelmingly present all the time. Present and present 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's mind boggling, how great the love, how immense the wonder. How wholly the time swallows up a body-mind-spirit for this task at hand.

I am not complaining. My heart bursts with joy for the gift of our boy and as with when first I was pregnant with Ziggy, I feel born to this, fulfilling my destiny, even.

And too, I long for a wee break, and for more luxurious time / connection with my man.

For now, when at 3 AM I roll over to nurse the babe on the other side and my Beloved's hand crosses the invisible threshold of "our" side of the bed to grasp mine and squeeze, I squeeze back. The squeeze says everything we most need to convey, like "I miss you. I am sorry I was short with you and cranky, please forgive me. I know the mice in the kitchen scare you. I know your back aches and you need new shoes. I know you feel under appreciated.
My body misses yours, too. I am here as much as I ever was, even though everything is different. I do appreciate you. I love you as much as the stars and remember that there are more of those in the Universe than grains of sand. We are the log decomposing in the forest; there is that much energy, that much fire, even when it doesn't look like much of anything is happening at all until one day, there it is."

This is what it means to be a young family. This is what it means to be exhausted by love and to perpetually crave a nap and a half sandwich over the wild spontaneous every song is about US love that you still remember and wish for. And you're grateful to remember it and wish for it, even if you're too tired to respond should it come knocking at the door.

Hey, hey you, Mister Man of mine. Thanks for working so hard. You know when you told me the other night on your way to bed that you were glad we had the choice for our Ziggy to be home with me and that I was doing a good job? Did you know after you said that I wept? I did.

In the dark morning hours, when I squeeze your hand back, know that I am here, as much as I ever was. And know that I see the you of yous that often feels lost to the you of now. I love you across that bridge of time and circumstance. And I know that because of, or in spite of it all, you feel the same way.

Hold tight, darling. Squeeze and keep on squeezing. This life we are building prominently stars laundry and dirty diapers and payment plans and the absence of leisure, but this life we are living when we lean into now is all about the squeeze.