How Baby

I get closer and closer to Getting Rid of Momo’s Old Baby Clothes, but I’ll never reach it. One, damn, she keeps generating old clothes, and two, if I spend longer than even thirty seconds looking at something I’ll just become flooded with memories of her wearing the damn thing. Or, sometimes worse, memories of the person who gave it to her, or memories of buying it before she was even born – when we only knew her as a distant planet whose hopeful geography was completely unknown to us.

What a strange time that was. I think back on it now and I barely recognize the person I was – scared, isolated, angry, full of self-loathing. Everyone tells you to try to slow down and enjoy the baby times, but I’ll always remember them as a scourging toxic fog – those little pinpricks of light, I think… I think I only see them now because I have photos. Now I can look back, stronger and more well-rested, and pry the simple joy of those moments from the jaws of that monstrous time. Now I see who she was.

That’s so much experience to cram into the idea ‘looking at baby clothes makes mom cry because you were little and now you’re big.’