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Dating : You Can Do Hard Things

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h2>Dating : You Can Do Hard Things

Baby Luck

The best part was when she was inside me. Swimming, floating, breathing underwater in my safe, perfect, mother ocean. God I miss the ocean…

But then she came out into this world, and now everything can hurt her.

They say you die when you become a mother, that you should have a funeral for the woman you once were so you can accept the new woman you are now. It’s on my list to plan my own funeral, but I don’t really have anyone to invite.

I used to have a lot of girlfriends, but then we all got to our late 30’s, and the singles and the partnered-breeders split up. But I’m single with a 3 year old, so I don’t fit anywhere. A few diehard girlfriends would occasionally stop by, pretending to play with Maya as they complained about their latest work dramas, Tinder, freezing eggs, microblading, exotic vacations. They told me how lucky I was to be a mom.

Cole said he couldn’t handle all the tears. Mine, not Maya’s. He couldn’t understand. “This is what you wanted so what’s wrong?” He said he didn’t know how to help me and I said, “Just stay with me. Hold me. This will pass.” I tried everything: Zoloft, pelvic floor PT, Trazodone, Lexapro, the pill, another pill. Every cycle got worse — I’d be a bloated crying alien laid out in bed or loudly angrily cleaning or freaking out about some girl in his DMs like a fat watering can and then I would apologize and we would make up but I didn’t want to have sex. It hurt so bad and that’s where she came out. We tried couples therapy but he admitted he also felt like he was postpartum and he said one night he had a strong feeling that he wanted to choke Maya in her sleep when she first came home. I never let him be with her alone after that. Eventually I stopped sleeping and he stopped touching me and he left. He said he could be a better dad from afar.

And then there’s my mother. This is one of many texts I got from her instead of an apology for that shit she pulled on her last visit:

My mother’s love language is worry. Especially since Cole left us. She says I’m living in sin now. I should make it work for Maya. She blames me. I blame me. It’s fun times.

When I was little, my mom hid her empty Chard bottles in the recycling bin, and I hid the lollipops I stole from all the restaurants under my bed in a Care Bear pillowcase.

We let each other hide. So it’s weird that she’s coming tomorrow. I told her never to come back. But she can’t listen. Did you know you can’t actually physically listen when you’re anxious?

I text her last night that Maya and I stopped leaving the house altogether, for like the last seven months and 21 days. But it’s fine. I’m fine. She’s fine. We’re totally fine.

She texted back:

I text back at my leisure, reminding her that I play with my daughter in a child-like manner and she doesn’t need vaccines because we never leave the house and we’ll home school. You can learn everything on YouTube and buy everything on Amazon and Instacart on credit cards.

She texts back:

Her other love language is gifts. Not good ones like money or free childcare or baking or bosom hugs. No. Gifts like that fucking Costco bag of Dum Dums she brought Maya last time.

Here’s what happened:

— —

I was furious. I reminded her about our zero tolerance sugar policy.

“What’s a grandma for if I can’t give my only grandbaby a little sugar?” she asks

I remind her about choking hazards: carrots, balloons, ice, bananas, apples, quarters, hot dogs, , rocks…

“You said worrying makes things worse.” she says

This! Coming from the woman who wouldn’t let me eat after elementary school until she got home from work so I wouldn’t choke. This! Coming from the woman who wouldn’t let me go in the garage when I was a kid in case the garage door wouldn’t stop closing and crush me.

Now Maya is jumping up and down screaming,

“Licker licker mommy please!!”

“No baby, I’m sorry. How about a strawberry?”
“I’m not a baby, I’m a big girl.”

My mom says, “Yikes. I feel like a caged animal in this depressing apartment. Let’s all go for a walk, gotta get my steps!”

I bark back “No. We’re fine here. And if you had any idea what happened to me as a little girl. All that shit you failed to protect me from — you’d understand!”

(Yeah right, I didn’t say that last part out loud. She’d never be able to handle that.)

I hide the bag of Dum Dums on the top back shelf of the pantry. I sit on the couch and let my tearful daughter breastfeed standing up. The average breastfeeding age is 5 in the whole world, so we’re normal. It’s good for her, bonding, attachment, and keeps food costs down. I pet her, smell her. That smell…I talk into her hair —

“Nana made a mistake. Grown ups make mistakes too, it’s how we learn. It’s hard when you don’t get what you want, I know baby. But you can do hard things, right?”

“ can I have a licker?” Maya whines.

Without looking up from her phone, my mom says —

“I bet he’d put a photo of Maya holding one on his Facebook page! Big money in modeling. Do they let you order wine on that Instagram-cart app?”

Cole is famous now. So now no more screens, no more screen time. It’s for the best. In all his interviews he says “his sweet little princess Maya” inspired his hit song “Dum Dum”. Maya made up the “yum yum dum dum gimme some some” dance song for the special treats we gave her every time she went pee pee on her Elmo potty.

So he like completely stole her words and put them in his dumb dicksucking song and now it’s #1 on the Billboard rap charts or whatever. Why would I leave the house if all those people who like that song are out there? He’s on tour right now, somewhere in Europe, hiding from us, where I’m sure the women are much easier to deal with.

When Maya’s done nursing I tell her: “I just have to go pee real quick ok, big girl?”

“Mom. I’ll be right back. keep your eyes on her at all times. I’ll be two seconds. Mom. Ok?”

I’ve constantly had to pee since Maya was born. My stomach broke open in two and my bladder pushes down on my broken tailbone and it’s fine it’s just hemorrhoids and I can’t stop drinking coffee cuz I don’t sleep and I have to be here and present for Maya and sometimes I just wear a big fat 12 hour extra thick night time pad that makes me waddle and I just dribble so I don’t have to ever leave her.

As I’m doing kegels on the toilet, I read the print-out Hawaiian Shaman prayer I found online and taped to the bathroom wall:

And then I hear something like “don’t tell your mom” and then I hear the back screen door open. I wipe and don’t wash my hands and run outside pulling up my shorts and there is my precious daughter, sucking on a lollipop with my mom. The two of them, laying on their backs swinging their legs in the hammock taking selfie videos. Maya looks so happy. But no no no no no!

“Get up get up! Give me that!”

I rush and yank the Dum Dum out of Maya’s mouth. I scare her. She cries.

My mom hoists herself off the hammock. Maya just sits there frozen. Her face is red. Jaw tight. Her lips tight white. Her watering eyes try to tell me something.

“Mom! CALL 911! NOW!!” But she just stands there frozen, hovering over me. “You’re fine, right Maya?”

“Mom!”

Her phone rings somewhere inside, “Let it go, let it go!”…

I grab Maya, flip her over, put her on my knee, but she’s bigger than those dummies in infant CPR class. She’s a big girl now. I push my palm into her lower back hard 5 times on one knee, 5 on the other. Over and over. She’s going limp.

I stand Maya up, I feel her little bird heartbeat as I push up into the middle of her rib cage and — splat! A glistening brown piece of a root beer flavored Dum Dum shoots out of her mouth and lands on the safety foam padding I’ve obviously covered the entire backyard with. For safety. She’s safe now.

That night and every night since, I imagine the funeral I’ll have for the woman I used to be: it’s on a secluded Hawaiian beach. I wade into the water naked and keep walking and then I float and then swim and then I am a mermaid and then I am a dolphin and then I can breathe underwater and I am finally free…

— –

Maya and I used to live where there could always be an earthquake, but everything reminded me of Cole and all those fucking women. I just can’t. They sent him fan mail — lollipop panties, blow pops, dum dums. We saw him on a billboard for the “Candy Men” tour with Lil Wayne and Lil Zane. God. Maybe they will do a lollipop medley! Dum dum, lick the rapper…Ugh. I wish I still loved hip hop.

So. We moved. To a place where there are no earthquakes. It’s easier to parent alone. No one to agree with, make decisions with, compromise with…

I used to take Maya to alllll the enrichment empowerment activities you’re supposed to do with your child no matter the cost. But then she fell on a purple scarf dancing in music class and broke her front tooth, blood everywhere. She got pneumonia after pajama library storytime. She fell off the slide at the indoor playground. She pressed the emergency button on the nature museum elevator and we got stuck for hours — she had a diaper blow out and I peed on myself. Tinkergarten, a kid hit her in the back of the head and the mom was weird about it. Play dates — I don’t want to talk about the things the mom’s want to talk about and I’m not trying to date other moms. I’m done with all dating. I don’t shave my legs anymore. For what?

And then, this other time, she ran into the parking lot after swim class and a car almost hit her. That’s where the most traffic incidents are you know — parking lots. Fun fact. You’re welcome!

That’s the swim class where that mom told me about dry drowning, where you think your kid is fine, they’re just swallowing a little water, but no! 24 hours later they can choke in their sleep on all the water they inhaled. It’s like in their lungs.

Then this one time Maya was like “too tight too tight” pulling her seat belt and she wouldn’t stop crying in the back seat in the Starbucks drive-thru. I can’t stand to let her cry. People say “let her cry, she’s fine.” Don’t fucking tell me she’s fine. Don’t tell my daughter “you’re fine!” when she falls off the slide, you fucking…That negates her feelings and tells her she has to pretend she’s okay when she’s not. She’s little but she’s a full, whole human being. Fuck off.

The dude in front of me in the drive-thru had like a 26 person order so I put it in park, I thought I did, I swear I did, and ran around the back of the car to open her door and give her a bottle but the car was moving rolling slowly but still it hit the dude’s car and he was so mean about it and he said “Ma’am you should really be more careful you have a baby in the car” and she was in a moving vehicle without me. I could have killed her.

I sold the car.

Then it was a super fun adventure to do mommy daughter walks everywhere! You find so much more when you walk, you go slow. It was kinda helping me too, the fresh air, the trees. Then a car almost hit her turning right into the alley next to our house. She was on her red scooter, her helmet securely fastened. The car stopped, they didn’t hit her, but she still fell and I got scared and she got a boo boo owie on her knee and that was that.

So I’ve made our yard a magical childproofed fairyland for her. No swing, too dangerous. A tiny slide, sandbox, garden, no berries or plants that are poisonous, obviously. Who do you think I am? I replaced any stairs with ramps. My mom said I should do childproofing consultations for rich people. But that would mean I would leave the house and then where would Maya be? I can’t leave her with anyone else.

Obviously we co-sleep. She can eat on demand and I can make sure she’s breathing at all times. We sleep together on a mattress in her room, that way if she falls off she’ll just tumble onto the thick foam padding. I have the baby monitor next to me turned up high so if she does make a sound and for some reason I’m asleep it will be super loud and I’ll wake up.

I used to shower but those phantom cries — they were killing me. Something about the acoustics in the shower made the exact same sound as her cries. Even though she was sleeping — I could see her on the baby monitor — I had to keep jumping in and out of the shower to make sure. Then I’d have to furiously wipe the tile floor so she wouldn’t slip if she happened to walk in drowsy rubbing her eyes. I put carpet in the bathroom. It’s just safer that way.

Now I just take baths.

— —

My mom will be here in exactly 8 hours. It’s 3:20AM and I’m in the bathtub. The front door is unlocked. Did you know if you add Pink Himalayan Salt it makes it like you’re in the ocean? Sink or float game. The baby monitor is right next to me, don’t worry. I can see and hear her perfectly. She’s asleep. Peaceful. Safe.

I hold my breath underwater as I repeat the prayer over and over —

Maybe this is what it’s like to be in the womb. I want to go back there. Where it’s not true that I will lose everyone I love. Where it’s not true that everything will change. Maybe if I stay underwater long enough, everything can stay the same. Maybe if I can just stay underwater long enough, nothing will ever ever hurt my baby.

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