Freshman Year
“I’m GREAT at change. I love change.”
-said nobody, ever.
It is scientific fact that the pace at which changes occur over the first several years of a child’s life is unparalleled. What was unknown (to at least me), was that I, too, would need to grow along with my children.
Without a doubt, observing the miracle that is a child’s development is awe-inspiring. One day they are mere strands of DNA. The next they have a sympathetic nervous system. And somehow, what feels like days later, they have opinions, fine motor skills, or in Remi’s case, a new-found means of torturing me.
I will try not to dramatize the situation, and say that the mastery of every skill, from pulling up to standing to a pincer grasp, upended our daily routine. What I will say without hesitation, however, is that every year since my childbearing years commenced has felt like a different version of Freshman year of college. I never quite got my bearings. The moment I felt I was in a groove, something changed.
Similar to not knowing anyone that really thrives at change, I have yet to come across someone that reflects on their Freshman year of college with longing or happy nostalgia. My personal experience was defined by a haze of binge drinking to numb loneliness, various forms of eating and exercise disorders to instill some sense of control, and taking the few moments of solidarity when my roommate wasn’t around to cry hysterically into my pillow. (Sounds a lot like 2020!) It wasn’t until Sophomore year that I recognized Ithaca’s terrain well enough to grab footholds.
Granted, the last five years have felt like new versions of life for other reasons besides the kids’ constant change. There have been geographic relocations. The ebbs and flows of friendships. Our parents’ aging. New jobs. Political upheaval. A pandemic.
Somehow the adaptation to any one of those events (or has been the case with the past 12 months, all of them, simultaneously) feels more like an acclimatization to outside variables as opposed to a deep internal recalibration. They aren’t challenging the core of my functionality or values, they rather require me to rely on the tools that I have developed over 37 years of training. They are external changes. But as the kids grow, and wake up different creatures on a constant basis, I am shaken to the core. The changes require an internal modulation. They force me to say, who are you, really.
I have started to see a distinction between change, and growth. Change can be temporary. Growth is transformative. The kids are growing, and they demand that I do, too.
For a long period of time, I strove to manage the various and, often times, diametrically opposed, dimensions of my life through strict compartmentalization.
The moment I stepped foot onto the train (or rather, tumbled in sweating from a full-on sprint to catch it) my only thoughts were about work. I would see texts from friends or Michael and it was as if I was looking at jibberish. I simply did not process any responsibility outside of the scheduled meetings and checklist of my work day.
A part of me felt I deserved that space. I had given the better part of a year to growing a human, and half a year calibrating my body to be on call for that human’s nutritional needs. Work was in a lot of ways a release - a license to be separate from the baby, and thus separate from my responsibilities at home.
COVID upended the ability to physically separate work and home life, and resulted in my clinging to any vestige of emotional distance that work had afforded with extraordinary tenacity. It was all I felt I could do to remain sane and productive. In absence of the physical separation, I leaned even more into the mental separation.
In gearing up for the transition back to commuting to an office, and regaining that physical distance, Michael and I started a conversation about our schedules. It was in this dialogue that I explained the need to compartmentalize, which I viewed as a way of achieving balance. To that, Michael replied, “I refuse to be a compartment in your life.”
It was then that I recognized my act of compartmentalization was not in fact, healthy, it was delusional. I yearned for that separateness because it afforded me with a means of connecting with my old life, when I lived for me alone, which was something I longed to have “back.” Therein lies the heart of my conflict with this new phase. I hadn’t yet accepted that life with a family demanded me to be fundamentally different than life without one.
When I returned back to college for my Sophomore year, I was no longer looking for a semblance of what once was – i.e. my high school experience. I was excited to reunite with the new friends I had made, eager to test my fake ID in the bars, happy to settle into my favorite spot by the window in Olin Library. I missed what I had carved out in Newton, amidst the nurturing nest of my family and friends. But it was at the heart of this acceptance – embracing the person I liked to be, liked to be recognized as, and for, and applying that in Ithaca – that I was able to meet the absolute love of my life, My Michael.
As the story then goes, it was also with Michael that a new phase of life evolved, one in which we were lucky enough to participate in the creation of two unequivocal miracles, who now comprise the foundation of our being a family.
In trying to distinguish why my Sophomore year of college was such a happier time than the year prior, I have come to recognize that it was in that year that my baseline changed. I was no longer harping on what was different or lost in the transition from high school to Freshman year, I was embracing the elements that had heretofore not existed in my lexicon.
Being able to calm or comfort my family members, having a keen sense of what will make a smile flourish on their faces, the extraordinary glimmer in Remi’s blue eyes when she looks at me…these are achievements that are only attainable by spending time together. My family’s needs don’t dissipate as my professional or outside responsibilities pile on. There’s just more to manage.
I’m always one for food analogies. Remi LOVES pizza. Literally lights up when you say the word “Pizza.”
So I’m thinking of this phase of life as a pizza. I used to order half of the pizza with mushrooms, caramelized onions and ricotta cheese. The other half was pure, unadulterated margherita. I ordered half and half so that I could go back and forth. I loved the elemental combination of sauce, cheese and basil. But my custom concoction was indisputably tastier. Messier, for sure, but that gooey, cheesy, saucy jumble was always, in the end, the one I wanted to end on.
I will always miss the former versions of my life and myself, as they were more simple. But what I have come to recognize is that the growth that is demanded of me to keep with the current and new versions of my life ultimately result in relationships, connections and experiences that expand my heart and mind. It is in this phase of life that I’ve come to appreciate the elasticity of my heart, and truly, what this version of me is capable of.
