Friendships in your 20s and mothering
Turns out growing apart is a real thing that happens to everyone. Including me. Damn it.
Dearest reader, if you didn’t know I was pregnant, and happen to be close enough to me that you expected Substack was not how you would find out, well, just know this wasn’t intentional, and that for any questions you have - whether you are friend, colleague, client, or something in between - I’ve likely thought of the answer a thousand times over.
Growing Toward Different Suns
To all of the 20-somethings who have lost friendships and feel like they care too much. You don’t care too much. How much you hurt is a sign of how much you loved. It’s okay to be the one that is slow to move on.
They said this might happen
That over time
over distance
we’d change
our differences would become too great to reconcile
we’d grow apart
like flowers in a garden, growing toward different suns
I knew it was possible when I moved 7 hours away from you
that one day we’d no longer call ourselves friends
not being the first person to spill news to
or text
with “hi. YOU”LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED!”
But that happened to other people.
not to us.
They said it was possible that I’d send you flowers on your first day of med school
but not the last
that I’d ask you to be a bridesmaid in my wedding
but by the time you got engaged I’d hear it through Instagram first
but I didn’t believe them
that happened to other people
not to us
But here I sit
viewing your life through a rectangle on my phone
you matched(I knew you’d get your first choice)
you went to Paris(one of my favorite cities)
I watch it unfold wishing I could tell you I’m pregnant with my first child
That i torture my husband by saying, “blueberries” when he asks what I want for dinner
and eat mustard off of the spoon now
you should try it
but I know this is news you will see through a rectangle on your phone
I read somewhere once that just because a friendship goes away doesn’t mean the love you had for that person goes away
and I don’t know if that’s true for you regarding me
but even though I know our friendship is not a friendship in the present day
there’s still a part of my heart that hasn’t gotten the memo that we aren’t friends anymore
that we grew apart
one of us growing toward a sun where we are 4/4ths a doctor and a fiance
the other is growing toward a sun where we are a business owner and a wife and a soon-to-be mom
and as much as I wish we could stay friends on the strength of the bond we had alone
you said it yourself
life has taken us in such different directions when we used to be headed to the same place
so I watch your life through rectangle still life photos you post on my tiny hand computer
and tell myself that one day it will hurt less
that the love I have for you will find a new outlet
I remind my heart
it’s over
it’s time to move on
that part of our life is over
and i know it’s trying so hard
we’re all that person to someone, aren’t we?
the person who moved on first
the one who stopped responding to texts
it really is natural
friendships fade
i just wish it felt natural in any way
Getting Started Isn’t the Hard Part
There’s a lime-size fetus inside of me, but the only indication is what some Reddit user hysterically called a “vertical muffin top”. She then proceeded to say she never had a bump, and now I’m terrified I will never have the cute bump. I told Reid, my husband this, and he said, “what would be wrong with that?” and I said, “I want there to be proof!”
This change is quite parallel to what’s happening in the world in the sense that I have two very opposite choices: to ignore and block it out completely, or to absorb myself in it. It’s obviously a little different with my baby, but it’s the same, a little, in the sense that I am still me except for when I get the overwhelming sense that I am not.
Most days I march on, doing things quite ordinarily, cognitively knowing a huge shift is happening in my life - I mean we’re touring two daycares tomorrow - and most of the time not fully embodying that it’s happening.
And I think that’s what I wish I would have known, is that it doesn’t take courage to start. It takes courage to keep going. Getting pregnant was easy, and I feel lucky to be able to say that. Peeing on the stick was never the hard part for me, even though I know it is for so many women. I knew I was pregnant before I got the positive test Reid and I both agreed was positive. Again, reddit rules - no blue dye tests. They’re unreliable, and your husband won’t believe you when you say, that’s positive!
The hard part was not seeing anything change. Being 5 weeks, 3 days, taking naps twice a day, and going out on Valentine’s Day and finding no good alcohol-free drinks — and being a kind of tired I didn’t know I could be by the end of the night. Going for a run and dying from lack of oxygen, having to stop and walk every few minutes.
Constantly having some part of my digestive system slowed down. Being so excited and it not being real enough yet for me to feel terrified that I will not be the mother this child needs. Getting my linen pants shrunk in the dryer because I didn’t catch Reid on time to ask him to air dry them and then having what the kids call a “menty b” because they are one of two pants that fit me..
Seeing a bump when no one else does. Having to go about my days like everything is the same it was before February 3rd when it is not.
That is what takes courage. Every now and then crying for no explainable reason and most of the rest of the time just … acting normal.
Having no idea what the future looks like and sailing onward anyways.
But I didn’t fully comprehend that this was the risk that would demand courage of me for this new phase of my life when we made the informed decision to have a baby.
How do you explain all of the ways everything will change in a way that makes any kind of cognitive sense to someone who wants to be a mother?
It’s like if someone had tried to tell me all of the ways my life would change in the last five years. If someone had come up to me 5 years ago and said, “yes, here’s how your 20s will change you: this pandemic is actually going to last way longer than you think, and also you’ll decide not to go to medical school, and then you’ll build a really successful writing career but it’ll be really hard, so just go with the flow, and you’ll get married and have your first child by 27” I would have been like “Stranger danger! Get away from me”
There’s just no way to process what we haven’t lived. As Rilke says, we have to live the questions now. And I just have so many.