Ten Years

Card by People I've Loved

I don't know how to start this one. I didn't know how to start then, if I'm being honest. Ten years ago, I had a baby, and I didn't know what I was doing. Truthfully, I mostly still don't. 

Let's start at the beginning, which is right now: my child is ten. Ten feels weighty. A decade old. A decade ago, Obama was still president, I still lived in Toronto, and I had been married for barely a year. My dad was recently recovered from brain surgery, sent home a month before I delivered. My sister had just moved back to Ontario after living out west. My brother was in his early 20s. And then: baby. A baby! A new person. I was one of the first of my friend group to get pregnant, and it felt like I was moving to an entirely new land, a continent I had seen on the maps, labelled Mother. Full jungle, documentary crews eaten. 

The early days were hard. I had a rough delivery, and it took me a long time to recover. Breastfeeding was surprisingly tough—I needed a few sessions with the lactation consultant, and plenty of coaching and trial-and-error. I was wracked with anxiety and intrusive thoughts, and resentful of the fact that it wasn't romantic and glowy. I had hot flashes when I nursed, and a new shape to my belly. The first night we were home, I had a nightmare about rolling over in bed and crushing our newborn, and I woke gasping and adrenaline-wrecked. NS didn't sleep well at all, and all the granola-mom advice about co-sleeping and sleep-nursing and relaxing were not applicable: the baby only slept on the move, which meant swinging the carseat like an enormous pendulum, or babywearing as I walked or bobbed, or pushing the stroller endlessly, both inside and out. It was constant, exhausting, tedious, and distinctly un-fun. 

Babyhood made me realize what a bill of goods we get sold, as parents. The idea that it will be easy is a lie: most of us are struggling with something, most of the time. Maybe it's the constant daycare sickness cycle, or night wakings, or a screaming-crying-throwing-up temperament, or sibling discord, or picky eating, or the work-life "balance," or sensory overload, or mom-guilt, or the constant demand of caring for someone who is very sweet but who cannot fill our cups in most ways. That first "I love you" lands hard because we've been pouring ourselves into this little vessel for years, and we have to wonder: is this working? Is any of this landing? 

But then we arrive at this moment: once, as a toddler, one of NS's tiny friends bit them in a fit of rage. After the other mother pulled her son way, I checked in with my small kiddo, who looked musingly out the window and said, "I'm going to bite Arthur." When I replied that, even when we're frustrated, even when they've done it first, we can't bite our friends, NS nodded understandingly and then said, after a moment, "I'm going to kick Arthur." And that is a kid I can really get behind, you know?  

My child has turned out weird and funny, brave and tender. NS uses gender-neutral pronouns now, a decision made several years ago and with surprising confidence. (Will it stick? Who knows. But it's who they are today, which we can honour.) School friendships seem to consist mostly of wrestling and talking about forbidden-at-home video games. At home, they bellow and gallop and shriek, and also lie on the floor and daintily assemble Lego for hours. We go through long media fixations on Cars, Pinky Malinky, Moana, Transformers, the Storybots, Mark Rober, and watch them on a loop, but if they are watching TV and catch sight of the neighbour kids out the window, they will dash out the door with "I'm going outside to play with my friends!" trailing behind them like a flag, TV immediately forgotten. They love and fear their skateboard. They chat with adults at church. They can be hideously rude and meltingly sweet, often in the same whiplash-inducing conversation. 

I separated from NS's dad two years ago, and I worry every day that I've done irreparable harm in doing so. It took a lot to work up the ability to leave. I worry that what NS saw during our married days will have ruined them for future relationships; I worry also that coming from a so-called broken home will have made them permanently sad. I read once that Kurt Cobain, whose parents divorced when he was seven, never got over it. What hope could I possibly have? 

On the other hand, we recently had a snow day that included several rounds of the card game Sleeping Queens, a romp in the drifts, a session of banana muffin-making, and a movie. It was just the two of us, and it felt like a victory that this normal day unfolded in front of us, scaffolded by nothing except our own habits and personalities, aligned, somehow, and perfectly in sync. There are days when parenting doesn't feel endless in a bad way—it feels expansive, light, and easy, like an endless day at the beach, or a morning reading quietly in bed. It feels beautiful.

I have spent a large part of my adult life terrified, and yet I find that I've also accomplished quite a lot. I single parented for two years in NS's toddlerhood, and then starting again when they turned seven. I've been a single parent for four of their ten years, and that math feels strange. I didn't expect to be a single mom. It has meant grappling with a double shadow: the dark parts of myself that show up in them, deserving of love but so crazy-making; as well as the behaviours and mannerisms that remind me of my ex, their dad, which makes me internally exasperated and forces external gentleness. NS adores and idolizes their dad, which is a dynamic that I find...frustrating. But I love them, so I try to make do in these strange waters.

Ten years of a person, ten years of parenting. I could share a million little stories, a mosaic of a life that is only just starting. Holding hands on the subway, babywearing in the kitchen, first days of school, midnight bed invasions, vaccine bravery, instant friends on the playground, weeping at storytime, clutching at bedtime. An endless flow of moments: parenting, childhood, living. 

When they were younger, I used to ask them, "What do you remember about being born?" And they would answer, "I pooped inside of you," and giggle maniacally, looking at me for a reaction, which I would always give—ew, yuck! And then they would say, quietly, "And then there was a big light."

And then there was a big light. 

Happy birthday, my sweet kiddo. I love you forever, to the edge of the galaxy, in every mood and every way. You are my red red robin, my wild thing, my sunshine, and my whole heart.