The Myth of Missing It
On guilt, perfectionism, and learning to see what's real.
Greg wrapped his arms around me, and my face contorted into its ugliest cry.
The fight was about nothing and everything, like lots of fights when you’ve been together for a decade and are in the parenting weeds of young kids. I had been trying to help clean up after he made one of my favorite dinners, chicken parm. I grabbed a container on the counter and started loading it up with leftovers. He went to reach for the spot where it had been, noticed I was using it and gave me a look of annoyance. That was it. A momentary look was all it took. My mind was off to the races.
I can’t do anything right! Nothing will ever make you satisfied. Even my helping is wrong. I’m doing too much as it is, and you make me feel useless. I’m so SICK of being treated like I’m stupid. I don’t want to live my life with someone who thinks I’m incompetent.
My rage beast was always at the ready. It spiraled on and on.
I knew that he knew he had upset me, but he ignored it. He tried to make conversation about other things, and I could feel myself doing the pouty, quiet, one-word-answer protest. I hated this petulant child part of me that refused to simply speak up. And yet, I stayed silent and fuming.
We were supposed to decorate the tree after dinner, and I told him that wasn’t happening. Decorating the tree was one of my favorite pastimes, and I wanted to do it in a good mood when everyone was happy and in the goddamn Christmas spirit. He tried anyway, and I snapped, “I said NO! We’re not doing this right now!” He laughed and said, “Fa la la la la, la la la la.” I looked at him with my most intense Are you fucking for real? face. I was beyond angry now. I was murderous.
I’ve wanted to be my high school boyfriend’s mom since I was 17. (I’m turning 39 next month—that’s real commitment to the bit.) She is ethereal and effervescent. Her wild golden curls defy gravity. She floats into the frame wearing the quirkiest thrifted outfit that could only make sense on her. She offers you food, art, and unflinching, loving, direct eye contact. If it was 2002, she would have offered you a “The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own,” t-shirt she’d made. She lives in a barn by a pond in the historic part of my hometown. The interior is a living, breathing thing. There is always something new to see, something she’s collected or created. She’ll ask to take your picture so she can paint you as a larger-than-life heroine with a baby on your hip, groceries on the other, and a slayed dragon at your feet.
I imagined she woke every day like Snow White, with small woodland creatures opening her curtains and pulling off her comforter. She would open her eyes to see the little birds and laugh with delight—not shock. I was fascinated. How could a woman be endlessly easy and righteously ferocious in precisely the right quanities? But the thing that intrigued me the most was how she raised two boys who had a deep and profound respect for themselves and other people. She did it in such a way that broke my brain. She never raised her voice. I didn’t know of any rules or restrictions. Still, to this day, I visit with her on every trip home and prod her for the blueprint. “But how? What did you say? What did you do? What made them, them?” She laughs and offers me a necklace she’s made.
I’m sitting in the dining room combing over my new website while my knee mindlessly shakes below the table. We’re a day past the fourth deadline I’d hoped to meet. I hear Willa cry from my bedroom, and I instinctively pop up and yell, “HI! HELLO! I’M COMING!” I swoop into the darkened room, repeating, “Good morning! Hiii my love, good mooooorning!” I arrive in heaven as I lift her warm, sleepy body. She stops crying on contact and molds her body around mine. We do our ritual of opening the curtains and looking out at the state of the backyard world. As her eyes meet the light, her whole body trembles with delight. “WWooooooooo!” Her tiny, chubby hands grip my arms with all their might and she full body shakes all over again. She babbles away in a language I can only guess at and points at the nearest tree. I imagine she’s saying, “Do you see this shit?! INCREDIBLE!” I snuggle into her. I remember being so done with my pregnancy at this time last year, five days past my due date. And now, at this moment, I can’t seem to get close enough. I would do anything to merge our bodies back together.
I hear the basement door slowly open, and Greg reemerges from his studio. I am angry-cleaning, listening to Miranda July narrate her newest book in my AirPods. I can see him speaking but can’t hear the words. I yank out a pod and hear the petulant child me demanding, “What?” as though he’s interrupted a sacred ritual he has no business seeing. He starts to repair the rift, and I’m not having it. This slight has become everything that’s ever hurt me. I’m angry at everyone and no one.
After the long back-and-forth of details—mostly nonsense—we get to the heart of the matter. “Willa is almost one, and I missed it! I’ve been working so frantically this whole year, and I’ve had to miss it! You get them in the mornings; you get the fun. I get her when she needs to nap, and I rush back to working. It’s almost worse than having her at daycare, because she’s right there. It’s like she’s behind glass. I can see her, but I can’t touch her. ‘Sorry, baby, Mommy has to work,’ I say a million times and shoo her away. You don’t even like the baby stage! I love it! And YOU GOT IT! I MISSED IT. I REALLY WANTED HER,” I’m crying hard now. “I REALLY WANTED HER AND I MISSED IT. AND NOW IT’S TOO LATE.” Greg wraps his arms around my trembling body, and I sob.
The pain is intense and sharp and feels completely true and real. In the morning, I wake up with puffy eyes and heavier-than-normal bones. I lay there motionless while my mind retraces its steps. The story is running my life again. God, this is so pathetic and annoying. I’ve been trying to prove that I am smart and successful and can do it all. “I AM NOT STUPID” is the undercurrent of all my actions. At the same time, I’m aspiring to be this light-as-air mother who took the less-traveled path and raised her artsy kids in this artsy life. I feel like a fraud and a failure. I’m losing my shit on my family so I can create this image that doesn’t even exist. Did I really miss it? Did I miss Willa’s first year of life? No. That’s not entirely true. But it feels very true. It just didn’t go the way I’d imagined. I’m not who I want to be or where I want to be, and I’m holding onto those ideals with all my might. This is a familiar trap. When things don’t play out exactly the way I’d dreamed, I want to take my ball and go home. I’m not playing with you anymore because you’re not playing the way I want. What a free spirit.
I’m sitting under the covers typing away in my pink bed, still warm from our nighttime of cuddling. I can hear Willa calling for me from the kitchen. I stay put. I want to find a neat conclusion to my thoughts. I silently think, I just need to work a little more, then I can come play with you! I look out the window and see the morning light hitting the tree that shakes her to her core with wonder. Okay, I see it. I can be done now. I don’t want to miss it.
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