Motherhood is a strange experience after infertility and miscarriage.
My new normal isn’t normal yet.
Normal used to be a sometimes vague and sometimes distinct sense of pain and emptiness.
Sometimes it was happy with a grayish tinge.
A little sorrow hovering in the background.
It was normal to be lonely.
Normal was smiles that would fade ever so slightly at a reminder.
Normal was closing the door to the spare room so I wouldn’t have to see its emptiness, not fulfilling its purpose.
It was normal for grand, joyful occasions to be dampened by a small sense of melancholy.
A too big apartment with unused space was normal.
A four door sedan with no one in the back seat was normal.
A playground right outside my window with no reason to visit was normal.
Infertility was normal.
I set out to change my normal.
I could no longer look at that second bedroom. It felt too hollow. The family-friendly suburban existence was too bleak. We packed up and moved to a hip neighborhood in a city. We downsized to a one-bedroom with no storage. Acquired a sporty, compact car. If I erased the physical presence of who was obviously missing, then surely it would be easier. It was, sort of. At least it was easier to pretend. To fake it. There is no spare room. No sedan. No playground.
And then my missing boy came home.
The new normal.
The new normal is less lonely.
New normal is not empty.
The vague and sometimes distinct pain is fairly diminished, although not forgotten.
The smiles may dim with grim reminders, but the relief brings them back.
New Normal doesn’t know melancholy at this time.
New normal has hilarity and is quite cramped. There is nothing empty or hollow about having three people and two animals, and all our related belongings stuffed into a one-bedroom apartment.
My new normal brings me such awe and wonderment, it couldn’t possibly be normal.
New normal is extraordinary.
I am a mom in New Normal.
LB will be 10 months old tomorrow. Having a son is my new normal.
It should feel normal by now, but it doesn’t.
I expect to wake up from the dream of New Normal and still be in Old Normal.
Its too grand to be normal. It feels too bizarre. Non-normal. The anti-normal.
Nearly every day, I have a strange sense that this is not my life. But it is. The Strange New Normal.
People who don’t get it think I am nuts. Proclaim how miserable they would be if they lived in my home. In my cramped space. In my isolated domain. They don’t understand how I could be happy here amid the chaos of raising a baby in an environment very ill-equipped for doing so. But like I said, they don’t get it.
It is normal for me.
And then it isn’t.
I just hope that when being this person feels normal some day, I won’t take it for granted. I don’t ever want to take for granted that being “Mom” is now my Normal.