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October 29, 2002 - Last Days
Have you noticed how, lately, I've drawn away a bit from this journal? Have you wondered why? I have. And I have some answers. My life right now is so peaceful and so domestic that recording it has come to seem unimportant. I'm not bored by living it - every moment, every second when I'm not answering to a boss continues to be a source of perpetual delight to me, rendering the most mundane act almost a sacrament - but I'm not sure that it makes fascinating reading, either now or in the future. Take this moment right now - the late-morning sun pouring into the kitchen and over me as I write, the autumn breeze ruffling the still-green leaves outside, the steady tick of the clock behind me, the halting thumps from above as Toby works the keyboard in his office - is it worth preserving forever? Over the past few days it's come clear to me that the answer is definitely yes. Toby and I are on the cusp of unimaginable change, and the time is not far off when we'll hardly be able to believe we ever existed as Just We Two. All the more reason to hold onto the soothing sameness of these last quiet days, to tell of the simple things we do together and the simple joy we take in one another. Ê This weekend, for example. We ended up having dinner at a fairly expensive Italian restaurant on Saturday night. Afterwards we drove through India Point Park in East Providence to look at a huge oil tanker moored across the river. And we talked about all kinds of things - about our daughter, yes, but about other things, too, and it is good to be reminded how much we've always loved these long conversations. Every time I ask Toby to take the recycling out or call him in to help me make the bed in the morning, I can't help wondering if the stresses of parenthood will reduce all our conversations to these bare, emotionless exchange of directives and information. I read a book recently in which a married couple meets up for dinner and the husband touches his wife's shoulder in a gesture that, as the narrator tells us, "was what, after so many years of marriage, passed for an embrace between them". I had to put down the book and walk away for a little while. I think I went upstairs and found Toby at his desk and kissed him in the very warm place where the soft skin at the back of his neck is covered by his sweater. And if I didn't, I should have. Ê I know, I know that having a new person in our lives may change us from happy lovers into something else. The party line seems to be, sure, you won't be abandoning your phantees in the living room in a mad dash to get to bed with each other any more, but the addition of children to a relationship will bring with it a Depth and Meaning that was Never There Before. So it'll all be worth it. And part of me believes that. And all of me knows that there will be huge, unavoidable adjustments to be made in the early days, and that even once we start to get the hang of caring for a small child, things will never be quite the same again. Ê I do believe that once our daughter arrives, and we get to know her, and we become not Two but Three, our lives will be better than they've ever been before. But I hope that seven years of being happy lovers won't vanish in the instant when she makes her appearance. Already in the night we can't hold each other as closely as before. I used to love to press up my back against his belly - now I can't stand to have his arms around me because it makes it difficult for me to breathe. The morning's not a time for embracing, either - my perpetually-full bladder makes the slightest pressure unbearable. We have always been extremely affectionate with one another, physically and verbally. I won't let Toby leave the house - or even head upstairs to his office for a prolonged period of time - without stopping to give me a kiss goodbye. We touch each other constantly. We gaze into each other's eyes and smile. We say "I love you" half a dozen times a day at least. And a new thing, now, a new and powerful focus, a vast assemblage of new responsibilities, and in all this where will the two of us fit? Will there still be a moment to embrace, to look into each other's eyes? Ê There will be such moments, if - and only if - we want them badly enough. And I think we will. I expect to come home from the hospital tired, sore, and more than a little overwhelmed. But I'm not checking my love and affection for my husband at the door. Our love and affection has always sustained us, and I will be damned if we'll let it be any different now. Ê Years from now, when you read all of this - and I hope you will, because it is for you and those who will come after you that I write - you may wonder why, if I was so caught up in the possible loss of my own identity, in the possible changes in my relationship with your father, I was so eager to bring you into my life in the first place. Remember, though, that I'm thinking over all these things before I've touched your hand or seen your face or dried your tears or heard your laugh or made you a place at the very center of my heart. I know only what I know. I don't like change - you will have seen enough of me over the years to know this - and I have always expected the worst from it. Conjuring up sleepless nights and desperate days comes easily to me. So much harder to imagine the joy of finally holding you in my arms. You will never be able to remember a time when we were strangers. And I - in spite of all the changes ahead, all the worries I've laid out in these pages over the past nine months - I can't wait to begin forgetting it.
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