On adulting

Sunny is completing her first trip around the sun. Everyone said her first birthday would mainly be a celebration of keeping a child alive for a year and it very much is. That and an ode to the fact that Nick and I are still speaking to each other most days.

On the one hand, I’m so excited to celebrate her. She’s grown so big, she’s nearly walking, she’s getting engaged in books, she has friends. And then on the other, I’m so excited for me.

Gasp!

When these tiny kernels of human beings arrive, they are pulpy mewling beings that rely on you for everything. It feels like you’re inside a shell and there’s no thinking beyond the shell—you’re just in it, doing the needful to keep a small being alive. It’s been a bit since it felt that extreme but I’m still astonished that Sunny can drink water on her own, she can hold her own bottle and she eats her yogurt with great aplomb.

Finally, I’m seeming to find it within my grasp to think a little bit further out than the fifty foot  radius of our house, on what adventures I can dive into myself. What better person can I become that Sunny can see, and that I can see? Who can I be that I can be proud of? Podcaster, author and contemporary oracle, Rich Roll talks about the feeling of being dismantled as a great opportunity. And much of the last year of being a new mother, I felt dismantled.

Step one of this new year keeps coming back to this, the topic of my current writing project: adulting.

I’ve started out on a series of essays about it—this adulting, a word that my AP English teacher no doubt would have cringed over, and an act I often find impossible to do, or at least do gracefully.

So along with visions of a surf trip to Puerto Rico and a long-distance paddle and a family trip somewhere exotic, I have dreams of this year simply registering my car on time (an example Merriam Webster actually uses to exemplify adulting and one I wrote a whole essay draft on), of being able to knowingly switch out a bit and wield a drill, of writing thank you notes less than a year from the date of receipt.

A good friend and fellow writer Susie Seligson once quoted such a concept in an exchange from A Raisin in the Sun:

“I want to fly! I want to touch the sun!" "Finish your eggs first.”

And it’s true. Let’s make space for the grand … and let’s eat our eggs first.

First Surf Post Partum

7 weeks and a day post partum

Today was my first day back to the beach with my surfboard after the birth of our daughter Sunny and after my unplanned C section.

I’d put some feelers out to a few girlfriends to see if they wanted to join but being that I was going early and it was Easter, I didn’t have any takers. I was ok with this—I love going out solo and it felt just fine for my return to be a private, quiet experience.

I gathered my gear up yesterday—my wetsuit and booties, mitts and wax, board and a belly board in case that felt more appropriate as I’m getting back on my feet (belly board was courtesy of Maddie, which is courtesy of Becca, which is courtesy of Jamie). I grabbed my bathing suit, changing towel, regular towel, beach shoes and figured I was set.

In the morning, I was about a half hour delayed from where I wanted to be, which made it better that my friends were unavail. I wanted some toast, my coffee a little leisurely and I wanted to kiss Sunny’s head approximately a hundred times before going.

“I’ll be back by 8:30!” I said to Nick, then internally wondered Where’s my surf watch? Luckily it was right where I left it in the center console. I put my board on top of my car—it felt just fine to lift it, I just went impossibly slow, then I threw on Maggie Rogers and drove north.

The ocean was bereft of other surfers, it being low tide and “knee high for a mouse” as Steph F would say but I was just happy to be there. I truly didn’t know if I’d be able to get my wetsuit on—that can be a major ab workout to get it on and off in and of itself, but I did it. It felt a lot tighter than it had last time I wore it, it squeezed my incision and I had to go really slowly but it worked. My old routine just felt like clockwork.

The tide was really low and it felt like I walked for a mile. Hoisting and carrying my board was just fine with my incision. Getting knocked in the gut by a wave didn’t feel great (you take for granted how you usually just absorb that) but lying on my belly and paddling, there was no pain at all.

The waves were perfect—infinitesmally small and clean and I got to ride a couple just on my belly. I held back from popping up—that quick snap / crunch didn’t feel right to me yet but I’m on the path, and it felt a lot less clumsy and less painful than Id expected to feel.

 It was pure joy, as it always, always is.

Maddie had lent me the belly board and normally I would have just left it in the car, and stuck with my familiar old reliable blue board. But something about having a baby and being thrust into the unknown and ejected out of my comfort zone meant I found myself marching back up to the car to grab it and test it out.

I mostly flailed about with it, having utterly no clue what I was doing but I was glad to try a new board and a new activity. And then, it was time to go.

When I got back to my car, I found myself thinking “That was perfect. I can’t wait to come back. And I can’t wait to get home and hold my baby.” And for that feeling, I am incredibly grateful.