Fried Eggs and Lukewarm Coffee
By Melissa Lipnick
“Please tell me this gets better,” I text to two of my favorite friends and veteran mothers.
It's days before I receive a response.
“It doesn't get better. But you get better at it,” my wise friend responds.
You, my eldest son, are 3 weeks old. Every expectation of motherhood is scrambled, fried, and tossed in the air. The plate lands food side down. It took only a moment to birth a new life and leave behind another.
The next six years I do get better at it. With more babies, a mortgage, and webs weaved between it all, I can support more without spilling on the floor.
If I am being too abstract, dear child, it's because the new me that was born that day is getting mixed up in the mess. Every day I dig into the oatmeal plastered dishes, hide from the library fines, follow another parenting blog, and search in the crevices of this old couch that I am. I'm searching for bread crumbs, because I got better at figuring out you, but I got worse at knowing me.
I need to pour myself a nice, hot cup of coffee instead of my lukewarm microwaved mug, and I like my coffee strong, black, and unfancy. So I am writing because maybe I'll make sense of a few things while pouring out my hot coffee onto the page. Maybe I will make sense of this me, in between getting better at the balancing act of parenting you, and you, and you, and you, my dear children.
#motherhood #parenting #writeas #readas #pandemicparenting
Written by Melissa Lipnick, a writer and artist in Cleveland, Ohio.