“Time Flies” A short, fictitious story.
“Time flies.”
“The days are long, but the years are short.”
“They grow so fast.”
Over the past few weeks, John has shared different iterations of this statement as we - I - prepare for our daughter’s first birthday. Today, on his one day off this week, we are going through pictures to use for the slideshow at her birthday party. Rather, I am showing him pictures that I have taken as he scrolls through TikTok or attempts to find new ways to utilize AI to streamline his work. For every ten nice pictures of John and our daughter, there is one of her and I together that I like. Not a selfie where I am donning a puke-stained sweatshirt and greasy hair, but actual pictures taken by third-parties patient enough to coo and blow raspberries to get Lucille to smile at the camera. I show John a photograph I took of them right after she was born. I was literally lying on the delivery table, placenta still attached, and worried about capturing these moments for him. John turns to me and halfheartedly says, “Time flies,” before turning back to his phone.
Based on the picture ratios alone, you would think that John is the present, stay-at-home parent, who makes each of Lucille’s meals from scratch and insists on reading no less than three books to her each day and that I am the big-wig attorney working eighty hours a week. You would be partially correct in that assumption, I suppose. I am technically a licensed attorney but my career came to an abrupt end (read: I rage quit one of the top firms in the country on a random Thursday afternoon) and, after, John and I thought it was an apt time to start a family. We had already agreed that I would leave my job in Manhattan for no less than one year after giving birth and, truthfully, quitting sooner than we initially anticipated did not have a significant impact on our overall financial situation due to John’s high income.
When we purchased our house, we decided for various reasons that it made more sense to buy near his office - a whopping two hour commute to Manhattan where I worked in-person three days a week. The lower cost of living and the proximity to John’s job was supposed to ensure that we would spend more quality time together. Initially, the move to the office did result in us seeing each other more. John would come home around 6:30 p.m. and we’d grill hamburgers in the backyard, run around with our dogs and play Monopoly Deal while enjoying the sunset. Quickly, however, the time John used to spend commuting was replaced with additional hours in the office and increased inattentiveness in this relationship.
I fell pregnant about four months after quitting my job. I was overjoyed because this was exactly what I wanted (right?!). I married a good man. We owned a modest home. I did not need to work. I was pregnant with our first child. Truthfully, however, it was one of the loneliest times of my life - second only to how alone I felt postpartum.
I recall attending the majority of my doctor’s appointments alone with the exception of the two or three appointments where we were able to see the baby on the sonogram. I did tell John that I didn’t need him at the doctor’s appointments, but I felt the ping of jealousy each time I saw women and their partners together in the waiting room. I wanted John to join me at the appointments, but I recognized that any time spent away from the office would result in him having to work even later than he already did. I thought I was being a “good” or “understanding” wife by not pulling him away from work unnecessarily; truthfully, he likely wouldn’t have come even if I had expressed the desire.
I recall that I thought I was having a miscarriage early in my pregnancy. I assured John that I was fine going to the emergency room alone so that he could get additional work done in the office - it was a Saturday.
I recall that on my birthday two weeks later - also on a Saturday - I told John that it was fine if he wanted to go to the office. I was suffering from all-day “morning” sickness, and wouldn’t be much fun to be around anyway. He was already getting ready to head out to the office, and I had to remind him it was my birthday. He worked Sunday as well.
About two months later, John called me to let me know that he had an after-hours meeting near one of my favorite restaurants. It was a Tuesday night, and John told me to meet him at the restaurant at 8:00 p.m. At that point, I was more than halfway through my pregnancy and starting to feel uncomfortable, but I was excited at the prospect of an impromptu date night. I got to the restaurant at 8:00 p.m. 8:00 p.m. turned to 9:00 p.m. My back-to-back calls and texts went unanswered. A normal wife would probably be more concerned than irate, worried that something had happened to their spouse. But I knew better. Eventually, after I had already driven back home, John called to apologize and explain that the meeting had run late, but did it even matter anymore?
Forty weeks, and five days.
The average first time mom gives birth at forty weeks and five days. I was thirty-eight weeks and six days along - a Friday - when I called John and asked to go on a dinner date after work. He agreed to pick me up at 6:00 p.m. Again, he ran late. I became so upset that I told him to not to bother, to just stay at work. Early the next morning, I went into labor. In my heart, I believe that I went into labor “early” because my husband stood me up yet again.
When I told John that I thought I was in labor, he rolled over and went back to sleep. It was early labor and, while there was technically nothing for John to do, I still felt so lonely as I ran myself a bath and tried to bear down through the increasingly-painful contractions. Eventually, I became frustrated with him and asked him to grab me a glass of water. I wasn’t actually thirsty, I just wanted him awake and attentive to me. Recently, he jokingly asked, “Hey, remember that time you yelled at me to get you a glass of water when you were having contractions?” The night after Lucille was born, while we were still in the hospital, I cried to him about how we were supposed to have more time - more time together. I am certain he didn’t understand what I meant.
I wish I could say that our daughter, Lucille, came into the world with such force that it completely caused John to rearrange his priorities. To his credit, maybe it did. Maybe her birth made John so steadfast in his efforts to build a beautiful life for his family, that he became blind to his absence from it. Completely ignorant of the fact that the life he was working so hard to provide was one that was unbearably lonely to live.
Prior to having Lucille, I had never even changed a diaper. A month after she was born, John was back at work. It became customary for John to work six days a week, often twelve-hours a day. Slowly but surely, more and more, he began missing bathtime and then later bedtime altogether. Then it became normal for him to go days without seeing Lucille. In January, when Lucille was only four months old, John went nine or so days without seeing her at all because of a trial. He was gone before she woke up in the morning, and still not home by the time she went to bed. He stopped helping altogether with middle of the night feeds or, rather, I stopped asking him to after he became so tired and frustrated with her after a long day of work that he angrily told her to “shut up.” When I told him not to talk to Lucille like that, he repeated, even more contemptuously, “Shut. Up. Lucille.”
But, at least I didn’t have to work and at least she wasn’t in daycare, right?
I had no family in close proximity to me and often lugged my three or four-month old baby on ninety minute car rides to see people, or bundled her up to go on walks for fresh air as the weather got colder and colder. I was so desperate for adult interaction that I would feel a small sense of joy when a stranger walked by and simply said hello. I am proud to have figured it out - how to be a mother - and Lucille is the most incredible thing to happen to me, but I was undeniably alone all of the time while somehow also being in the best company.
Arguing with John drove me further into isolation. We wouldn’t speak when I was upset with him, so there was nothing to do except go to my room and be alone even when he was home. I would get a temporary break from the baby while John watched her, if you don’t count the questions he continuously asked regarding her care. How long is this breast milk good for? What time is her nap? Are these pieces cut small enough for her? How much should I feed her? How long should I microwave the food for?
Further complicating my isolation was the embarrassment I felt complaining about my loneliness to others because my material circumstances were so comfortable. Since quitting my job, I traveled to Florida a handful of times, visited Mexico three times, flew first-class to Hawaii for our baby moon, and traveled to Puerto Rico for Mother’s Day. We exchanged our 1900 square-foot-home for a 3300 square-foot-home with twenty foot ceilings. We purchased a brand new BMW outright because my old car - the one I got a year prior - didn’t comfortably fit the overpriced stroller I picked out. I am typing this with a $10,000 Cartier bracelet on my wrist. There is something fascinating about being able to buy almost anything I reasonably want and feeling like I have no acceptable way to say that I am unhappy.
Perhaps I became so steadfast in being a good wife that I consented to my own abandonment time and time again, and surrounded myself with luxuries and resentment to distract from the fault I have in this.
Time flies for John, sure.
But I was here for every minute.
Every second.
For missed bathtimes.
Middle of the night feedings.
When 6:30 p.m. turned into 8:00 p.m.
When I silently begged to hear the garage door open.
Impatiently waiting for weekends.
Then the weekends stopped feeling like weekends because work poured over.
I was also here for the smiles, and the laughs, and the firsts and for that I am grateful.
Time doesn’t fly, and the year was not short, and it didn’t go by fast.
Not for me anyway.
I swipe away from the picture and muster some half-ass response to John. I open the internet tab on my phone, and decide to purchase the cart of clothes I’d been eyeing.