Saturday, October 3, 2009

Leaving Williamsburg

I just woke up for the last time in this apartment. Tomorrow, I suppose I’ll be Live from New Jersey?!? Maybe a new title altogether.

So many things are on my mind and I doubt I will even begin to get them all down.

My brother mentioned yesterday that my son will never remember living here. Which I’ve thought about a lot and probably bothers me the most. He won’t remember the little park I took him to down the street. He won’t remember taking his first walk right down Metropolitan. He won’t remember the window that he looked out every day and yelled and the people pumping their gas at the gas station. I’ll never get to ask him what he’s saying to them.

He won’t remember most of the people. The ones we’re close to and keep in touch with, sure, but it’s those every day people. The bartender who let me come in and have hot tea in the middle of winter because I had to get out of the house with a new baby and it was the closest place to go. The women at the laundromat who were always glad to see him. The guys at the corner deli who had watched him grow up...and me before him.

The same guys that were so excited to meet my husband. That always remembered my parents when they came to town. The same guys who years earlier had busted open their bandages and peroxide and fixed me up after being mugged on the street. Who years before that I had stood in the night across the street watching with a group of their patrons and friends to be a visible presence to the thugs that somehow thought that these men had something to do with the horrors that had happened in our city because of their race and religion. We were ready to fight that night. I don’t think many of us had ever seen a fight before.

He’ll never meet many of the people from Mommy’s crazy youth. Maybe that’s better. I suppose you don’t want people around reminding your child of all of your mistakes. But it really hasn’t been like that. The people who have known me here, the ones I still see anyway, seem to look at me with awe. Excited and impressed that I grew up so well, with that glint in their eye remembering who I used to be. The ones who didn’t know me well, doing double takes on the street...”Is that that girl I used to know?...Nah.”

I’ve lived within a 10 minute walk of this spot for 9 years. In this exact apartment for the last 5. Am I ready to have a home and a yard for my son? A place where he can hopefully have a childhood that has the best of New York, but is a little more like mine...quieter and more green? Yes. Am I ready to leave the place that I’ve called home for almost 10 years? These tears I’m crying seem to say no. I hope they’re wrong.

There are so many things I’m looking forward to in the future. And so many things that scare me. But today the future starts whether I’m ready or not. I’ll take the leap, because there is no other choice. Sometimes I wish for just one more day, but how many one more days can you wish for? Better just to jump with my family and know that somehow we’ll all catch each other.

Signing off. Live from Brooklyn...one last time.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

One Year

When Carter was born, I wrote his birth story. It took the better part of 3 weeks. I had intended to keep a blog about his life.

At three months, I realized I had gotten nowhere in that endeavor. So I opened a document and titled it “Three Months”, saved it and left it there for when my thoughts were ripe. A month later, there was the same blank page staring at me.

And while I had thoughts that I wanted to say, it just seemed I didn’t have the time to put them down.

I had wanted to say how quickly it had gone as it seemed like just yesterday that he had arrived. I had wanted to say how slow it was because it seemed like he had always been a part of our lives.

There were many more thoughts that supported those two main ideas and they have since all slipped away. As with everything else in his first year that I have not recorded in writing, they will be lost forever.

I took a lot of pictures, but I’ll be hard pressed to remember what date his first smile or step was because I didn’t write it down. And that makes me sad. But it also makes me hopeful, that perhaps I was living the moment instead of chronicling it.

This first year has been full of joy and full of hardship.

No one tells you how hard it is. Oh, they say, “It’s hard.” But no one ever tells you that you’re going to lose friends. No one tells you that even once your child starts sleeping, you’ll still be too exhausted to read a book. No one tells you that you will probably resent your child on occasion because you can’t do what you’d like. No one tells you that resenting your child for a moment will make you feel incredible guilt, because what did he ever do to be resented? No one tells you that your body won’t be fully recovered, even after all this time. Sure, there are the jokes about stretch marks and saggy breasts, but no one talks about the pains that won’t go away and the endless drain.

I don’t know if anyone possibly could.

No one tells you how joyful it is. I mean, they tell you it is wonderful and not to forget this special time. But no one tells you that one smile can change your whole day. No one tells you about the excitement when he starts holding you back when you hold on to him. The lift when he waves as you walk through the door. The calm in comforting him because you know that you are there to heal his pain. No one tells you that someone needing you is what you always needed.

I don’t know if anyone possibly could. Even harder I think to describe one’s joy than one’s sorrows sometimes. Not sure if that makes me a pessimist, or if that’s just part of the human condition.

My mom was mentioning a memory yesterday that I had forgotten from only 3 years ago. I thought about memory and how some things are so dear in one person’s mind while the other person involved may not recall them at all. I had a different memory of the same week that my mother had forgotten. Both good ones, both our own even though we lived them together.

And I realized, that no matter what happens, all these memories of this year with Carter will be mine alone. My husband will have different ones, maybe a few of the same.

Carter won’t remember it at all. Even if he could, would he remember it as I have?

I hope he wouldn’t remember my near breakdowns. The fear of seeing everything for the first time. And mistakes I may have made.

I would hope he would remember it as a time where he got to know his mother for the first time and they helped each other grow. A time where he learned a lot of things. A time that was sometimes scary but always safe because we were there for him.

Happy 1st Birthday Carter. We love you very much.