The one thing that really won't happen again
chase · Tue, Jan 5, 2016I went back to work yesterday, so after two weeks of spending nearly every waking hour with Misty and Milo, I had to be apart from them for most of the day. And it will happen again today, and tomorrow, and two more days this week, and another five days every week for the foreseeable future.
Ever since Milo was born, we’ve had parents telling us things like “don’t blink” and “cherish these moments,” and we know we should, and we’ve been doing our best. Misty in particular has kept up incredibly well with writing for this blog, so that even if we can never relive what’s happening now, we can at least remember it. I haven’t kept up so well with writing or with reading what Misty writes, and so that leaves me with only my memory, which is terrible. Just last night, Misty was reminiscing about how Milo was once — in the first few weeks — so small and so immobile that we could lay her whole body down to rest atop a pillow. It sounds plausible, but I don’t remember that. And that hurts a little.
I’m not even experiencing as much as I’d like, because for the relatively small subset of Milo’s waking hours that I’m home, I don’t fixate on her. Instead I fall back to the habits I had before she was born; I’m drawn to spend time in the ways I always have. I don’t want to give anything up. First and foremost, I don’t want to touch or kiss or talk to or laugh with Misty any less. This is a big one; I constantly catch myself (or Misty catches me) lingering on her for another joke, or another kiss, or just to have a bit more adult conversation, when I could be sitting with Milo and training her to laugh at my jokes, or at least watching her roll over or grab things just a bit better than she did the day before.
But I also don’t want to give up doing an excellent job at Goodreads. Or reading books, or the news. Or doing my own bicycle maintenance. Or wasting time on the Internet. Or trying new recipes. And in fact, I want more time for those things; I want to do a better job at Goodreads, I want to read more books, I want to try more adventurous and healthful recipes. I want to volunteer. I want to keep in touch with old friends. I want to work on side projects. I want to write.
Movies have been a particular challenge because I used to see them all the time with Misty; they were a blissful combination of two things I loved. Now we can’t go. We tried with The Martian, but Milo wouldn’t stay settled, and we doubt our luck would be any better with a longer movie like The Force Awakens. The latest tug on my heartstrings is The Hateful Eight, which is being screened in 70mm film for a limited time in a limited number of theaters. I’m a bit of a film geek, so I really want to go, even if I go alone. But I have to pay for it: either I lose four hours with Milo and Misty, or I take time off from work and get behind, or I go at 11pm and lose precious sleep. It’s a zero-sum game.
Eventually I’ll realize the obvious, which is that none of these engagements — film screenings, professional excellence, magic moments with Misty — are as limited as Milo’s infancy, and in most cases I gotta go with the one thing that really won’t happen again.