To all the Mums I've known before... I'm sorry
Words: Sarah Tarca // @tarca
Image: Karim Manjra // Unsplash
I can’t remember when the lightbulb went off. Two, maybe three months in. Probably just as I emerged from the fourth trimester and was able to start doing more in my day than just get up, feed (him, not me) and on the odd occassion, even shower. The phonecalls had long stopped. No one was ‘checking in’ anymore. I had a three-month-old, and I’d managed to keep him alive so far, so why would they? Plus, I had a partner at home, albeit, one that also had to work from home every day. So I couldn’t be lonely. Or sad. Or overwhelmed – could I?
So why did I feel like that?
But, in those long, long twilight hours of endless feeding where you don’t know if this is the first or sixth wake - or if you’re actually even awake yourself – it wasn’t my own loneliness that would make my stomach lurch in that special kind of way where you know you’ve really f*cked up. The tears, and the guilt were for all the Mums I’ve known before. Because that’s when I realised I had been a terrible friend to them.
It was for my friends who’d had babies three or five years earlier. It was for the colleagues I had managed during their pregnancies and the Mums I’d had on staff after. It was for every Mum that had ever accidentally rammed me in the heel on a packed Sydney sidewalk as I was rushing to get somewhere and they were just surviving through their day.
Because, at the time I thought I was being compassionate, that I understood, and was giving you the support you needed. I thought I was being a good friend when I asked how the baby was, and if it was sleeping through. I thought it was cute to come visit, and to bring ridiculous baby shoes and a card. Because the truth was, that was all I knew. That’s what I thought support was. And yes, time passed and my life became self-involved, or work got more stressful, or whatever, and I stopped checking in. Life just went on for me as normal. And if I’m being honest, on reflection, I probably expected you to be the same as your pre-baby self too. To not be late, or forgetful, to be able to juggle a million things, and to always show up at some birthday thing despite it being right on nap time. All this makes me cringe now, knowing I forgot to hold space for you. And I’m sorry. Because you were the trailblazers who had your shit together enough to have kids before me, but it also means you had to do it even more alone than me.
At the time, I didn’t know better because in reality this is the kind of thing you only know when you know. And now I have been in that place; at the emotional intersection of who I was versus who I am now, juggling the needs of someone who needs me in every sense of the word, with my own complete depletion and constantly asking myself if there is anything left to give. In those times, it didn’t matter that I had a partner at home. Or that I was three months into motherhood. None of those things made it easier in the sleep deprived moments where everything felt too overwhelming, and just too damn hard.
A friend and new mama I spoke to about this recently likened it to grieving. And she’s not wrong. Like me, she had lost a parent, and she said it’s exactly like when someone dies. After the initial outpouring of calls and concern, it all just peeters off. People go back to their lives while you’re there grappling with your new one. This strange, ill-fitting one, that looks nothing like the one you had before. This is the time you need the phonecall. The visit. The coffee. Or as Meghan Markle put it recently “to be asked if I was OK”.
Not long after I had my ‘moment’ I was walking with a friend, and mum of two, the second of which was only weeks younger than Yuki. She was one of those friends who had really showed up for me. Who came over, always with food, only for short spurts of time. Who brought breast pads, and coffee, and told me I was doing a good job. That day when she asked how I was, I broke down. “I’m so sorry I was such a shit friend to you,” I said. “When you had your first son, I wasn’t there. I texted a couple of times. I maybe bought you a dumb toy… but I was a shit friend.” And because she is gracious and lovely and IS that friend she just said “it’s OK. How were you to know?”
And she’s right. As much as it’s not an excuse, I just didn’t know any better. I didn’t know how hard it was. I didn’t get how sleep deprivation ravages your soul, or how the intensity of your love can sometimes make you want to hug them till you both can’t breath, the same love that makes you want to leave drinks early even though you’ve been looking forward to time alone for weeks. I couldn’t comprehend the effect it would have on my relationship and how complex those feelings would be. I didn’t get how self-perception shattering it would be to give yourself so wholely to someone, or how suddenly you just couldn’t do as much or remember as much and how much you’d struggle with new, solo-tasking you who counted sending a complete email as a productive. I didn’t get it.
But now I know. Because I know. And I’m a better friend, and better human for it. So I’m sorry to all to all the Mums I known before before I had Yuki. I’m sorry for not checking in, not asking about you enough, or your relationship, or just making you a goddamn tea. It must’ve been hard for you, and I want to acknowledge that. I hope you had someone like my friend Katie checking in on you, because I know that person wasn’t me. But from now on, it always will be.