New Year’s Eve 2005: I am standing in the boisterous, shoulder-to-shoulder crowd at the Dakota night club in Santa Cruz, Calif. As the countdown rings out, my best friend Christopher hugs me and wishes me a happy new year. Terrell, a tall, dark and gorgeous acquaintance, gives me my official kiss. I clink glasses with Anne, my fellow cancer survivor, vowing we’ll be “staying alive in 2005! We join the loud, sweaty mass of revelers on the dance floor, and stay until the bar closes.

 

New Year’s Eve 2006: I am sitting up in bed, in the silent darkness of my room, holding my one-month old infant. She is sleeping, thankfully. I am exhausted. I have just changed her diaper and fed her, seemingly for the millionth time. I have the muted television on in the background for some ambient light. They’re running a  “Twilight Zone” marathon on the Sci Fi Channel.  Suddenly, I realize what time it is.  I recall what I was doing this time last year.  Christopher is three thousand miles away, in a fabulous apartment right on the Castro in San Francisco.  Terrell has made dozens of conquests since our kiss.  Anne did not fulfill her toast vow.

Big change. 

Now obviously, I realize that any baby is a big change in anyone’s life.  But for me, it was added to a huge pile of changes that threatened to topple over and suffocate me.  In the past three years, I’d hit every item on the “top stress factors” list: death, divorce, cancer, suicide, job change, two cross-country moves, leaving friends and family, twice.  Then I found out I was pregnant, and moved back to my hometown.  And turned forty.

 

Friends learned not to ask me how I was.

 

That first winter back in New Hampshire after a decade in sunny California was brutal.  My fortieth birthday fell right in the middle of a dark, snowy February.  My baby was only two months old, and like 10 to 15 percent of women, I was still in the throes of postpartum depression.  I felt overwhelmed, exhausted, trapped and alone.  And old.

 

Having had the opportunity and pleasure of being self-centered for over thirty years, it was extremely difficult for me to shift gears and devote every waking minute to someone else.  I had plans, dammit!  I had goals!  I was on my way!  But as the old Yiddish proverb goes, “We plan.  God laughs.”

 

After the interminable six-week initiation into motherhood, things got a bit more tolerable.  My PPD eased up the day I looked down at my tiny infant and saw her smiling at me.  The icecap melted.  My friends and family heaved a collective sigh of relief, and allowed me to be around sharp objects again.

 

As the months have flown by, I see myself changing in every way imaginable.  I am no longer obsessed with my physical appearance – much to the disdain of other shoppers and bank clients, I’m sure.  Last week I left the house without remembering to brush my own hair (the baby’s hair was neatly brushed, however).  Yesterday, after realizing that I had used the tee shirt I was wearing to wipe the baby’s runny nose, I merely shrugged and wore it to the supermarket anyway.  You non-mothers are horrified; you mothers are saying “yeah?  And?”

 

My former addictions have been replaced by all-consuming yearnings for naps, reading in the tub, and a few stolen moments for a game of FreeCell.  I have many obsessive-compulsive tendencies that have fallen by the wayside.  My car is no longer the pristine oasis it used to be.  Cheerios are imbedded in the upholstery, and the back seat is strewn with stuffed animals, empty raisin boxes and water bottles.  I have come to accept that I may never see the top of my dining room table again.  And the five-second rule has been pushed back to around five minutes.

 

Do I sometimes miss the halcyon days of my California existence, being able to pick up and go anywhere, any time?  Sure.  Do I miss my friends, my career, my social life?  Of course.  But I appreciate my precious moments of freedom and autonomy more now,  and realize that I don’t have the luxury of wasting any time – on regrets, on what-ifs, on bitterness.  Que sera, sera.  Whatever will be, will be.  And the diapers, they are a-changin’.

 

Next time: The Surprising Benefits of Single Motherhood