All By Myself

I am not going to be alone in my house until October.

For someone who believes being alone is to be savored, to be swirled and sipped and nursed like expensive whiskey, this is a very long time.

Solitude is among the signal sacrifices of childrearing, and I expected to lose some, but I hadn't quite mapped out the extent of my deprivation until yesterday.  My daughter will go to daycare when she's three months old, and until then, she or she and my husband or she and my son or she and my husband and my son will always be with me in the house.

It's true that, since this is my second tour of infancy, my standards have lowered, and that being with my daughter in the house, and no one else, feels far closer to being alone than being with my son did when he was an infant.  This isn't because my daughter is less demanding than he was (she's very slightly more obstreperous).  It's because the first infant takes up enormous psychological space, catalyzing anxiety and bombarding identity, whereas by the time the second rolls around you mostly just treat her as a sentient alarm clock.

Plus you've garnered some additional experience living with toddlers and preschoolers, and infants seem quite restful in comparison.

These are exaggerations, but there's truth in every exaggeration, the spear of wood at the heart of the popsicle.

Still, I miss being genuinely alone.  No one looking at me, no one looking to me, no interruptions dangling over me  like miniature swords of Damocles.  I don't require much.  A room, a window, a glass of water.