3 Jan 2025
Last night I dreamt that my marriage was ending, and someone asked me where I’d like to be right now. I said, “in a bathhouse, on a beach or getting lost in Japan.” In the dream-state drawn out ending of the relationship, I had to tell my younger child that I was sorry things were going to change, and that I promised — whichever parent had him that night — that we would try a different Japanese restaurant every Monday for a regular food adventure ritual.
A year of parenthood tomorrow.
And this craving to be in all of these dream scenarios is more about my craving to be alone. To be not needed. To be in my own world. And, for that regular special Monday evening treat.
All of which I do very little of these days. All of which I really enjoy, and have really missed.
And this is perhaps my biggest wrestle with being a parent: my solitude.
—
At 10pm last year, I was on all fours on my apartment floor. I’ve used up all the hot water from my shower. My contractions were at 5minute intervals. This was 10 days before our due date.
At 10pm tonight, Miki was walking up and down the hallway still ready to play. This, in spite of having only had two 15minute naps today.
Both scenarios reveal a lot of who Miki is. She is eager and ready for the world, keen for an adventure and always up for a social time.
4 Jan 2025
We throw a little party for her, and for us. For keeping her alive. For still being here after the year that was.
During the birthday song, she realised the room was singing and cheering for her. As she clocked the attention, she raised both arms like an orchestra conductor and the room cheered again. The look on her face when she recognised that it was she who made that happen will be etched in my brain for a very long time.
8 Jan 2025
I’ve had my parents here since mid-December. We said our stoic goodbyes. Even Miki had gone all quiet and pensive, processing a change she didn’t quite understand, but knew something was palpable.
The car drove off and the tears arrived.
Later that evening, Miki walks into the empty guest room, looking for her pre-bedtime playmates.
—
These three weeks with my parents have been one of my favourite times spent with them in my adult life and memory. Perhaps it is the presence of your own child — in this shared domestic space, we are all developing new roles and relationship dynamics with each other. Letting go of previous ideas of each other, and responding to who we are right now. Me as child now also as parent. Them as parent now grandparent with this now sort of toddler with her own mind. She — finding her own connections with each one of us.
Adult relationships with parents, or any other family for that matter, are complicated things. And these relationships take different shapes depending on whose house you are in — theirs, and you default to childhood tensions; yours, and you have to define new terms of relationality and power. We also often act on an unconscious impulse reliant on familiarity. Throw in health challenges and ageing, and the complications multiply.
But I am grateful that these three beautiful weeks have reminded me — and I credit this to the wonderful people that my parents are — is that, like every relationship you develop as an adult, the other person is real and living, with their own will, interests and desires (and their own sets of challenges, pain and grief), capable of their own moderations and response. They are, like you, capable of growing and evolving. And, like you, have in fact grown and evolve over the years. And chances are — they are not who you thought you knew of them from when you were a child, or ten years ago, or even last month. Especially when you don’t see each other on a daily basis.
All this to say — I really enjoyed getting to know my parents again, and in this way. And in the distance, I miss them deeply, the parents of my past, and also the parents that they’ve been and keep becoming.
How precious to hold on to that curiosity we often have for new friends for family instead?
—
Jul – Dec 2024; a recap
We moved into our new home. The pottering to organise the place never seems to end, but it is well and truly lived in now. And I love cooking in that kitchen. I love waking up in my bedroom. I love the amount of sunlight I get in there. I love that the shoes have a place to be tucked away at the entrance. I love watching Miki crawl, and then walk, up and down the hallways. I love where it is, and walking out to be in the thick of life. I love that it is quiet when the doors are closed. Most of all, I love that it is ours to continue filling the colours in together, all three of us and the dog.
We went on an epic adventure across Chennai, Singapore, Broome and a surprise one-night in Perth. We witnessed so much love and joy and friendship at Nithya and James’ wedding. We were held by the aunties and cousins back home. We swam in warm saltwater with the cousins and fixed a flat tire on red dirt. We found rest with old friends at a much needed moment. And we finally arrived home.
We navigated childcare with a nanny as we wait for a daycare spot, and who we have now is a new family friend I hope to always have in our lives. I left the job, but I started to work again. I brought Miki in to the theatre for developments, tried to fit a weekly Pilates session in, trawled through the backlog of emails and life admin, revisited projects in the making since 2018, and started joining dots of thoughts and ideas I’ve had for a long time into new project shapes. The momentum is building nicely, quicker than I had anticipated, and I’ve had to take my foot off the accelerator at times to keep pace.
It is a strange feeling — I feel behind, like I’m in a constant state of catching up. Except, these are all self-directed timelines. So what’s the rush?
—
It feels like underneath the work stuff, I am also catching up to who I have already become. But haven’t had the time to get to know.
And this too, finds its form in a quiet loneliness.
In this year (and likely in the years to come), moving to a pace set by the workings of a child — this is a rhythm that I have gotten used to — also deeply frustrates me because it is continually challenging my autonomy over my sense of time and what I do with it. And as I’ve written about previously — I might have done the primary-stay-at-home-mother role a tad longer than ideal for me. And the holiday season, whilst joyful and social and nourishing in ways, have also added to a feeling of life being on a standstill.
I am feeling hungry to focus on my creative pursuits. My ambition to make and make happen things I have been and continue to dream up bubble away.
I miss the emotional intimacy with my dearest friends — which comes with being available for long conversations and saying yes to spontaneous hangs.
I wrestle (almost resent, but it’s too strong a feeling to admit to) with the boredom and relentlessness of mundane repetitive chores — the domestic load that has by default, multiplied by having a child and by being the primary carer at home.
And I grief the loss of myself — not in the sense of my identity — but under the mountain of life admin and logistics in order to do all of the above, and to do them just well enough, it’s like all I do is life admin and logistics.
Check another thing off the list, and then it’s the next mealtime and another set of dishes to be washed. Not before yet another load of laundry to hang up. Oh wait, change a diaper before you can leave the house to pick up groceries for dinner. But do it on the way back from the park. And round and round we go.
—
So in wading through the mud of this period of my life, I keep returning to my dream.
I have considered this often in previous relationships. But never has this been more true.
My marriage as I know it is indeed ending, almost continually — the exponential changes that come with a growing child does mean that the relationship between J and I, as parents, partners and lovers, is also always changing. How could it not?
And if I am feeling like a stranger to my own self — then who is this person who I live with also becoming? And what does he know about who I am?
Not a lot. As this emotional distance would have you feel.
—
But to be fair, it is probably much more than you think. If you really think about it.
If only it didn’t require more admin and logistics to carve the time and space and activities out to remind you.
For our anniversary, J had organised for Dan and Clair to watch Miki while we went to lunch at Carnation Canteen on a warm October Sunday afternoon. I put on a new outfit and had lipstick on. We came home to a napping baby, and freshly printed photos strung up on the wall, including the one of us before we left the house.
For months, Miki would point to it and get up close to look at it. It became a playful way of identifying “who’s Miki, Mummy, Daddy, Allan, Dan and Clair” — and it was this easy reminder of that beautiful afternoon. Of time with the person I love. Of marking this relationship. Of having friends who are family. Of being loved. Of loving others. Of sunshine. Of a good meal in the city I love. Of a home.
And then like many things, it’s still there, but have somehow faded into the background. And it would be Miki who would be teaching me this lesson right now — to point, and say “look, mummy, look!”
Look lah.
—
I started prioritising reading fiction again. Books stacked bedside. Actively resisting the mindless phone scroll. Sometimes I am interrupted to feed Miki as J does bedtime with her. Sometimes I continue reading for a bit more as she sleeps next to me.
I cannot go get lost in Japan right now. But wandering through the worlds of these stories really is the next best thing.
And the added pleasure of seeing a book go on the wall-to-wall full-length shelf in the study after I am done with it. That’s another thing I love about our new home.
So I’ll take every little joy I can get (including finishing this writing as I have brunch by myself on a nanny day) — because against the toddler-sized joy in front of me, it really does add up.
The rhythms will change again (and again) as we navigate bouts of separation, new skills, teething and illnesses, independence and so on. And these waves of joy and loneliness will rise and fall. So will the seasons of closeness and distance.
Daycare starts in February. And I’m looking forward to what the set days will mean for myself and for my own pursuits. To wander through my thoughts and my dreams.
To meet this person — myself — again, and more deeply.
And then from which to do the same for J, and for my family and friends.
But mostly and firstly, for myself.
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