I went to visit another new mom earlier this week: bless her heart, she's nursing twins. I don't know if I'd be able to keep up with multiples; sometimes I feel lucky to be able to make it through the day without dropping Gigi on her head or accidentally burning the house down. And I'm not even going to work.
Not going to work still hasn't fully sunk in; I can't get past the feeling that I'm playing hooky or something. I used to feel a certain guilty pleasure sitting in a coffee joint in the middle of the day. The pleasure is still there, and the guilt is dissipating. However, I have to pick my coffee joints carefully.
A few days ago I was at this place I used to haunt with girlfriends. It took me a while to realize I was one of the only customers without a notebook computer, and I was the only one with a stroller. If they were checking credentials, I could have shown them a cellphone, I guess. But seriously, I think I was the only one there who wasn't in the throes of left-leaning academia and/or artistic angst. I didn't want to breathe too deeply, for fear of choking on a lungful of earnestness. It's not that I felt unwelcome in my old stomping grounds, I just felt like I didn't belong there anymore. It's like putting on a pair of old shoes, well-worn and lovingly broken in, and finding out that they're giving you blisters.
I finished my coffee, put my baby in the Volvo station wagon with its radio stations preset to public radio channels, and drove back to my single-family dwelling in the suburbs. I'm starting to feel that demographic shift sinking in.