Halfway Up

Shaggy and I spent an unusually contented two hours alone together Saturday evening, while Mr. C and The Poo went to Mass.

Normally we go to church, as well, but the boy had a string of bad days and even worse nights. He was finally asleep when it was time to leave for Saturday evening vigil, and I made the executive decision that waking him was NOT A GOOD IDEA.

About 30 minutes after the others left, he woke up.

I gathered him up, pessimistically hopeful that he might be calm. He looked up at me with his father’s eyes and yawned. He stretched, and then cooed.

“Cooooo,” I breathed back at him, smiling despite myself. He makes these noises infrequently; I love the sound of a new baby talking.

We sat and played and discussed the differences between our nose and our toes, our bellies and our faces. I let my hair tickle his cheeks and I kissed him a hundred different ways. My heart, so bruised and tender these days, quickened in my chest as his eyes followed me.

Remembering songs from The Poo’s baby days, I stood with him in my arms and began to sway while singing:

Oh, the grand old duke of york

He had ten thousand men

He marched them up to the top of hill

And he marched them down again

Oh, ’cause when you’re up you’re up

And when you’re down you’re down

And when you’re only halfway up

You’re neither up nor down

I laughed at the baby’s expression, and suddenly felt tears prickle behind my eyes, as happens so often these days. Halfway up, I thought. That’s me.

Right now is an in-between time. The baby, The Poo, my post-partum body, Mr. C’s insistence that we talk about the job market for his field … all of it. Nothing in our lives – my life – is fully up or down right now.

We will depart Chambana next fall one way or another, one job or another. Our time is up. No more credit hours means no more fellowships and, more critically, no more health insurance. I knew this time was coming, but when we got here two years ago it seemed as though a lifetime would pass before we moved on.

Now we are starting to talk about the jobs, and where they are, and how far from our families we are willing to go …

I didn’t think it would be hard to leave here. But it will be, if for no other reason than I just don’t want to start again, again. New house, new friends, new towns, new schools, new grocery stores and dry cleaners – all of these new starts lay just around the bend.

Just as our house starts to feel like home, I have to remind myself that it is only temporary shelter.

All of this is coming at me with what feels like the speed of light. I am clearly overwhelmed (and have been, if I am honest, for months), but I’m functioning.

There was a time when this neither up nor down state of affairs would have had me on my knees, but now I find I am coping. Yes, I am weepy. Yes, I am fearful and anxious. Yes, some days I wish I could turn back the clock.

But while I may only be halfway up, I am not completely down, and for that I am grateful.