I missed two days of cold plunging and completely fucked up my baby’s sleep schedule. 2 weeks earlier this ‘trip’ would have seemed so easy, her accustomed to napping on my body or in the stroller. But after my perfect-magical-wonderfully executed life-changing sleep schedule was in place I was nervous!
Check-in wasn’t until 4 so we were on the loose in the city. Beacon Hill Park was never more beautiful and in bloom, bustling with oddly tamed wildlife. Mabel screamed at the wildflowers and the blue sky. My internal monologue scripted her to say “why am I not in my bed you monster”. I felt so guilty that I had given her that stability and regulation and then just stole it away. Billy tweaked in every direction at smells, squirrels, peacocks, and ducks.
I posted on Instagram that I was at the hotel and what felt like thousands, was probably ten people asked me why I was in Victoria and my mind almost imploded. I was there for a dumb uninteresting reason. Thomas was required to attend appointments on both days and the room was compensated so I went along thinking it’d be fun. He was busy for the majority of our time there so I was handcuffed to Billy and Mabel. The overstimulation of motherhood is unhinged. I left the room thinking I could walk 9 minutes to a bookstore, maybe grab some snacks, a couple cans of beer for later. I made it a block and a half, Mabel yelling, popping on and off the boob exposing my nipple to the blur of cross-walking side-walk wanderers. Billy whip lashing me toward every pee-covered post. Frantic I returned to the brown carpeted room to re-group. Thomas signed something that ‘promised’ our pet was under 40 pounds… (something the front desk guy forgot to mention over the phone). So naturally nervous I powered through the expansive lobby head down hoping no one noticed my one-hundred-pound dog. He got spooked by the polished marble floors, each leg splayed in a different direction and his belly hit the floor in protest. I just powered on dragging my ‘tiny’ dog into the elevator. Maybe no one noticed. (Later I was recognized and told that “it was the best thing he’d seen in a while and everyone was watching it happen”).
Mabel wouldn’t settle even late into the night so she watched cable tv with us and laughed uncontrollably at the fidget spinner, deliriously tired. I brought her into the king-size bed in the middle of the night and she slept like a queen while I kept one eye open.
Day two I sent Billy with Thomas and got to wander around with just the baby and stroller. I clumsily clunked through a coffee shop door and then slowly trailed behind a man zig-zagging with a beer can. We walked swirls through Beacon Hill and along the sea. Mabel magically fell asleep so I just kept walking in my nude flats a size too large. The trip really redeemed itself when I found a prepaid visa I got for Christmas and bought a fly pair of New Balances.
We were anticipating a late lunch with a friend and I wasn’t extremely relaxed about it because if Mabel didn’t nap again beforehand I knew I’d just be juggling her and dancing around the restaurant trying not to bother anyone. I went into Opus for the first time in years, an artist’s safe haven, stationary and paints so tranquil Mabel fell asleep again. So, naturally, I didn’t want to leave and risk waking her too early so I had to buy a bunch of awesome stuff like a sketchbook made in France. I awkwardly whispered to the cashier, secretly annoyed that he even tried making conversation.
Lunch was pleasant and heading home was surprisingly bad when all a sudden I was consumed by anxiety and invasive thoughts about being in a car crash. In the passenger seat, my foot was sore from hitting ‘the break’ so hard at any glimpse of a tail light or lane changer.
But we made it. And I am going to stay home for a while.
Doing things is hard.
The Art.
The Reality
