After my parents and siblings, and before my husband and kids, I had another family. A family of friends. We were twentysomethings, banding together to make this city feel more like home. We were the same, and we were different.
We worked in advertising and publishing and not-for-profits. We had small apartments and roommates and no money. We played softball and went out dancing. We drank too much and fell for the wrong guys. We braided through each other’s lives and talked about everything that mattered and a lot of what didn’t. We loved each other and understood each other. Just like a family.
But one day, we grew
apart. Our worlds divided. Not because of a fight or a fallout. We
parted over a guy. An adorable, 8-pound, 3-ounce, bald-headed guy: my
guy, who was born in the fall of 1995. From that moment on, I was no
longer single, or simply married. I was a mother. Confused and euphoric,
lonely and obsessive; I focused so intently on that baby, I let my
family of friends drift away. They were the best friends in the world.
They stood by me through a whirlwind romance. They forgave me for
imposing bridesmaids’ duties. They listened when the honeymoon
transitioned into real life. But the baby thing was a road block.
I’m
sure I appeared Stepfordian. No longer fun, spontaneous, or free. The
single me had morphed into a serious wife; a serious mother. I was now
the distracted friend who needed to schedule every minute of every day. I
missed gatherings.
I said no to getaways. I had a myopic vision
of motherhood and impaled myself upon round-the-clock duties.
To them, it probably
seemed like drudgery, this parenting life. And I’m sure my
sleep-deprived exterior, my lack of focus and my constant need to pump
and nurse completed the unflattering picture. But what I kept private,
what I kept to myself was the overwhelming love I had fallen into. I
could stare at that baby at any moment of any day, and life was perfect.
I lost sight of everyone else. And not looking up, not seeing that
former family must have appeared so narcissistic. Who’d have wanted to
spend time with the new-mom me? I see now that being the first mom in
the group is almost as off-putting as being the first one in high school
to have a boyfriend. You can only listen to: “Isn’t he gorgeous?” so
many times before you look at your watch and run for the door. The
unspoken divider—the elephant in the nursery— was that baby. I know in
our many years together, in our countless conversations, I never fully
expressed how much I wanted to have a baby. It just wasn’t one of our
topics. As young, single, progressive New York women, we had worlds to
conquer. We were newly independent—who wanted to focus on having a
dependent? But if my need to have a baby was just below the surface; if
my thinking often turned to ticking clocks; didn’t my friends feel the
same? It couldn’t have been easy to have one of their own suddenly drop
from the circle into motherhood.
So we took a break but kept in
touch. We were friendly and polite. I never talked about how much I
missed them, although it probably showed. There must have been a sadness about me as I pushed my Peg Perego through Central Park all alone
during the work week. And when I did see them I felt self-conscious,
like I had spit-up stains on an outdated sweater while they remained
glamorous and thin. By the time baby number three arrived, the glow of
new motherhood had been replaced by the experienced exterior of a woman
who knew how to juggle many little lives. I was a professional mom by
then. I no longer passed on meeting my old friends because I was
concerned about awkward baby talk or lapses in conversation—I simply had
no room in my calendar to breathe.
Eventually life did what
life does— it moved ahead. The scales tipped and I was no longer
consumed by diaper changes and lost sleep. I could look up from my
mothering life. After nearly a decade of crazed distraction, I could
make a phone call, I could meet for lunch, I could focus on others. And
there they were: my old friends. Still funny. Still bright. Still
family. Some have married and had children; some have not. And though
none of us now have huge pockets of time, we can still talk about
everything and nothing, like no time has passed. We were always the same
and different. That’s what brought us together. And now, so many years
later, I feel lucky. You don’t often get the chance to go home again.
But I did.
Mary DiPalermo lives on the Upper West Side with her
husband and three kids, each of whom offers story ideas daily.
