This is me, being 32.
See, this is me, being 36 weeks pregnant. A fact I kept off the Internet. At first non-intentionally, and then just because I could. Because I’d gone months without posting a staticky sonogram, or an artful shot of my gently swelling stomach, and why not keep it up?
Before I gave birth to Alex, the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie also had a child. She never announced it, did no publicity, and chalked it up to not wanting to “perform pregnancy,” a phrase that lives rent-free inside my head. I did not want to perform pregnancy. I was already a vessel to my wonderful baby boy, I didn’t want to become only a vessel to the world at large as well.
And although the pregnancy was just over half of this past year, it still seemed interminable. I look back at pictures from the before times, and wonder if it was all a glorious dream. Was there ever a time I wasn’t miserably pregnant? Truly, honestly?
And yet, as 31 dawned, I wouldn't ever believe I’d be in this precise place when it set. Life was drastically different. I had absolutely zero plans of being pregnant. I would have broken down sobbing to know that I went back to teaching. And I would have guffawed in your face to think that Texas, of all the miserably backwards places,* would be the closest I’ve ever felt to home.
As I type, I’m staring at my beautiful baby boy, all wide eyes and solemn stares. I’m coming off my best educational year ever (yes, this COVID-soaked, hybrid-teaching chaos of a year), hyped about unit plans and even data collection, spurred on by a teaching partner so amazing I’m still pinching myself that she’s real. And I’m sitting in a house with year-round Halloween decorations and a room dedicated to instruments.
There were two songs on constant rotation this year. This kick-awesome RatM anthem was one, as I re-entered education and took my power back after a disastrous school placement. And then, once it dropped, I became obsessed with this incredibly smooth Anderson .Paak/Bruno Mars collaboration. I mean, watch each and every video. It's astounding.
I enjoy those as a representation of my life. I'm deeply satisfied right now. Yet, as with everything, there’s room for better.
32, I took that power back, but I'll still leave the door open for more.
*and yes, I do still find it politically and infrastructurally backwards, thanks to mewling conservative sycophants of a governor/other state reps. Vote them out! But this is a beautiful place! But down with misguided libertarianism! Oh, the conflicting feelings! My emotions!
