On My Mind

Turning 27, missing studenthood, my wild daughter, and chocolate cake made of coffee

I’ve cleaned the kitchen, bathed the babies and kissed their wet little heads with their fine brushed hair as I laid them down to sleep, tidied up Kit’s crayons, scribbled rolls of paper stretched across the dining table. Showered and applied my creams, my serums. And now, here I am, clean and tired, nestled into the couch beside Annie. The house, at last, is quiet but for the sound of the library ceiling fan that sounds like the fan in my grandma’s guest room, where my cousin and I would lay in bed in the summertime, watching the windows for the lights of our family from Kansas pulling in. Or I’d lay there after she’d fallen asleep, the air a little too stuffy, a little too warm, wishing for morning.

After all of this, the routine of winding down, I’m happy to sit on the couch by myself for a little while, but then I’ll hear a baby sigh through the monitor, and I’ll be wishing for morning, too.

The thick heat of summertime has loosened its grip on our little town the past few weeks, after a few long awaited rainstorms rolled in, the beginnings of cold fronts that promised to stay awhile. After an entire summer of walking morning and night, in attempts to maintain low blood sugar readings for my gestational diabetes, I haven’t wanted to shake the routine, and the ability to do these walks in temperatures below one hundred now is a heavenly gift I try to take advantage of every single day. So I take the babies to a sunny and hilly route, in my one pair of biker shorts and a Stanley full of ice water, my AirPods playing old playlists from college.

Yesterday, I listened to my playlist from sophomore year, voice memoing my college roommate when Lizzo’s “Good As Hell” came on, rattling on about how these playlists are so random, as I organize them not based on vibe, but on time periods. Which leaves me with highly curated playlists to be enjoyed by, really, only me. Because I can turn any of these on and be transported to a season of my life immediately: “swim meets, “summer job,” “driving home from band,” “running in between swim lessons,” “summer before I graduated.”

I chose sophomore year yesterday morning, because that was the year I started running seriously, training for a half marathon that December. I would wake up before the sun and drive to the high school track to do sprints, wind my way through campus on Saturday mornings for long runs. It unlocked a love for my feet on pavement, a time to think, a time to listen. Coldplay, Demi Lovato, the score of The Crown, Justin Timberlake, Ariana, Vance Joy, Percy Grainger.

My mind keeps returning to the same thoughts the past few days. Silly ones, like my extensive reviews of The Summer I Turned Pretty every Wednesday night, my literary exploration into why this show meant for teenagers has captured the attention of seemingly the entire country. More profound ones, ones of parenthood, of missing my friends, of time. Then creative ones, or, at least, wishfully creative, as I yearn for time to write a book, for an idea to spark, for a place to burn a candle and write. And so I told myself to remember my beloved blog, where I have beloved readers and a place to practice my craft, to share my thoughts. Here I am.

In regard to The Summer I Turned Pretty, I’ve found myself counting down the minutes until Wednesday after the babies have closed their little eyes, and I can sit with a bowl of ice cream and the remote in hand (for consistent pausing and rewinding) as I watch the final installment of this book made television series. I’ve shared at length on my Instagram that I do really think this show is very primary, lacking in quality writing and especially in quality acting, remove Conrad Fisher played by Chris Briney. However, my favorite part of Wednesday nights is when the show is finished, and I scurry to TikTok to join the online commentary, to listen to the absolute comedians sharing their thoughts on the episode I just watched. And then I settle into the academic corner of the internet, the readers dissecting this show as if we were in AP Literature, sitting in those blue plastic chairs, sharing our interpretations of The Yellow Wallpaper. And I think this is where I find the reason I have enjoyed the past ten weeks of such a silly show…in this shared sense of comradery over loving hidden meanings and symbolism and character development and dialogue.

It reminds me of my English courses in college, the ones I took from a whimsical professor named Dr. Wink. These classes always had less than ten students and took place around an old conference table in a room with no windows. I was an English writing minor and felt like an imposter most of the time when I was in my English classes, but in these, the ones where we spent the afternoon, always the afternoon slot, dissecting each other’s writings, I felt right at home. I had this thought as I was driving a few days ago, passing by our town’s elementary school. And it turned into my wondering why in the world did I ever dread school? The concept of school itself, now, as an adult, sounds wonderful. A place to see my friends every single day, to pick out an outfit and wear perfume, a place to study things that interest me. It made me wonder why college takes place when we’re so young, as I would have enjoyed the academic aspect of it so much more these days than I did then. Of course, I understand why I didn’t love high school (they weren’t all English classes), and I understand why college can’t be in our late twenties (we have to make a living), but this thought, stemmed from The Summer I Turned Pretty, reminded me of my love of being a student.

Which one could say I’m still a student today, a student of motherhood. My homeroom teacher being an incredibly difficult professor named Kit, who lacks patience and mercy and assigns far too much homework. She has a teacher’s aide, Henry, who is too scared of her to say much at all, except to cry and disrupt the class every hour and a half or so, adding to the tense learning environment. And the principal, Annie, is currently contemplating quitting her job due to stress.

I have been laughing at myself recently as I think back to the first two or three weeks of Henry being at home, when I marveled at how well my mind was coping in comparison to my first stint postpartum. With Kit, I felt darkness settle like fog on my mind every day around four o’clock, consumed with dread for the nighttime, for midnight feedings, for the crying I knew I would partake in over any odd little thing. But with Henry, I came home and felt normal. I felt confident, I felt prepared, I felt content. And I credit that to my Kit, my baby girl who has steadied me since her brother was born by her presence alone. But now, my laughter at myself is due to how quickly the times can change. Kit has gone from my steadiness to my tornado. Just today, it happened like a switch. We were in the nursery, Henry watching the ceiling fan as I folded towels next to him, Kit flipping through her library books and arranging jelly stickers on her closet mirror, occasionally placing one on my calf, on Henry’s head. And then she decided she wanted to drag her basket of books onto the carpet. When it caught on the corner, she urgently started saying “Help, help, help!” and when I told her the basket was okay right there, she collapsed into snotty tears, high pitched screams. I eventually left her to put Henry in his bassinet and fix her a lunch plate, going every two minutes to check on my screaming daughter, only to find her crumpled in a ball, apparently just walking around her room and collapsing every few feet. We turned on some music and sat at the kitchen counter together after I held her tightly to my chest, promising her it’s okay to be angry, to be sad, but, take it from me, it doesn’t ever really help to explode. (One day I hope my words will soothe her, but at least today, my voice alone can attempt to help.) We finished lunch and then put her down for a nap and that was that. No longer my steady force, or at least for the time being. My Kindle and my show and my walks will fill in until she calms down.

I turned 27 this week, entering into the portion of life where I have to do quick mental math before confirming my age, as I’m not reminded of it constantly, as we were in high school and college, what with milestones and celebrations. I told Price the night before that I’d be spending the day with people who had no idea it was my birthday. Then I corrected myself: people who have no idea what a birthday even is (my children). And the day went as I expected, tears welling up as I read messages from my earliest friends, just at the fact they remembered. On my walk, I listened to my high school playlist, experiencing the magic of time travel again. I thought about my childhood friends and how dearly I miss them. I saw one at a wedding I was in a few weekends ago (a wedding for another childhood friend), and I felt like I could have cried when he hugged me goodbye, as the next time we see each other isn’t guaranteed these days, these days of adulthood. It could be months, it could be years. My mom asked to take our picture, and I want to frame it as evidence the friendship is still living, invisible but for a string that gets picked up every once and a while. Why do birthdays do this? This heartbreaking self-reflection? I thought about how old I’ll be when Kit is my age, how thankful I am to be having babies in my twenties, when my body feels so strong still. And then I pushed the double stroller up a hill, churning my legs as fast as I could go.

We spent the rest of the day back in our pajamas and then the night at my parents’, where my mom made my favorite three layer chocolate cake that calls for coffee in the recipe. I catch myself not wanting to leave when we’re all together like that, nearly wishing our spouses and my children would go back home and leave me and my brother there like teenagers. But alas, Price and I drove back home with a car of two crying babies, me ending the night rocking Kit and saying our prayers out loud.

In my 27^th year, I hope I become a better mother, a better wife, daughter, sister. I hope I read more, and write more. I am toying with the idea of sharing chapters every month or so of a fictional story here on Substack, just getting my wheels turning for a novel one day. Perhaps this will be the year my story connects itself in my mind, and I make the time to write it all down.

I guess we’ll see.