Treasure

It's been a while, but I did say I wouldn't blog unless I really had the feels about something and wanted to write about it. It took me some time to recover from looking after FBC, after which I fell into a sort of disgruntled-I-want-to-go-back-to-work-NOW funk where I felt unappreciated, and funnily enough, overworked (the irony of that is not lost on me). And it was then that I realised that looking after a baby is kind of like any other job, in that it is possible to get burnt out. The only problem, of course, is that one cannot take leave or quit.

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I've been thinking lately about what I've learnt these past almost ten months of looking after FBC. Topping that list at this point in time is probably the fact that I've come to see how much he is his own person, and should be given the space and freedom to develop accordingly. As I told R, I feel like having a child is like welcoming a new friend into your life and getting to know them, except that you gave birth to that friend. And there is the very pressing issue of deciding when one's child should be disciplined. When they can't really communicate with you, it's not easy to decide when they're being truly naughty, or just being babies. I hope that with God's help we've been doing a decent job of this so far. . . But in any event, FBC won't remember any unwarranted spankings he received at this age, will he?

Coming a close second and third respectively would be levelling up on cooking skills, and inculcating the discipline and determination to get housework done. No kidding.

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Last night, at a friend's wedding dinner, I misunderstood something another friend was trying to tell me, and I inadvertently brought up something which would have been better left unsaid. I felt really bad as soon as the words left my mouth and I realised that that wasn't what he was trying to talk to me about, and I felt terrible all the way home and when I woke up this morning. I remember how it feels to hear things you're probably better off not hearing, knowing things which cannot then be unknown (sort of like the plot of Gone Girl, or any of Gillian Flynn's three books. It's just not possible to read them with the same excitement again). I don't like the feeling of knowing that I've upset someone, or put a damper on what should have been a fun, carefree night of after-partying.

After I'd apologised and thought about it some more, I remembered when I found out something about Jon from someone else which I would definitely have been better off not knowing. It used to matter so much, and was something I felt so insecure about for days and months and years, but in light of our three years or so of marriage and our almost ten months with FBC, it had become insignificant, something I couldn't unknow but not something I kept knowing, either. It's like accepting that this thing happened and will always be a part of one of the people you love most in the world, but it's no longer part of your definition of them. 

I shouldn't have said what I said, and I definitely know what it's like to hold on to things one should have let go of long ago. But as things cannot be unsaid and facts cannot be unknown, I hope that we will in time come to see how little some things matter and live past them, finally grasping the contentment and joy our immaturity momentarily, inevitably, prevents us from reaching.