The mom, the Covid killjoy.

I am a good mom. I am a Covid killjoy.

It was Thanksgiving weekend when I got us all dressed up. A flowy dress and a bold, maroon lip. I put on my favourite perfume. I moved a clean diaper and fresh wipes from the diaper bag to my party purse. I even straightened my hair. I put my baby in a never-worn pink princess dress and my husband wore a suit.

ETA. Twenty minutes.

Excited would have been an understatement. I missed, more than anything, being around other people… grown up people. After eighteen months of No’s… No, too much schoolwork… No, I can’t, my baby doesn’t act right in Cafes… No, that’s her naptime, No I have a project due.

I finally said Yes.

We pulled up amongst a tetris of cars. The square, one-story building in the middle of Boston, was oozing colourful, happy bodies. They made their way in and out of the building. Music could have been heard from our hotel room. My darling baby and party purse was in my arms and I was ready to enter the party. Once we did, it was so loud that I had to scream into my husband’s ear to ask him where the washroom was. I needed a quiet place to protect her little eardrums. There was no washroom and no quiet space to be. Kids scurried about, their parents weren’t worried. Not one mask in sight. There’s definitely Covid in there.

I followed my husband to the car as he left to find someplace better to park… I decided there was no way I could keep my baby there. We could just wait in the car. I could play some music through the bluetooth and me and my baby could have our own little dance party.

My husband refused because, like the incredible man he is, he didn’t feel like it was safe letting us stay in the car in an area of Boston that he wasn’t familiar with. He insisted on driving us back to the hotel. He drove fast.

He said “didn’t you know we were coming to a party?” I didn’t know it would be like this. I thought there would be a quiet place for me and my baby to retreat. As usual, it was my fault. I was the Covid killjoy and I should have known better than to say Yes in the first place. And now I had wasted an hour of his precious party time driving us to the hotel and then driving himself all the way back and I was the bad guy.

Well, didn’t he know we were coming to a party?

Why is it my responsibility to know?

Why can’t he killjoy sometimes?

I kept my daughter in her gorgeous little dress and we danced to Cocomelon in the hotel room. We played for hours and we had way more fun with me than she would have at that party. There was no place I would have rather been than there. I felt proud that I did what I needed to do to protect my baby. Proud for changing my Yes to a No based on nothing but intuition.

Still, settled in the depths of my throat was that lump of loneliness. A small bitterness on my tongue at the thought of my husband dancing and singing amongst grown ups without a pinch of anxiety. A bitterness that never escaped the confines of myself, in fear of those assumptions being made about me as a mother. I already felt like a shell of a person… I would not be made into a bad mother.

I am a good mom. I am a Covid killjoy.

I may not be sick, but I’m tired.

The concept of being a killjoy is derived from Sara Ahmed’s A Killjoy Manifesto (please, read it!)

My name is Ala, with the A’s short and sweet. I’ll be posting into the void everyday, for clarity. Thank you (yes, you) for reading. ❤