Enough Space to Be Okay
They say infants don’t realize they’re out of the womb until about six months post-birth. But what about the owners of those wombs? When do we feel our premises have been wholly vacated?
My son is seven years old and while he is steadily establishing his independence, I can still feel him squirming — after he’s climbed into my bed at 4 a.m. and spreads his long pinwheel limbs over and onto me; when we’re curled up under blankets on the living room couch, watching movies he loves that no one else remotely even likes (looking at you, Evan Almighty) and his big toe challenges my big toe to an impromptu wrestling match; while he’s up to bat, swinging at balls thrown by droopy-eyed Little League coaches and missing nearly every one of them in actual slow-motion.
That last one is a phantom squirm I feel in my throat.
We are not always together, physically speaking — this summer he’s been attending day camp Monday through Friday while I work a busy 9 to 6 job — yet, really, we are always together. I am both beautifully and painfully tethered to him.
Every August we travel to Gloucester, MA, from our home in New Jersey to spend a week with my parents in a rental house that’s situated on picturesque Good Harbor beach. The house is sought after by renters for its location — mere steps away from the sand — but its insides fall short of…
