I’ve been chasing time as far back as I can remember.
I went to a magnet high school for the city’s “best and brightest.” It only attracted one thing for me: misery. Draining teachers and administrators, stressed students, rules for the sake of rules. The four years couldn’t go fast enough. I was desperate to move through the world on my own terms, free from anyone and anything that would restrict my ability to wander freely.
When I finally graduated college (into the 2008 great recession), I was desperate to secure a real job. My political science and communications degree landed me the prestigious role, as a clerk at DSW Shoes.
My Nigerian dad made his case (again) for law school. He was simply upholding the “Nigerian Career Trinity”: doctor, lawyer, engineer. Given that I was much better at debating than solving mathematical equations, and that I’d nearly fainted at a previous medical internship, lawyer seemed to be the most compelling option. Not a shoe in DSW could help me outrun my dad’s case this time, so I checked out an LSAT book from my local library, and returned it immediately once I got a callback from a temp agency.
I accepted an admin position in an office with no windows, with middle-aged folks audibly counting the years until they retired. I was getting decent money and slowly losing my young sanity.
So I kept running, chasing something better.
When I landed a role as a science speechwriter in the Obama Administration, you’d think I’d finally give my legs a rest. Instead, I switched my Nikes to Nine West heels (from DSW of course). It was time to find a husband and later have a baby.
I know, chile, I’m tired just writing about all this running.
With my stiletto sprinting legs, I found my husband and had my first baby at 33 years old, perfect for my achiever timeline. I was right “on time,” except I’d been sprinting so long I didn’t know how to stop.
I carried on with my life as though I hadn’t just pushed out a whole nine-pound baby. Just a few weeks later, you could have found me sweating and squeezing milk out of my engorged breasts in the bathroom of a Burna Boy concert!
I couldn’t process this new phase of my life that required stillness when all I knew was how to Usain Bolt. I kept going, though. Because I was, and still am, a high-functioning achiever. I know better than to show up looking like what I’ve been through. This is how I was conditioned to survive.
This survival machanism is partly why I didn’t quite relish motherhood the first time around. I poured myself into many jobs, climbing ladders that led nowhere. I worked diligently through a pandemic with my firstborn, and later my second-born child with complex medical needs, only for them to say good job, promote others ahead of me, and hand me a 3% cost-of-living raise.
I was working the jobs of mother and wife at home, and stretching way past my corporate position description on the faith that meritocracy was real. What I got was a layoff a few years later, in an economy that felt like the one I started my adulthood in.
An empty promise of corporate upward mobility, stole a lot of time from me. From my family. The frustration showed up in my body: teeth grinding, difficulty sleeping, irritation, creativity suppressed, my identity shifted. And when the layoff happened, a flood of grief that no severance package or unemployment check could compensate.
I’m not chasing time anymore. Not at my big age of 40 years old.
Better to savor it, like slow sips of hot coffee and a hearty breakfast while my kids laugh and mess over their meals. To enjoy watching my husband refuse to put down our newborn who somehow looks just like him (she has my cuticles though). Or with my mom and dad still calling to give me unsolicited parenting advice, while my sister sends texts to pull the family together (one more reason I’m glad I have all girls, having a sister like mine).
Seeing time through my kids is both startling and awesome. When my newest baby arrived, my other two immediately looked older. My former baby, less babyish. They both stopped coming to our bed the day we brought the baby home, of their own will.
I looked up and there was more grey on my husband and me, our facial lines deepening with our relationship.
That’s why I’m nurturing my newborn and my next chapter, slowly. I will allow time to replenish the parts of me that got suppressed and depressed. I will give my kids the better parts of my attention, thankful that I’m not in a crunch for a 9 am call I never wanted to be on, and that I know how fast those chubby faces narrow out. And I’ll steal more deep belly laughs with my husband, and indulge in the village who nurture me and my family.
I’m still shocked I’m a mother of 3, and yet I recognize it’s a a gift from God that reconciled my past and gave me clarity about our future.
This time I’m choosing to staying in sync with my new baby, to grow with the grain of this new season, fully aware that I have this chance to rest my tired legs and be present in ways I couldn’t before.
I’d be a fool to rush this.
So Imma finally take my time.
Chat soon,
Titi
What’s on my table:
Gratitude Journal- to keep my mind right during postpartum. I like this one from intelligent change.
Maybe I should buy a business? - The “silver tsunami” is coming.
A meal plan I made for mama’s with gestational diabetes. Send it to a friend who has GD please.
Mint chip avocado ice cream: I swear it’s good!
Eve’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert: That girl looks and sounds amazing!
What’s on your table?
I really enjoyed reading this!
You do that Titi. It will help a lot. Take care of yourself.