Not Ready for Mom Jeans (43 page)

I’m lying in bed right now, seriously praying for my own death.

A bunch of coworkers and I left the office just before five, showing fake disappointment to Mule Face since she couldn’t come. We walked across the street to O’Callaghan’s, a tiny Irish bar with a “cash only” policy. Commandeering the corner table, I signaled to the waitress and had her bring pitchers of whatever beer was on special.

I sat down next to Keri, who was texting on her phone.

“Big plans tonight?” I said to her.

She shut her phone and dropped it into her purse. “Not really. I think I’m doing a holiday pub crawl with some friends if you want to come.”

I smiled. “I wish I could.”

“Oh, right. We’ll have to go out another time, then.” She twirled her gold bangle bracelet around on her wrist.

“Sound—” I was interrupted by the jukebox suddenly blaring “Jingle Bell Rock.” Our table threw our hands in the air.

“Jesus!” Stephan from Accounting yelled. “It never stops!”

Thankfully, the waitress appeared with three pitchers of beer.

“How much?” I yelled to her across the table as I reached for my wallet.

She shook her head. “It’s been taken care of.”

“What?” I leaned in.

She turned and pointed to a guy sitting at the bar.

“Hey!” I pasted a smile on my face and waved.

I poured myself a beer and walked over to Greg.

“What are you doing here?” I shouted over “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

He was wearing a suit, but his tie was askew and his jacket was off. “Had a client meeting out this way. Just stopped in to have a beer before I head home.”

“Thanks for the beers, you really didn’t have to do that,” I said, and shifted in my boots. I glanced down at my black pants and noticed a faint guacamole stain still visible from where my burrito had exploded everywhere during lunch.

“No problem. It’s good to see you again,” Greg said. He pointed to the empty stool next to him. “Wanna sit down and have a drink?”

I stood, my head darting back and forth between my empty seat at my work table, my coworkers all laughing and high-fiving, and the seat next to Greg.

“I should really get back—,” I started to say when he waved his hand.

“Stay. One beer. I’m about to leave anyway.”

“Um, OK.” I awkwardly perched on the stool next to him, but not before I saw Keri’s look of surprise.

“Everything going well with you?” Greg said as he took a long swig of his beer.

“Yep.” I nodded my head and fidgeted with my drink. “Jake and I just moved into a new place and Sara’s doing awesome.”

“Congrats. That sounds great.” Greg looked up and stared at the television above the bar.

“Thanks.” We sat silently and I wished I could morph myself back to my table, back to the safety of a conversation about leggings or something with Keri. To endure the silence, I brought my glass up to my lips and drained it. The liquid courage relaxed me a little.

“No, I’m—,” I started to say, but the bartender placed another beer in front of me.

Oh, well. I’m almost at my goal weight anyway. Besides, ’tis the season to grow a beer belly, right?

“Hey, you know what I was thinking about the other day?” Greg said as I eyed the full beer in front of me.

“What?” I said as I gave another fleeting glance at my coworkers.

“That time in college when a bunch of us rented those cabins up in Lake Winnebago.”

“You mean the time when you and a bunch of your friends almost got arrested for trying to buy beer with fake IDs you bought off the Internet?” I laughed and took a sip of the beer.

“Yeah, well”—he looked at me—“it almost worked.” He leaned in closer and laughed. “Anything for beer when you’re a college student, right?” He held up his beer bottle.

I raised mine and we clinked in agreement.

The crowd started to change from after-work coworker groups to hard-core Friday night drinkers as Greg and I swapped college stories. Stories I hadn’t thought about for years. Stories I hadn’t allowed myself to remember.

“And then, remember Ethan said—” Greg was talking animatedly, hands outstretched, cheeks flushed.

“Clare, um, we’re all leaving,” Keri said as Greg’s arm nearly brushed against her.

“Oh! Right!” Embarrassed that I’d stayed this long, I started to stand up when I felt Greg’s hand on my arm.

“At least finish your beer,” he said.

I looked at my half-finished beer and back at Keri. “I’m leaving in a minute, too.”

“OK,” she said, and shot me a questioning look. I smiled to let her know it was fine. I waved to my coworkers and turned back to my beer.

Neither of us spoke for a long time as I fiddled with my beer glass.

“Clare?” Greg said, and cleared his throat.

“Hmm?” I grunted, not looking at him.

“I’ve gotta say, I’m still amazed that you … suburbs … baby …” He trailed off and gestured around with his hand.

I smiled and crossed my legs on the bar stool. I nodded. “I know. Best-laid plans, right?”

Greg nudged me on the arm a little and fiddled with his watch. “Definitely. That’s great. I guess people change.” He laughed and drained his beer.

I opened my mouth and then quickly closed it. I reached forward and took another sip of my beer. I set the empty beer glass down and looked at him. “They do.”

Sitting at the bar, in that shred of a seemingly insignificant conversation, I saw.

I saw my life. My old life—the Before Jake and Before Sara Clare. The plans that I made; the goals that I so firmly believed in. I saw myself with a high-powered career, living in the city, being irritated by all of the children out in public. All of my choices easy, black and white. I knew I could’ve been happy in that life; that life would’ve been enough.

But only because I wouldn’t have known this one was possible.

That it was possible to laugh every day of my life, to make someone else laugh every day, to be unafraid to act goofy or insane, to love more deeply than I knew I was capable of, and to receive without asking. To have Jake and Sara and our messy, sometimes confusing, beautiful life together.

Life with the color brightness dial turned way up.

I shrugged. “I guess my goals have kind of been moving targets. Things aren’t always black or white anymore; sometimes they’re just gray.” I stood up and pushed my empty glass forward. “I’ve gotta get home. It was great to see you.”

I left the bar, left my old boyfriend and the goals he used to represent inside. All of my old dreams and choices were worthy, admirable. But like the pair of stone-washed jeans from college hidden in the back of my closet, they don’t make sense in the present. It’s OK to keep them and look at them occasionally, but they don’t work anymore; I’ve got a new, much more comfortable pair.

Sunday, December 7

I’m living in a Hallmark movie!

Like, a really, really awesome one! Because today I put on my … drumroll please!

Skinny jeans!

Well, OK, so they’re just my pre-pregnancy jeans and not my true skinny jeans, which are like a size 2 from ten years ago. But it’s something! I thought for sure they would combust due to the beer I drank the other night, but no! God himself has rewarded my introspection with lost inches and the Miss Piggy pants have officially been banished. Not to mention, I paid my dues eating those boring salads when everyone else was ordering from Chipotle or buttery paninis from the deli downstairs. I was starting to wonder if being skinny is worth being depressed all the time.

My answer: it is!

It’s like my wardrobe has suddenly quadrupled in size since I can fit into all of my old clothes. I can also officially burn my maternity pants and control-top panty hose! Not to mention, I’m going to go to Nordstrom and buy that beautiful pale pink silk wrap dress for the breast cancer fundraiser.

I still haven’t started the whole working-out thing, but I probably should since even though I’ve lost weight, my thighs still bounce around like Jell-O whenever I move. And I still have a little bit of a muffin top and spare tire, but the rest of me is skinny, so who cares? The spare tire is still decorated with the faintest silvery stretch marks, forever reminders of how huge my stomach was. But the only time people will see my bare stomach is at the beach, and that happens like once a year.

Besides, most of the people I usually see on the beach shouldn’t even be allowed to wear shorts, let alone a bathing suit. I’ll just find the fattest person on the sand and park my towel next to theirs. Problem solved.

Monday, December 8

Today, I picked Sara up and looked at her. I mean, really looked at her. I hoisted her up out of her crib and put her down on the floor of her nursery and studied her.

She’s changed so much.

What happened to my baby? When she was born, she was so chubby, with soft blond hair ringing the top of her head. Sometimes I forget what she looked like when she was born. Every day it’s like
Hasn’t she always looked like this?
And then I look at pictures and am taken aback.

As I watched her crawl around on her bedroom floor, I tried to sear into my brain every detail about her—everything from the way her toes look when she crawls, the way her right eyebrow moves when she smiles, and the hilarious way she sticks out her lower lip when she’s tired, whiny, or hungry. I wondered if, in twenty years, when she’s all grown up, her blond hair streaked with highlights and thrown up into a ponytail, I’ll try to remember her that way. Or if I’ll always want her to be this—this little person crawling around on my floor. I can’t imagine wanting her to be anything other than the chubby baby at my feet.

Sometimes, I look at her and see the woman she’s going to become—the proud, headstrong, confident woman I hope she’ll be. I look at her and hold her close and pray that my love will be enough, that we’ll always be best friends and she’ll never tell me she wants to run away and move to her friend Sally’s house. But I know she will. And I’m trying to be OK with it.

I’m OK with it because I know someday I’ll have to let her go, to hope I’ve taught her the best and to let her make her own mistakes and fall and pick herself back up again. But now, as I react to her every physical move, as I lurch forward every time she pulls herself up and wobbles a bit, I can’t imagine letting her fall.

I watch Jake as he holds her, talks to her, and contorts his body in every possible shape just to make her giggle. I watch as he gazes at her with such pride and love. I watch as he scoops her up in his arms the minute I walk in the door with her. I don’t have to watch when I turn my back to leave in the morning with her, I know a piece of his heart is in my arms.

Sometimes I look at the three of us, when we’re all snuggled in bed together on a Saturday morning, Jake sipping coffee and making faces at Sara while I hold her in my lap, and I can’t believe our little family. I can’t believe I ever doubted it would be “enough.” I’m astounded sometimes when I realize I don’t need anything else, anyone else or any other time. I just want the two of them, next to me, laughing.

Sometimes I think about how scared Jake and I were when we first found out about Sara and how quickly we fell in love with her once she was here, once we realized she was meant for us. Like pieces of a puzzle, we all fit together.

For almost a year now, we’ve been three. As I sat down to start planning her first birthday party, I was struck by how it seems like it’s been so much longer than a year.

Tuesday, December 9