Reader Question:

Do you ever miss being young and single? I mean not actually, because UGH... I don't want to be back there living that life, but I'm sad at the realization that I will never be there again.

Answer:

and by "there"

do you mean

here?

There was a summer I lived in New York

with another single girl

in a dorm.

I had a fake ID and a Metrocard

and the city took me deep.

Even now, more than ten years later,

I can smell the ginger and garlic and hot oil at Yummy House,

and the sour garbage baking in shiny bags on the street,

and warm beer breath,

and the rosewater perfume I was wearing then,

and the cold, air-conditioned spaces

where we met for cranberry vodkas

or frappaccinos.

(I was young.)

That summer I was not grateful

for the freedom to walk

8 blocks at my own pace

to the bodega with the good salad bar.

I went to the movies three times a week,

mostly alone,

but sometimes treated by a guy

who almost always annoyed or bored me

no matter how nice and interested I tried to be.

There were no second dates.

We tumbled, a crew of girls with straightened hair

and go-to Friday night shoes,

from cab to bar to cab to bar

to cab to couch

to diner the next morning

where we drank coffee

and ate pancakes and potatoes

and passed the chapstick

and laughed.

Do I miss it?

Sweet Jesus.

Yes.

Every day.

Yes.

You have to understand that I'm writing this

on the same couch

(the same cushion in fact)

where I sat eating scrambled eggs

and watching the clock,

cramping,

and leaking amniotic fluid

onto a waterproof medical pad

after my water broke.

I sat on this exact cushion,

sticky, miserable,

and breastfed my son on the left,

as I pumped on the right.

(The right nipple cracked and bled the first night.

You have to let it heal.

And you also have to keep up your supply.

That's why I sat on this exact cushion,

sweating, strapped to a baby

and a machine,

both pulling.)

You have to understand that I'm writing this

surrounded by plastic trucks,

mismatched socks,

and a green apple with one brown bite gone.

You have to understand

that I fell in love with my husband

that summer in New York

13 years ago.

I am not unhappy with my life.

But I do not understand the people who say

"I don't remember what my life was like

before the baby was born."

Really?

I do.

Because it was fucking awesome.

I went where I wanted

when I wanted.

I ate what I wanted

when I wanted.

I wore what I wanted.

I did what I wanted.

I was the goddamn

monarch

before

she takes the crown.

Maybe what they're really saying is,

"I don't accurately remember

what my life was like before the baby was born.

Because when I look back at that life

all I see is the absence of human shit,

and the graceful way I simply got into the car

and then miraculously,

back out again.

Without bending back my thumbnails on car seat buttons,

or getting an infant finger in the eye

or having to run back inside for a binky.

I must not remember what my life was REALLY like

because I do not remember ever feeling free,

but when I look back now,

the freedom is all I can see."

I'm trying to look back at that summer

and remember it, really.

I remember having fun

and feeling lost and terribly small

and ordinary.

I had broken up with someone all my friends loved

and I was scared to go back to school.

I didn't know if I'd have friends anymore.

Some of the guys that summer took more than was offered.

Some took less, a half-portion.

An embarrassing wealth remained on the plate.

And there was the trip to Planned Parenthood.

Which was kind of exciting,

actually, for me.

It was just for Plan B for my friend

whose date had assured her

he always wore condoms.

(He did not specify for how long.)

I was afraid that I was really untalented.

I was afraid that I was dull.

I had a summer classmate

who wouldn't leave me alone.

She followed me around

and drove me bat shit crazy.

I hated the people who hurt me,

embarrassed me,

or made me feel small.

I was so young,

thrilled and tender,

easily bought,

and easily wounded.

I don't want to go back.

But what I understand now is

how free I was.

I did not know how free I was.

The people who wouldn't leave me alone,

who drove me bat shit crazy?

I wasn't married to them.

The people who hurt me,

embarrassed me,

made me feel small and powerless?

They didn't call me mommy.

I do not miss caring so much about

what boring, angry guys thought of me.

I do not miss hiding my eagerness

or deciding who to be

tonight.

I miss the time in my life

before I made choices

that cannot be undone.

What's funny is,

I'm pretty sure I felt trapped then, too -

what a silly child I was,

to believe I'd already built four walls,

so young.

(What's funny is,

of course my choices can still be undone.

I could leave.

I've thought about it, deliciously,

in the abstract:

How simple it would be

to shop for groceries

that only I wanted to eat.

How my home would be full

of the things I loved

and no Legos.

How I could always

get to the gym.

Of course I've thought about it.)

But some things

cannot be undone.

What's funny is,

I'll look back on this little collection of words

when I'm in my sixties and laugh.

"You silly child.

The whole world was open for you then.

You were strong and smart and independent

and your feet were truly under you for the first time.

You had the chance to have

a hell of an adventure

every goddamn day

with the loves of your life

who still followed you around

(remember when that drove you crazy?)

and hurt you and reminded you

how small you were

in the whole great deep beautiful fucking world.

Why the hell did you spend so much time imagining

all the ways your life was already over?"

Because...

I just did.

Because even though it was silly,

it was also sad.

Because young and single is fun, and gone.

Maybe I'm the average

of the person I was

and the person I'm going to be.

Maybe that's why

I'm still afraid of the dark

and no longer afraid of alone.

Maybe that's why,

when I am invited to a baby shower

and I know exactly which spring salad I will make,

I feel proud and claustrophobic.

Maybe that's why I look back

at being young and single and feel

drawn and repelled.

When we ache,

looking back on our younger selves

and remember how good we had it,

how ungrateful we were...

when we shake our heads

without the compassion that will eventually grow

for those kids we used to be,

when we say that youth is wasted on the young

we have to remember

we are still young enough.

exhibit a

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