Back to My Current LIfe

Back from our trip. Phew! I'm exhausted.

It was great to see my friend, but I definitely realized how my life had changed. I used to just go along with whatever was on the agenda... like a piece of driftwood on the tide, I'd go wherever I was taken. Not so, anylonger.

No parties in the next town. No late night bar hopping. No stops for Italian food, nor for Nathan's hotdogs on Coney Island. I said "no" to multiple adventures. It's just not realistic anymore. Do I really want to haul around an overtired baby to stranger's houses, missing naps and meals and all sorts of things? I don't. I want our long and painful car ride back to Brooklyn to end. I want to corral all the random baby stuff-- shoes, pacifiers, toys, yogurt cups-- and sit down on my own couch, watch tv, and let him sleep in his own bed.

Yes, I have become an old lady mom. Or maybe not an old lady mom, maybe just a mom to a little baby. Normal, perfectly normal.

And I didn't give up every adventure on my trip. We stopped at a bar in Amangansett, had chowder at a dock side restaurant with a smoky pot bellied stove, stuffed mooses on the walls, and a curmudgeonly bartender who will shout you out with a bullhorn if you talk on your cell phone. Gabriel and I wandered the near deserted town of Montauk, looking for coffee and whatever we could find. Gabriel met the ocean and the beach for the first time-- if it had been warmer, we would've spent more time there. And when Gabriel went to sleep, my friend and I had some long missed girl talk (since she moved to Costa Rica months ago.)

So a nice vacation, but much different from what it would have been in my previous life. Now back to the homefront, and all the projects I am growing now-- from raising Gabriel, to writing a novel, to decorating the house and deck, to keeping my relationship with Sean strong... all those projects that are my life.