Each day is the same day. Each day is the same day, just with a different name; at any time, I am unsure of the day myself. Is it Thursday or Sunday or Wednesday? The only indicator of a change is laundry day. I do laundry on Saturdays, so when I see the piles of clothes, I know it is Saturday, and laundry must be done today, but even that ‘change’ is more of the same. I no longer need calendars and day planners. Those are things of the past. My past. The past life when everyone knew my name and called me by it. The past life when I was lauded for the magic that I could create in the boardroom. This past life when I would remember what day it was and would have distinct and clear plans on how to spend each minute of each hour of each day. Those days are gone now, as I decided to take a step up on the ladder of life. Or so they say.

That ladder of life where you go from birth, school, meeting your One True Love, marriage, children…and then inevitable death. I was on the rung of marriage and children, which those wise sages of the older generation had proclaimed would be the most meaningful time in my life. Forget the past of starched collars, high-heeled, red-bottomed shoes, expensive Parisian perfumes and night outs on the town. Apparently, those were not the best times of my life; the diaper-filled 2 am feedings and endless clean-ups are.

In my past life, I did not bat an eye at waking at 10 am on the weekends or spending boozy afternoons in bed binge-watching my favourite series. Now, by the time 10 am has rolled around, I have already been awake for five whole hours. I see the waking of the sun. I see the colours of the day painted across the sky while I feed the almost insatiable product of my womb. I find peace sometimes in those moments. As the colours spread across the sky and the earth awakes, I hear whispers of my name. I remember it; I hear the birds sing the name that I had been called for countless years before. I remember it, and I smile as the memories of the time when that name was the only name I was called, become bright like the morning sun. That past life. I lean back and bask in the memories, close my eyes, and listen to the whispers. I can feel them pass by like a whisp of gossamer on my skin, then, inevitably, a tear journeys down to my bosom as the sun’s rays illuminate me. I look down on my chest and see one of the small lives that I keep safe each day. The reason for my days, the reason for my tiredness, and loss of self, but also my purpose. I sob for the life I once had and the life I now live that I was told I chose for myself. I no longer know if this was a choice or if this was where the conveyor belt of life has taken me. Did I choose or was this choice made for me? Either way, this is the life I live now, being constantly needed.

I yearn to hear my heartbeat the way my offspring did when they were in the womb; the way they do when I hold them close to calm them down now. I want to hear the beat of my unique marker and know what makes it skip, know what makes it flutter, rediscover what makes it gallop. I want to press my ear to my chest and hear the whisper of who I was, who I am, who I was supposed to be. What makes my heart beat? I used to know the answer to this without thinking. Now, not so much. The sound of my former boyfriend’s—now husband’s—voice when he whispered in my ear used to make my heart race in a way, I could not explain it but knew it was love. Now, he has no time to whisper. Now, his quick pecks on my cheek as he races out in the morning to work, and the furtive and quick coupling we do in the dark under the sheets, is the height of intimacy for us. He pushes me off when I try to lay my head on his chest to hear his heartbeat. I want to know how it feels to connect to a heartbeat to calm my thoughts the same way my children are instinctively calmed when placed on my chest. Complaints of me being too heavy or making him too hot are his common excuses these days.

A lost connection.

I miss the days when we drank each other’s essence from sunup to sundown on the weekends. I miss when we would curl up together in bed, limbs indistinguishable, just speaking on nothing and everything, the days of ease. Memories of those long hazy and lazy Sundays spent sprawled across his King-sized bed looking through his window fills me with sadness, desperation, and loss. Those were the days when I felt wanted intensely and not merely needed to sustain life. My life was my own then and I shared it willingly, now my life is on lease to others.

A lost connection.

I want to find my heartbeat once again. I want to know who I am once more outside of the labels of ‘Mother’ and ‘Wife’; I want to disappear and re-emerge as a better and evolved version of myself, a version of myself that can survive the intense need of everyone else, a version of myself that know my core. But I can only see myself achieving this by abandoning my current life.

Can I?

I stop sobbing as I make this realisation. To find myself, maybe I must cease being “myself” for everyone else. But how can I, in good conscience, abandon bits of me to find me?

My baby stirs. She has long since fallen asleep in my arms, so I decide to put her in her cot. My toddler is still asleep by some reason of magic, and I can hear my husband going through his morning routine in the bathroom. I have a few moments of peace. I go back out onto the porch and sit in the sunlight. It has gotten hot quickly today, but I do not mind. I look down the sleep dress I am still wearing, stained with spit and breast milk. The thought of sameness strikes me directly in my chest. I smell the familiar sour stench, and it makes me wince. I am reminded of the familiarity of it all. I have been here before. Today will be but another day, wrapped up in more days, and days, and days, just like this one, where I might think I am doing something different, but it will end up being more of the same. I cannot remember the last time I have taken a long, uninterrupted shower, the kind of heavenly shower that seems to last forever, and my mind again goes back to the times when I would collect Bath and Body Works products and pamper myself. ‘O how the mighty have fallen’, I think and chuckle sadly. Today, I will shower—to Hell with everyone else! I will put the kids to nap or sit them in front of that television and then take a loooooong, hot shower. I need to prioritise myself, I mumble to myself. I needed to break out of this script.

I hear my husband appear next to me to give me the required goodbye peck. He smells good, (he gets to take frequent showers) and his scent somehow reminds me of the good times. I wanted to grab him and hold on for dear life and cry into his chest, offload my worries and have him comfort me as he used to in the past, but I know if I reach for him now, he would shove me off and comment on my scent or my dowdy appearance. So, I do none of that and watch as he leaves to go out into the world where he can have conversations and connections with people above the age of five. His connections are with people who did not need their noses wiped or butts swaddled. I watch him pull out of the driveway and I head inside.

I check my toddler and thankfully she is also still asleep—a miracle! I head straight for the shower stall; I am not about to waste this moment.

The hot water feels good on my skin, I have it as hot as I can bear, and I stand for a moment just letting the water cascade down my body. It feels as if I am washing away all my disappointment, all my hurt, all the endless thoughts. There is only the sound of the water, the feel of the heat. I feel myself lighten, as if a weight is being slowly removed from my shoulders. I lather up my bath sponge and scrub every part of me. I even wash my hair.

Then, out of the silence, a cry; a series of whimpers, almost cat-like meowls.

Then, the shrill rampage begins; my 8-month-old desperately wanting me.

It’s okay Melanie! I am still here, I am just taking a shower, Mommy will be there soon. Okay? I yell.

The sound stops for a few beats and in that small time I convince myself that I am going to get a reprieve. But the shrill cries start up again, louder this time, more insistent, more of the same. In the heat of the shower, as the water flows down my body, the tears come. They mix so well; hot tears, meet hot water. I curl up on the shower floor and allow myself to unload all the weight I have been holding in this moment. I cry along with my daughter. I match her volume and somehow, I manage to burn myself out faster than she can.

I stand and finish my shower. She is going to be okay. She is safe; I know that cry all too well. It is her cry for comfort and not her cry for food or changing. She was upset I had not run to her beck and call this time. She is going to be okay, but am I?

I feel like a shiny coin when I emerge from the shower. I walk into the bedroom and check on Melanie, and she is asleep once again. I get dressed and pretty up while I wait for her and my toddler to wake up.

Hours later, as I finish feeding the girls dinner, my husband comes home, and he goes straight to the bathroom to shower without a word to me or the kids. This is now normal, I stopped making it affect me some time ago. I quickly clean the girls up, clean the kitchen, and put them to watch some TV. Twenty-five minutes later, my husband is still in the bathroom, and I decide to step outside on the porch as the children are distracted. The light of the sky is gorgeous, the sunset makes the sky look like it is afire; the vibrant orange, yellow, and the darkening blue of the evening calls to me. I suddenly feel a need, an urging. A wind picks up, and I can once again hear the whisper of my past. The world is quiet, as quiet as my mornings, but this time I hear a faint rhythmic beating. As I walk in time with the sound, I realise where it comes from. I touch my chest and for the first time in a long time I feel it, I hear it in my ears, I keep pace with it and follow it and walk to the sunset.

 

∞

Omega Francis is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago, the holder of a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of the West Indies. She has been working as a copyeditor, writer, and social media manager for a decade, and her writing has been published in Harness Magazine, Pepper Coast Magazine, UWI Today, the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, Intersect Antigua, and Small Axe. She is the author of four self-published books, including Through Her Eyes, a collection of stories exploring expectations of women in society.