Total Eclipse of My Life

I blinked and nothing was the same.

A view of the Aug. 21, 2017, total solar eclipse from Madras, Oregon via NASA

I’ve always loved the way my friend Sandy Sitron describes the personal impact that eclipses have on our lives. Here’s her metaphor:

Imagine you’re sitting in a room filled with furniture and people when someone flips the lights on and off, plunging the room into pitch-black darkness for just a moment. When the lights turn back on, the room is completely different.

The furniture is rearranged. Some people have come and gone. You blinked and then nothing is as you knew it.

That’s exactly what I feel right now.

I just returned to my apartment in Brooklyn for the first time in three months. For those three, long, months, I’d been hibernating in rural Connecticut with a fresh baby, and hardly any other company. The cadence of my days revolved around her, and while this was different from my old life, it didn’t bother me, because it was temporary. Parental leave would end and it would be business as usual.

It’s only now that I’m back in the city that it’s hit me that nothing will be the same ever again. There’s a bedtime. There’s tummy time. There’s less time for me. I change diapers, I hold the baby, I push a stroller— all things I’d never done even once before having Taia. All these examples of how my life has changed are logistical and tactical, but what they add up to is existential.

I’ve had many points of evolution and change in my life. But none of them, not getting married (or divorced, or married again), not moving cities, not starting my own company, not publishing a book—-none of these shifts felt nearly as extreme as going from free and independent to suddenly having a baby one day, along with all the accompanying responsibilities.

Yesterday, while I was lounging in Fort Greene Park, I ran into two people, a couple I used to hang out with a lot during undergrad and in my 20’s. In fact, for a five-year period, I probably saw these two individuals at least once a week for a birthday party or a happy hour or a BYOB dinner. As often happens with partying-based friendships, we’d lost touch as the years passed, and I hadn’t seen either regularly in a very long time.

“Isn’t it funny,” I said to the one I’d gone to school with. “We used to slam shots and rip beer bongs together in college. Now you’re carrying a baby shark backpack and we’re talking about strollers.” We laughed. We were comfortable with each other but also strangers at the same time.

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The last time NYC was in the path of a visible eclipse was August 21, 2017. There was eclipse fever- all the glasses were sold out. Back then, I was still at my old job, and my coworkers and I made it an adventure to procure glasses through mischievous means. Then we spent the sunny, sweaty afternoon having a leisurely lunch in Soho. We gossiped about who we were dating and that summer’s hijinx in the Hamptons.

Today, the eclipse was a small fleeting moment scrunched between work and Taia. I’m giving a keynote in Florida next week, so I worked on the slides with one arm and held Taia with the other while she nursed. The peak of the eclipse came and went without me even realizing it, such a stark difference from the full afternoon I’d devoted to it last time around. But somehow, the energy of this eclipse was even stronger. I could feel it vibrating from the center of my heart way down to my toe tips, because my metaphorical eclipse, this sudden new reality, was right beside me, holding my gaze with her big brown eyes.

Eclipses are known to bring sudden changes, but just as importantly, they also inspire sudden insights.

This was mine today:

When life changes, it is a one-way portal. You step through into a new reality, and you can’t ever go back. There’s no way to unflip the light switch. You can’t recreate what used to be.

I will never be 25 (or 35 or 38) ever again. I will never *not* be a parent. I’ve stepped through this one-way door, and I shouldn’t (and I can’t) try to hold onto the comforts of my former life.

I’m not able to work the long hours I did before Taia. I’ll never have the same leisurely mornings I used to, and I can’t un-know what a “diaper blowout” is. But I can’t think of it that way. My world is different now, and the criteria for what makes this life a good one should necessarily be different than what I’ve used in the past.

I’ve walked through this door, there’s no going back, and my job now is to create new criteria for this new life, look forward to where I want to go, and not worry too much about what I left behind.

If you’re feeling anything like me, here are some resources to support you during this time:

1. Podcast – The Ups and Downs of Evolving

2. Journaling Prompts:

   1. What in my life is reaching an end or completion?

   2. What beginning am I looking forward to?

   3. Where do I see myself growing in the next 18 months?

3. Essay – Embracing Totality by

   Heather Havrilesky

Happy Eclipse Season everyone!

Love,

Liz

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