Afterwards / by Christina Rosalie

An entire week of goodness. Time with long-time friends. Pedicures and walking bare-toed down cold cobblestone to share coffee. Browsing jewelry stores. Trying on dresses, the three of us to a dressing room, and then twirling in front of the mirror. Toasting with champagne and eating pomegranates. Laughing. A lot. And soaking up time with the in-laws also here, as the best babysitters ever. So much fun, chatter, intellectualizing, giggling, cooking, strolling, enjoying. Now that everyone is gone, the house seems hollow and big, and Bean fell apart at every gusset, over-stimulated, teething, and off schedule. We’re all ready to find our rhythms again. To get back to the things of daily life: showering before bed so my hair doesn’t turn to icicles in the early morning frost; planning out lessons; replying to an overcrowded email inbox that has sat untended for days on end. It’s a shock to the system though, to go from such heady days to this, yet I find myself craving downtime.