@stillbecomingmama: the version of other people i had constructed in my head was doing so much better than the real ones. i want to say that plainly because i think it is the most clarifying thing i can offer about those weeks. the constructed version slept. the constructed version had cracked the code that i had not cracked yet. the constructed version moved through the newborn stage with a competence i could not locate in myself no matter how many times i looked. and i had built her so gradually and so convincingly that she felt more real than the evidence would have supported if i had thought to look for evidence. but you do not look for evidence against a story that feels like observation. you do not fact-check something that presents itself as obvious. the constructed version was not a theory i was testing. she was just the way things were. other moms sleeping. other babies settled. other households moving through the night without the particular chaos of mine. and what the dots did to the constructed version was not argue with her or disprove her or present a careful case against her existence. they just replaced her. instantly and completely and without asking permission. because you cannot hold the constructed version in your head at the same time as hundreds of real lights on a real map showing you real women awake in real houses in the same real night you are standing in. the constructed version requires a certain darkness to survive in. the lights took the darkness away. she simply could not exist anymore. and without her the night was just the night. hard and shared and exactly the same for all of us. #postpartum #newmom #postpartumsupport #momtok #momlife
