I was sprawled on the living room couch, pale and motionless, waves of nausea washing over me. Even the leftover pizza from last night, sealed inside the refrigerator fifteen feet away, seemed to radiate a foul stench straight through the door.
My husband was in the kitchen sorting through mail, casting cautious glances at me and then at the clock. "Do you see what time it is?" he finally asked, lifting an eyebrow. I turned my back to him, uninterested in time, people, or anything else. All I wanted was to be left completely alone.
From the nursery, I could hear my son babbling softly in his crib, holding a one-sided conversation with his stuffed animal audience. That lisping voice dragged me back to the same anxious loop I'd been replaying for a month: I had a two-year-old and was pregnant—again.
In my first pregnancy, I had imagined motherhood would fit me perfectly, fill me with overwhelming love, open my eyes, and complete me. Two years, twenty bottles of citalopram, and one hastily bought pregnancy test later, I understood reality far better.
I rolled back over and checked the clock: 7:10 PM. My son was safe, my husband was supportive. So why couldn't I bring myself to leave?
A friend—really more of an acquaintance—had invited me to the first meeting of a book club with three other women, all strangers. Before Children (B.C.), I had dreamed of joining a book club, picturing myself among intellectual women in tortoiseshell glasses, sipping Earl Grey, discussing classic literature and swapping stories from NPR. It seemed so refined, so cosmopolitan. But after my son was born and everything refined and cosmopolitan in my life rapidly fell apart, I couldn't imagine finding the mental or physical energy to read a book, let alone attend a gathering to talk about one.
Time wasn't the problem. As a new stay-at-home mom, I had free moments whenever my son napped—which, thankfully, was often. On good days, I used those precious hours to clean, cook, and wash endless loads of cloth diapers. On bad days, I scrolled through Facebook, confirming my suspicion that every other mother was doing a better job than me. Whether through frantic housework or mindless scrolling, I was dodging the elephant in my mind: the big, beautiful, creative, carefree life I'd lived before my son was essentially over.
I had traveled. I had been ambitious, praised for my critical thinking and strategy. My mind had been sharp and quick. But now? A sharp mind was no longer an asset. What mattered now were strong hands, dogged persistence, and immunity to sleep deprivation. Reading—unless it was a parenting book—felt unnecessary, a luxury I couldn't afford.
Worse, it felt risky. What would reading and meeting with smart women lead to? Would I start wishing I'd never had my son? Would it pull me into romanticism, away from my present, my real life? Better to avoid dashed hopes and daydreaming, to keep my head down and do what was practical. Better to keep relationships superficial, deflecting anything deeper into the predictable rhythm of daily parenting: Hi, how are you, how is he sleeping?
I looked at the clock again: 7:15 PM. To arrive on time for the book club meeting, I'd need to leave immediately. My husband was still in the kitchen, sorting bills while sneaking glances to see if I'd moved from my frozen state. "Do you see the time?" he asked again, knowing I did. "Don't you have that thing tonight?"
I can't explain exactly why I finally chose to go to that first meeting—maybe good manners (I had RSVP'd yes, after all) or a lingering craving for Earl Grey tea. Or maybe it was something deeper: a tiny spark of hope that my life could regrow from the stump it had been cut down to, that I could be dignified and cosmopolitan again.
My friend greeted me at the door, and I walked into her living room to find three women: one peacefully nursing a newborn, the other two sipping red wine and laughing loudly. I sat down, introduced myself, and slowly, carefully eased into a conversation that wandered through our personal histories of favorite books and authors.
Memories surfaced slowly at first, then faster, until they overwhelmed me. Discussing everything from Jane Austen's sly feminism to the crazed Enid Lambert in Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections felt like watching a pot of stagnant water finally come to a boil. The authors whose works I had devoured long ago—Isabel Allende, Ruth Reichl, E.M. Forster, Norman MacLean—bubbled up in my mind, gradually warming me to my own self, the self that existed outside time, responsibilities, and life seasons. The self that had been there since the day I was born, that connected with characters like Anne Shirley and Jo March, and that learned as much from books as from personal experience. Sharing that self with others through the lens of stories felt almost sacred.
I didn't realize it then, but the book club and its reading assignments were exactly what I needed for a life that had grown small. As my attachment to the group deepened, so did its membership. Today, the club has grown to twelve women, each personally invited, each responsible for choosing one book per year spread across twelve months. Even outside book club, our individual friendships have developed so much that we consider ourselves a tribe, a sisterhood. We are rooted in one another through illness, struggling marriages, hurt feelings, success and failure, life and death.
Between us, we have birthed twenty-seven children, many of whom attended book club as newborns. We are therapists, teachers, salespeople, marketing directors, nurses, writers, executive assistants, executive directors, professors, sommeliers, pastors, and stay-at-home moms. We are Christian and Jewish, agnostic and atheist. We have agreed and disagreed, but our love for one another carries us through. We show up for book club, and we show up for each other.
Despite our growth, only two original members remain: myself and the woman who was nursing her baby at our first meeting. Sometimes we catch each other's eye during a discussion and exchange a knowing look of gratitude for what this group has given us. Once, as we cleaned up after a long night discussing David Sheff's Beautiful Boy—about addiction, parenting, and grace—she and I stepped back to watch our amazing friends laughing and putting away wine and snacks. "Look at what we made," she whispered to me, filled with awe.
I no longer recognize that nauseous, pregnant, medicated, diminished woman lying on the couch, afraid to leave the house. Book club deserves much of the credit. Since then, my life has blossomed into a full calendar with work I love, fun with my kids, dates with my husband, and of course, book club every month.
This month's selection is American Pastoral by Philip Roth—a book I probably never would have picked off the library shelf, but which is already revealing parts of me I had forgotten or never knew existed. I'm eager to hear what everyone else thinks, but mostly I just want to see their faces around me—whether smiling, crying, or blank and distant. We are sisters now. We take whatever comes, together.
Images via Aysegül Karatekin
The post As a New Mom I Felt Lost and Overwhelmed, So Here’s Where I Went appeared first on Darling Magazine.
