My Day Out

Words & Photography
by Caroline Snider



Yesterday, for the first time since the day you were born, I had planned to leave the house for an entire day by myself, and despite all my hopes and elaborate fantasies it didn’t go well. You did great, but I didn’t.

In the morning I searched frantically through my wardrobe, towel wrapped around me for something that wasn’t nursing friendly, a celebration of my freedom, but failed to find anything. Because the truth is I don’t think I own anything now that doesn’t work for feeding you. But I persevered and put on eyeliner and wore those boots that are a little too awkward for carrying you in your car seat, and I kissed you goodbye and went out the door feeling a little too light, manic almost.

But I persevered and put on eyeliner and wore those boots that are a little too awkward for carrying you in your car seat, and I kissed you goodbye and went out the door feeling a little too light, manic almost.

I couldn’t follow the story on the radio on the drive to the hairdressers because my head was too full of thoughts. Should I stop and get a Chai because I could just hop right out of the car, or should I read my book or my magazine first? But mostly my mind drifted again and again to what was it going to be like to meet your Daddy out at a bar that night. The idea that maybe he’d see me across the room and I’d look kind of different and maybe for a second he’d feel that little flicker of excitement and think oh there she is, there’s that girl that I met, I like her face.

It didn’t happen that way. I got a bad haircut. They happen all the time. It’s not the end of the world. But it felt really hard to take. Instead of looking in the mirror and feeling renewed I felt even more lost.

My day out ended there. I cried all the way home. I wanted so much a day to feel like me. Me but better. I wanted it too much maybe. It was too much to put on one day, on one haircut. On one person. Maybe it’s just going to take time. Maybe it’s not one day. But a hundred days like that collected over time. A hundred corrections in my mind.

I don’t know why I feel like this. I’m tired but not that tired. I’m lost but not that lost. Because when you arrived, my son, I became both lost and found all at once. And really I think it’s just like this haircut. It’s just different now. Life is different now. I am different now. And that kind of seismic shift takes time to settle.