Tears and Breastmilk

Tears and breast milk. This morning I am covered in dried tears and breast milk. Salty tears and sweet milk. Both my own. Of my body.

For a moment everything feels impossible. When will I ever sleep again? Will his latch get better? Will my back keep hurting? There’s no end in sight. The tears stream from my sleepy eyes and fall to my naked nursing chest. Tears like those of a child who has been awake for too long and doesn’t even know why she’s crying.

I think of how the milk must empty from my breasts to make room for more milk. And so too must the tears flow from my heart and mind to make room for, yes, inevitably more tears, but also perhaps something else.

And so I let myself cry until it’s all come out. This ‘outpouring’ turns my hard, tender breasts to soft, doughy flesh once more. Kevan brings me coffee. The sun rises. I get in the shower. The hot water washes the milk and tears from my body, lifting my spirit until I am inspired and excited for the day.

Indeed, those expressed tears made room for something else.

January Night

Time, now, is not measured by the hour of day or night, but by the number of hours since and until his last sleep, his last feed, his last diaper change. I sit with him at my breast, staring in a daze at the window to a dark outside, the dim light of the lamp reflecting off the glass. It’s probably 3am. Or is it 5?

As soon as he’s finished feasting, I place his small, sleeping body into the bassinet next to our bed. I crawl slowly and quietly under the covers towards the warm skin of my half-sleeping husband, and I sink in to sleep. There is a sense of relief. Of freedom. Our clock has reset. The countdown to his next cycle of wake, change, feed begins again, and it is at this point when there is the most time between now and then.

Ethereal