Last looks

I’m not inspired to do much these days, and whereas at one time I would have at least tried to excuse my reclusiveness, I’ve come to realise that there is actually nothing wrong with wanting to check out once in a while. And if you can’t live in your pyjamas, ignore the phone, nap all day and watch bad television during your ninth month of pregnancy, when can you? Hmmm?

The common misconception seems to be that pregnancy loves company, however, and the more I try and recede into the experience, the more phone calls, emails and visitation threats I receive from friends, family and colleagues. Most people assume that because I’m off work now, I must be lonely or bored; that I must want to talk to someone about what I’m going through, or that I need someone to help me take my mind off it. Though the intention is both kind and considerate, the underlying assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.

For the first time in my life, I’m more content to spend quiet time alone in my own company than I am interested or willing to break out of that introspection and engage with others (Bruce being the obvious exception, as I think our co-dependence might constitute Siamese status by now). Whatever the reason, I seem to be on a different wavelength from the rest of the world, and I’m perfectly okay with that.

I’ve certainly done a lot of reading over the last few weeks, and it vaguely reminds me of those long, luxurious afternoons of University, when my only real commitment was a three-hour-long evening class on film theory and aesthetics or post-colonial literature. Except that in those days, I did not appear to be concealing a giant Kinder Surprise egg beneath my jumper (though I did have a pathological need for acknowledgement - one that has been mercifully snuffed out by time and maturity).

In any case, I don’t have long to revel in my deserted island experience before this journey becomes completely unrecognisable again.

It’s Bruce’s last day of work, and then we have a very small window of opportunity to pull everything together before the holiday draws us to its eggnog-scented bosom and smothers us in festivity; there’s just no way to predict when the newborn invasion will take place. Realistically, by the time we’re settled in at home again, we’ll probably have just over a week to turn the page on that short, intimate chapter of our lives when it was just the two of us and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Part of me feels very sad about this. But on the other hand, I can’t wait to see what comes next.