I'm full. HBU?

and why we're not talking about it

In September, Mike and I flew with Nova across the continent, to France, for the Rugby World Cup. (I like rugby, but to be clear: Mike went in order to attend his fourth consecutive World Cup¹, and I went in order to maintain my long-term intercontinental partnership with viennoise au chocolat). 

we went to this French beach and saw a lady’s butt!

We were in the middle of buying a new house when we left, having started negotiations with the sellers and getting together documentation for the terrifyingly-titled jumbo loan we’d need to pull it off. We’d complete our inspection and closing when we returned. 

Working full-time at a demanding startup and parenting a miniature witch² were also part of my everyday—oh, and I was four months pregnant. I had … a lot going on. Catching moments with friends during this time, I noticed that they had a lot going on, too, whether they were in the same stage of life (miniature witch era) as I was or not. Everyone was in varying states of overwhelm. And yet, we weren’t really … talking about it. 

This wasn’t as confusing to me as it was frustrating. Instagram culture, for one, has taught us to paint a veneer over the tidbits we share with others, and we all know the script: “Things are good! I mean, insane, but … you know! Hanging in there! :grimace-emoji:” But I found myself wanting to talk about the overwhelm. Or, more accurately, to explicitly confess to it. But I didn’t know how. 

I’m writing about this in the past tense, but don’t worry—the overwhelm is still happening. In October, I was unexpectedly laid off from my job. So while I technically, now, have more time, I have an entirely new mountain of stress to move from the path, while balancing all the usual stuff. 

I’m six months pregnant now, and though I spent the first five or so months mostly forgetting that I was pregnant (gone them days when I needed to know whether my baby was the size of an avocado or a grapefruit, lol), my now-third-trimester body is making it impossible to ignore. 

And the deluge doesn’t seem to be ending for anyone else, either. We’re texting daily about how our brains and hearts are handling news from Gaza, and its trickle-down into our communities. We’re #pregnantventing. We’re ruining our socks (at least I am) because our kids are constantly throwing the food we lovingly make them on the floor (here for tips!!!). We’re trying to figure out the operational and emotional logistics of holiday travel, or missing people we really wish we could be next to, to hug, but just can’t right now. We’re trying to get all the work shit done that we promised we’d get done, so that we can take a proper break over the holidays. We’re fighting off yet another weird stomach bug, or finally acknowledging that a constant stuffy nose is just part of the damn scenery.

And still, we’re not talking about all this together. I mean, not really talking. Though parenting is only one axis our overwhelm can revolve around, this bit from the 2018 NYT piece The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting summed up the recent flavor of this phenomenon for me: “Friends are constantly texting support, but no one has time,” [one mother] said. “It’s that we’re all doing this at the same time.”

So, can we talk about it? I think part of the reason I haven’t is that complaining makes me feel bad. And frankly, hearing other people complain makes me feel bad. I’ve always been a little bit uncomfortable with any kind of shit-talking, even the culturally-condoned types (s/o to my sis-in-law, who is a Patriots fan …….? No comment). There’s something about it that feels karmically superstitious, like firing off a green turtle shell during Mario Kart. Even just speaking a negative sentiment into the universe might come back to get ya!!! So I avoid complaining in conversation, even when things are rough, and part of me hopes the other person will, too.

It also feels burdensome, of course. Admitting to overwhelm makes me feel like such a downer. When things are a little bit dark, for all of us, I feel a responsibility to bring some levity to the situation, not to add more darkness to it. Perhaps we all feel some version of this: many of the people who know about my job situation don’t often ask me about it, trying (reasonably) to focus on the bright spots. And the people that do ask about it avert their eyes, giving me an easy out if I don’t want to talk about it. And while sometimes that’s the case, having someone acknowledge that you’re going through a shitty thing with some direct eye contact, or a hug, is enough to give the day an entirely different color.

But this collective conversational detouring around the hard stuff has made me realize that what I do appreciate is knowing the texture of what my closest people are facing. Maybe we’re facing the same thing; maybe we’re facing totally different things. But it feels important to be known to each other in this way. I’ve found discomfort and difficulty to behave like a cold does: you can’t speed your way through it. You just have to sit in it, with the knowledge that time is the only thing that’s going to move you out of it, or it out of you. And sitting in that when you know that your people are sitting in a version of it, too, is so much better than sitting in it alone. 

I’ve been asking myself how I could talk about overwhelm in a way that doesn’t make me feel worse. One framing I’ve arrived at when asked the simple, well-intentioned question of “how are you doing?” is to reply: I’m full. I’m engaged with something right now; a lot of somethings, actually.

full belly, full arms, can’t lose. wait, is that the saying?

At this exact moment, I’m full in a literal sense (with a baby), and I’m full from Thanksgiving (s/o to rolls), which are two wonderful, lucky, supremely beautiful ways to be full. But I’m also full of other things: worry, despair, frustration. I’m engaged with all of these things every day, the good and the bad. And I know you are too. 

Please let me know what is making you full right now, if that means sharing the literal details (or pics) of the best thing you ate at Thanksgiving (I could revel in food deets all day. Does anyone else just read menus … for fun? Should we start a MENU BOOK CLUB?) or the strange weaving of the good and bad textures filling your life right now. Tell me however you want (when I see you in person next, in the comments, in your mind³). We can practice talking about fullness together.

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Thanks for reading! Provisions coming next week—see you then ✨

hi I’m rolls, so good to meet you (recipe from the fab Justine Snacks)

1. Which is incredibly cool, and a tradition I’m totally down to continue for Nova

2. I often refer to Nova as my little witch, defining “witch” strictly in the badass Stevie Nicks sense of the word. She is full of magic and mystery and I whole-heartedly approve of and adore her witchiness.

3. So many of you tell me that you draft responses to Notes from Nowhere, either in your inbox or just in your mind, but don’t actually send them. Just want you to know I’m here for this. Obviously, I love it when your beautiful thoughts actually reach me, but I am the first to understand that life is busy and perfectionism is a bitch, so if those thoughts never actually make it out of your head, I still appreciate the fact that you’re having them. I love you!