Yesterday morning we walked the entire way to the station, via the nursery, in silence; both too bruised and sore from the angry staccato burst of shouting we’d hurled at each other, in the minutes before leaving the house, to say anything. The issue obviously didn’t even warrant the shoutiness. We’d been late leaving because someone (me) (him) had forgot to put Edie’s shoes on and because I (not him) (but also him) was dithering over allowing Edie to take her doll to nursery with her, even though the last one had got lost there. These sorts of things are tiny. But they’re also enormous. They’re the end-of-the-tether, final-straw, I’m-just-so-damn-tired-and-fed-up-of-this-endless-winter type things that pick at the scabs of parenthood; pulling at the frayed edges of reason and sense.
He yelled. I snapped. And then, wounded silence. On the one hand, we were trying to protect the small, curly haired person in the pushchair from any dark grown up-ness, and on the other hand we knew that the little time we had (twelve briskly marched minutes to the nursery, then three or four minutes to the station after that, as we hurried to catch our train) wasn’t nearly enough for what we actually needed to say. So instead we conducted our rattled, slightly broken argument with each other in our heads - the ensuing silence between us spiky and deafeningly loud. In the end, the stand-off was broken by the banal; the minutiae of life barrelling in. The train was delayed. We discussed which train we’d take instead and if we could be bothered to get a coffee while we waited. (We couldn’t.) Our cold, steely anger thawed and fizzled - it takes a true professional to reignite rage after train small talk - and we eventually boarded the train almost as if nothing had happened. As if we hadn’t just shrieked and wailed and rallied at the injustice of one another, even if only in our heads. A small smile, a brief, chaste kiss as we parted on the other side, and that was that. Fierce and messy and unresolved, but minds quietened for now.
This is how we fight these days.
Pre-Edie, we prided ourselves on being a couple who never went to bed angry. “That’s the secret,” we’d share smugly, my newly anointed ring finger twinkling prettily. We thrashed things out. Worked through our problems. Had long conversations into the night; planned, dreamed, professed. Those are the sweetly simple days where you’re so sure you’ve sussed it; that you know everything. Of course you know nothing.
The language we use to describe those early years of parenthood often sounds so dramatic, almost battle-like. Whether it was an accident, happy or otherwise, or something planned with meticulous precision for years and years, we all enter into it, this parenting thing, naively. You assume that, in between the sheer joy of ushering this small person into the world, it will be hard. But you have no real idea how hard. Because parenting is a little bit like an episode of Takeshi’s Castle. As soon as you’ve found your feet and got your confidence, some twisted contraption gets launched at you from off screen to knock you on your arse. Parenting, in all its colourful guises, is intensely rewarding because it’s so exhausting and difficult. I discovered, about six months after returning to work post maternity leave, that the best I could hope for, for now at least, was to just about manage to juggle everything. Not to nail it all. Not to wildly succeed. Just to make sure my child’s teeth were brushed (most of the time) and her clothes were clean (ish) and we kissed and hugged and supported her lots. But as we focus our energy on our child, and then pour the rest of it into our careers, it has left us with barely anything left for each other. There are pictures of us together littered across social media and staring out of photo frames in the house, eyes shining and smiles so broad you can practically hear us laughing. We’re always draped over each other, not just content to hold hands, but clinging to one another like we’re each other’s life rafts. If I look too closely, it’s a bit like staring into the sun. It’s almost like that couple is the glossy, Hollywood version of people who would play us in a crappy romcom. Honestly? I’m not sure I even recognise them.
No one has committed a crime. There has been no betrayal. But in the myriad tiny ways in which we fail each other, on an almost daily basis, it feels like all we can do is cling on tight; hang on for dear life and hope we’re not thrown off. And clinging on tight doesn’t involve thrashing out our problems, deep into the night, anymore. It involves licking our wounds and then bucking up, trying desperately not to let unresolved resentment fester. We have so many arguments shoved under the rug of our relationship that it is almost cartoonish. But the time and energy it requires to wade through them is just beyond us at the moment. So we’re putting a plaster over it, because it’s kinder. Because perhaps glossing over the cracks is what’s actually best for you both in that moment. Deep, messy, introspective honesty is so vital in a relationship, but it’s not always possible. Sometimes, the little hand squeeze, the tiny ‘sorry’, the moving on and not bringing up the shitty bits, is actually what keeps you afloat. And no, when you bound your roots and intertwined the strands of your life together, you probably didn’t imagine you’d be striving for ‘afloat’. Romantic, rosy-hued me certainly didn’t. Coping felt like a cop out. Halcyon bliss was what our days held for me. But there are days and weeks and even years when bright-eyed, laughter-filled thriving just isn’t realistic, and it’s actually about surviving. And the thing is: surviving is okay. That couple from your NCT class, and the ones who just got married at work, and the ones from Uni who you haven’t seen in years, and even the random ones who take the same train as you from Charing Cross - they survive too.
Today, we started again and took each other’s hands as we made our way to the station. Because each new day is another chance to be a little better, a little kinder; to keep surviving.