You know how when you start a new job, everyone runs around using abbreviations and acronyms like you're supposed to be in on the joke? Like "oh, just run it through the GTO" or "Well I put it on the Blue/Gold form." It takes forever to catch on and you find yourself thinking can't these assholes speak English?? I hate all of them!!!!
As it turns out, motherhood is filled with its own lingo. Only I never felt like there was a learning curve. I just seemed to instantly understand all the words on the first go around and, worse, I now throw these words around as if everyone in the universe is hip to be square. I find myself at stores referring to the Bjorn as if everyone should know what this is. Or latch. Or at rugby reunions talking about hooter hiders and nursing necklaces like these things are as common as beer and barbeque.
Which all makes me wonder: what is it exactly about this process that makes the learning curve so desperately steep and yet so dismally flat? How is it even possible to feel simultaneously in on the world's biggest secret and yet have no idea in the world how to be mediocre at this task?
While I ponder this question, I'll just keep on fluffing my boppy, concentrate on my let-down, and try to bypass fussy time. Because I knew (intimately) what all of those things were within about 8 seconds of signing my W4 for the job "mom."
After years of nomadic temporary employment, advanced degrees, and chocolate ice cream, a rugger with a love of knitting and a cyclist with no domestic skills signed a Ketubah and bought a house in Pittsburgh.
2 comments:
I thought the bjorn was the swing for a while. But at least I know what a boppy is!
You did have 9 months' lead time where you thought & read & talked about this stuff pretty extensively. That's not a steep learning curve.
no, man, i am telling you even before he came out i internalized all that stuff right away. there is something urgent about the whole process...
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