I'm just coming to realize that jealousy is a big part of my life. I want more, I want you, I want what you have, I want something else. I am a big bag of want. My toddler helps me understand this. I remember wanting a baby that liked to talk about its feelings; what I didn't know was what toddler feelings look like. What they want. Which is more edamame; don't change my diaper on the changing table; I want to repetitively stand up and slam by body onto your pillow; let me crawl in and out of the dog's bed; "aaaaa-chooo! aaaaa-chooo! ee-ii-ee-ii-oooooo."

I-phones belong in toilets.

My entire book collection belongs in the trash.

 ------

OMG, amazing.

------

It's going to be a while longer before I can coherantly string sentences together again. I'm thinking, a couple more months. I had no idea that it would be quite like this. I mean, I knew babies were time consuming, but this brings it to a whole new level. They don't tell you how much your heart will ache to spend every waking moment with your child, while at the same time, your heart will ache to be in college again. The part of college where you're guzzling diet coke and chocolate covered rice dream bars at 3 a.m. during your friend's radio show.

Who you have a crush on. Who doesn't love you back.

The part of college where you're desirable but you feel kinda fat and are on the fence about shaving. You are trying an experiment where you wear the same skirt for a week and wash your hair with dishsoap to see if it will dreadlock. You're worried about war, but mostly you're worried about a paper that's due tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. on the religious implications of modern baseball. What if you leave to write the paper and you miss your opportunity to make out with the person you suspect loves someone else?

You think to yourself, "I think I can write that paper in 2 hours." I'll go straight from the radio show to the computer lab, fudge the margins, increase the font, it's only 5 pages double spaced, and then get one of those frapp-a-whip-o-coffees from the corner store ...

Shit. I only have fifty cents.

It's similar to be in love with a baby. It aches in ways that you know it's completely real. Your rushing around trying to make things work. You're no longer in college but you don't feel THAT old and you're pretty sure that you can multi-task just as well. You're also pretty sure that what you're doing is incredibly interesting and filled with meaning, significance. I mean, you're building a LIFE. You can discuss these things in the same way that college kids discuss; you can apply all the same language.

Wait, what do college kids discuss?

 I think that's why we love crushing but being in a committed relationship is so much harder - crushing feels completely authentic and gut-filled. It churns your stomache like too much beer. Love? Sometimes it's more fleeting; sometimes you just want to go to bed and you don't want to have sex. You feel sad. Then you want to have sex but you're so damn tired. You find yourself explaining why you don't want to have sex and you wonder, "Is it normal to have this many conversations about sex?"

So you Google it. You type: "Is it normal to have so many conversations about sex after you've had a baby?" You ask your friends in the mom's group. The ones you trust the most. The ones who you're pretty sure aren't having sex ... not the ones whose babies sleep through the night in their own cribs because they had the AUDACITY to let their baby cry all night and train them to sleep. So that they can have a glass of wine together in the evenings and scour the internet for interesting movies and plan their weekends of interesting art and catch up with friends doing interesting things.

 -----

So, I was talking about jealousy. I have it. I've always had it. I have it for different, conflicting things.

Babies. Do you understand? Is this making sense?