Wrong Place Wrong Time

by Gillian McAllister

Both phases of parenthood – the newborn years and the almost-adult ones – are bookended by sleep deprivation, though for different reasons.

She’d thought motherhood was so boring at the time, so unrewarding, the hours and hours dedicated to the same tasks in a variety of orders. But it wasn’t, she now knows; to say so is like saying breathing is boring.

Was she a shit mother, or just a human? She doesn’t know.

Like she’d grown up in the space of a two-minute pregnancy test, looking to a future generation instead of to herself.

The maternal habit of a lifetime, feeling guilty no matter which she chose.

A kid, really, nothing more. So perfectly, perfectly innocent, it hurts her heart to look at him.

Any time to themselves was hard won, so precious that they spent it in blissful, sitting silence.

We only think of the bad things that happen, rather than those that, through fortune, pass us by.