The Most Fun We Ever Had

by Claire Lombardo

How could you grow people inside your own body, sprout them from your own extant materials, and suddenly be unable to recognize them?

Everyone thinks I know what I’m doing but I actually have no idea what I’m doing and that’s the cruelest trick the universe plays on people who have their shit together, little one; the people who seem like they have it together are the most overlooked, because everyone thinks those people never need anything, but everyone needs things; I need things; thanks for listening; I’ll eat more protein tomorrow.

“I think so much of making a relationship work has to do with choosing to be kind even when you may not feel like it. It sounds like the most obvious thing in the world but it’s much easier said than done, don’t you think?”

The thing that nobody warned you about adulthood was the number of decisions you’d have to make, the number of times you’d have to depend on an unreliable gut to point you in the right direction, the number of times you’d still feel like an eight-year-old, waiting for your parents to step in and save you from peril.

She told herself she was overreacting, that of course this was a traumatic transition for her as a mother, to see her tiny girls sprouting up from the ground like orchids, growing striking and graceful like ponies.

Their interactions weren’t hostile, but they weren’t talking beyond businesslike exchanges about the children, about the dog, about the house, and this made him more nervous than anything else. They had weathered years and years together, winging it, but nothing had prepared him for this, for the illusion of normalcy when in fact everything was precisely how it wasn’t supposed to be.

Should she apologize for having a life so unmarred by tragedy? Should she feel sorry for the fact that she’d happened upon such lovely circumstances? Not to mention her own struggles, all the cherished parts of herself she’d sacrificed in order to build her lovely life.

The world as it was would almost never be the world you wanted it to be, and there was a certain pleasure in finding your space in the schism.