Luster.
Several months after my daughter was born, I started feeling, well, a little trapped. I was grateful to be home with her, and in my heart of hearts, it's where I wanted to be. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of my husband, whose life carried on pretty much how it used to before the baby’s arrival, moving and progressing, independent and free.
What had changed for him - and us - was the flexibility within our relationship, and the ease with which we related to each other, because our worlds had become so different. I used to say to myself, don't lose the luster; it's up to us to maintain it. Now it seems I'm constantly dressed with milk stains all over my shirt and loose skin over my stomach, I've been touched and grabbed by little hands all day, and all I want is a long, hot shower alone. Where does one find luster in all of that?
What's interesting is how I subconsciously blame myself, and myself alone, when it feels like the luster is far away... as if it's my job to stay flexible, fun and carefree like my old self—the me before I knew what it was like to carry another human inside me, birth her and give her my all every day—while still attempting to leave space for my partner (even though, at times, it feels like he has nothing for me at the end of a long work day either). And it's here where the jealousy can sometimes begin to feel a little bit like resentment. So I ask myself again, where is that shine that always used to paint our time together?
It seems that the longer we’re together, and the more we share, the less "luster" just creates itself. This surface quality somehow begins to fade into the background, because life and love grow deeper, heavier and messier. It all seems to sort of runs away with itself, so much so that we have to be willing to dig into the mess together in order to reclaim it. I’m learning that the spark continually needs reignited from the inside. And maybe that glossy light that we want to feel is found on the other side of vulnerability -- in the earnest attempts to put words to feelings, in the heated late night conversations… because it matters, and it’s worth it. Maybe what keeps things lustrous is the hard work and the reworking, season after season. After all, nothing stays shiny on its own.
"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone. It has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new." -- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven