No, literally. The other day my slippers got soaked in grey water while I was trying to deal with a blockage in the ol’ appliance trap under the sink. So I’ve been wearing slipper socks. But I had to go outside to put the pile of cat-poo-bags that had been building up for a shudderingly long time in the bin. So I took off my slipper socks to save them from the rain, and I realised ‘Hey, I haven’t been barefoot very much lately!’, and then I left them off so I could frolick free.

It was beautiful for a while to feel all the foot sensations. But it has become quite clear why I haven’t been barefoot very much lately. It’s winter. My feet have gone grey.

I went under. Boy did I go under. I forgot this thing even existed. I don’t know when. The Ocean of Baby swelled up and I let it take me. Now it seems I have washed up on some distant shore. It’s sort of familiar; I’m on land again. But the more I explore the more I find it’s…different. And I don’t quite know how to navigate it in the same way as the old land. And sometimes the waves come up and threaten to take me again. But I think I have some purchase to hold on here, at least.

Recently, I started feeling like a real person again. Don’t ge me wrong, it’s precarious – a few nights of no sleep and I am disappear once again. But, regardless, feeling like a real person, intermittently or otherwise, brings a new set of challenges to deal with. Because as a real person I want to do real things. I was reasonably comfortable to let the world pass me by for quite a while there. Indeed, I couldn’t even see the world – I was lost at sea, at the mercy of the current of the Ocean of Baby.

But now I’m reconnecting with my own dreams and ambitions and goals, outside of being Mother. And, here’s the thing. They are big. They are extraordinary and vaulting and compelling. They are demanding. Perhaps as demanding as the Tiny Creature. And I haven’t figured out how to deal with that, because there isn’t room in my life yet for such demanding dreams.

And to be clear, my aspirations as Mother are pretty formidable. It’s not that I want to relinquish some of my motherhood, or enter some post-baby phase. I want to compromise nothing. I am striving for the way. But I am finding that I may be getting ahead of myself…