That Feeling?

Is there a word for the small sadness that settles in your chest when the baby is napping after a hard cry and the dog is looking forlorn under the table? It's the feeling that wraps itself in the quiet of the house and tastes like cold coffee. It looks like the gray light that colors everything in the room a little cooler and threatens to rain on your plans for a walk or the park or trying to talk to those other moms without knowing what to say.

The feeling makes demands on you to create more fun, more memories, and more meaning for this short time. It sets in motion a series of questions that lead to the ultimate question - Am I enough? Your brain ticks through the next hours of the day that are segmented by sleep, hard won for everyone. Inserted into the timeline are points to eat (something easily prepared in five minutes or less). There should also be an outing or two, carefully orchestrated to avoid crying in a contained public space or contamination from reemerging infectious diseases. Also, you should be back to the house within an hour and a half for the next nap. Do these places exist?

Until then, you watch his sweet, sleeping image on the monitor. Your most loyal dog, the one who stayed next to you all night while you labored, keeps watching you and you feel a new surge of guilt. You slip into the nursery to take pictures of the tiny baby feet tucked under his bum, the little hand pressed against his cheek. You try to draw him and realize why Mary Cassatt was a master.

You make a To Do list, in the hopes of driving out the feeling. Motion, action is the antidote. Watching tv only makes you more antsy. You click on the radio for company. You plant the flowers and clean the fridge, plan upcoming meals and wonder when the baby will wake. You search activities that three month olds like.

But then you are all three stretched out on a blanket in the grass, watching the sun peek out from behind the clouds, and everything feels as perfect as it could. Does the sun drive the feeling out, drying up all of its wetness? Or is it blown away by the soft breeze of the effortlessly beautiful fall weather? Is it the baby smiling at the grass and the dog, or the dog contentedly watching the soccer game? It has all come together in a fortuitous meeting that you had no more control over than you did the crying or the sad eyes. And that is the best and the worst fact after all.