He unlatches, milk-mustached, eyes half closed, in a drunken stupor. I admire him for a moment and then: The clock starts ticking.
I’ve prepared everything I need for my cafe visit, laptops already in the bag, letter I need to mail to my insurance also there, breakfast eaten, outside clothes on. I’m ready.
I hand Flo the baby, put on my jacket, and head out the door.
An hour and a half. That’s the most time at once I get to myself these days in between breastfeeding, and it’s quite a change to put it mildly. Nursing babies need to eat 8-12 times a day, that means once every 2-3 hours and that counts from the time you start feeding. So if you start feeding at 10am, and finish at 10:30, you only have until 12 until the next feeding.
I’m basically a prisoner to my son’s hunger.
And I think it’s funny in particular because here in this newsletter and in most of what I teach with respect to non-monogamy, I always mention the one value that’s particularly important to a lot of us who pursue this lifestyle: freedom.
Freedom to meet and connect with whomever might spark your interest. To see where it goes. To be allowed to feel intimacy with someone other than your spouse or partner. To not have to feel that simply flirting is a betrayal.
And now. Now, forget about flirting, sex, running around the world with no agenda.
An hour and a half, usually in sweatpants in my apartment, that is what freedom today looks like for me.
And strangely, despite how much weight I put on freedom, how important I find this value in a relationship and in life, it’s kind of alright.
I was reading
’s substack the other day, in which she paraphrases Martin Hägglund’s ideas. She says “Life is only meaningful because it ends…an afterlife would actually make existence feel like an endless slog.” What makes our time on Earth valuable is the very fact that we know that one day it will be over.I kind of feel that way now about my hour and a half. I have to decide and be really intentional about answering the question, “What do I want to accomplish here?”
Do I want to work on my book (yes, I’m writing a book! more on that another time)? Do I want to write a newsletter post? Do I want to meditate and do some yoga? Do Flo and I want to have sex? Do I want to just spend some time with my baby, playing with him?
Time has become so valuable to me. Anytime I have with my baby just playing, anytime I have to simply be by myself on my laptop, writing, god I love writing.
If I pump the night before, as I did last night, my time is doubled, so I can have 3-4 hours at once. The other day, during one of these stretches, I went out to dinner with a close friend, just the two of us, I even had a glass of wine (shhh don’t tell anyone) and it was incredible.
The small things. Those moments have become more precious, intensified, for the simple reason that I know I have to pay for them.
It took a while to be okay with all this, to get used to it, to even in some way appreciate it. And I don’t think I could appreciate it if I didn’t know as well even this time of limitation is limited.
A time in which my child can be totally nourished by suckling from the warmth of my chest, with my hand on his torso, his whole body enveloped by my arms, a flush of love pouring through me.
And even though sometimes I want just a little more time, to write, to go out for the day or the night without any restrictions, to sleep in again, I’m trying my best to not take this special time for granted. This time when I’m stuck to the couch and his mouth is stuck to me. The clock is ticking.
What else?*
Last week I recorded a short reel on how Flo and I haven’t been so non-monogamous lately (more on that in a later post here as well).
I had flagged this Modern Love article about the meaning of money and its relationship to love months ago and never got the chance to share. I found it particularly touching.
*What is this section? I’m going to use it to share cool things either others or I have created from other corners of the internet.
<3
Sarah