Relentless..and forgotten
Just keep swimming...... I am sitting at a coffee shop doing some work, and a young mum walks in with a baby in a front swaddle. She looks so peaceful, so delighted, so utterly content with life. Two or three short months ago, she has undergone the most excruciatingly painful ordeal the body can undergo, possibly starting months before she gave birth, culminating in her body being stretched and ripped and pounded, for hours and hours, maybe days, and then left in a heap of exhaustion after which she had to stay up all night, tending to the this precious little creature that simultaneously completes her and makes her want to punch somebody while screaming at the top of her lungs. She has not slept in months, and her body is depleted, withered, a husk, in order that this little bundle of scrumptious insanity lives, thrives, is loved beyond any love imaginable. And yet, she has all but forgotten all that. In this moment, all that matters is the glow of ecstasy she feels at having her perf