Code baby shower

My sweetheart understands me, though neither of us talks about our past.

“You don’t have to go, you don’t have to say anything.” He tells me.

“I’m trying to be normal.” I say

“It doesn’t suit you.” He tells me.

“My troubled time is over and these unfamiliar joys, I find them irksome.” I tell him.

I’m thinking I’ll go this time. Typically when women from work invite me to their baby showers I just send a gift and never go to the party. But this girl is the daughter of a good friend. Why not go and wish her well? It’s a fine thing to be invited to a party.

Why uncover the irksome feeling of celebrating things to come? Underneath could be a much larger pain. Better call Robin. She’s so nice but not too nice. She’ll know what shade of blue to call it. I’ll talk it through with Robin.

As far as invitations go:

Bridal showers, ugh;

Anniversaries, ugh;

Baby showers, ugh;

I don’t mind weddings though,

or funerals, and

I like birthdays.

I never had a bridal shower, though I was officially married twice.

Anniversaries? I thought those were kept wholly between the two people involved.

I never had a baby shower, though I gave birth twice.

Belatedly I resent the absence of announcement, celebration, recognition, community, and pride around my marriages and births. Or maybe I just think it’s puzzlingly bourgeois that people do these present getting extravaganzas.

These invitations to other peoples bridal showers and baby showers remind me how alone I was going into those major life events: no presents, no parties, and no cigars. But there was plenty of uncertainty, questioning, and a pinch of shame in those early years.

I have a closet full of pre-bought gifts boxed and wrapped in brown paper. Each is labeled baby or bridal. This way I’m ready to face the inevitable dread of such invitations with grace, and without having to think about it too much.

I grab a baby gift for the shower and go, following the directions on the card to the suburbs and a blocky house with a mown lawn. I give a blessing where I myself knew only the small flicker of the Holy, like disgraced Mary giving birth in a barn.

The wisdom and gifts of womanly status are more than a little late in coming to me. My heart has long been testing the sliver bells of love. I’ve risked much in my adventures of discovering how they are forged.

Spying in the sacred work place, I learned of white metal, lasting love. Yet I feel a slight reluctance to accept these bridal and baby shower invitations, a slight repulsion about sharing unfamiliar joys.

How hard it is to grab the tiny silver bells from the rushing water where treasure is given and taken just as your legs go out from under you.

Bethany picks up my gift. Oops I realize I totally forgot to write a card.Bethany peels off a post it from the top and reads: “Baby, baby, baby”. She seems puzzled but amused.

“Wishing you all the best that’s from me” I call out. I can’t remember what’s in there, probably a onesie.

I don’t like to crowd in with other people. I’m in a lawn chair sipping punch and eating a cupcake. I’m a mature woman. The girls are crowded around the gift. “Too nice to be a gag gift.” I overhear. Then giggles, and “well it’s right for a girl, pink and frilly” and she holds it up. Bethany’s mother, my friend Marjorie gasps. My face goes hot and red as I remember key facts that make sense of the strangeness unfolding: my birthday is coming up, the posit said baby three times not just once, and my sweetie also sometimes uses the give away closet.

Bethany seemed to be warming to the lingerie, holding it over her chest. “It’s loose and flowy,” she said, “ I think I could wear it.”

Not wanting to admit my mistake, I go with it saying, “that’s the spirit! You can’t let this baby cramp your style.” As if I knew all along it wasn’t your average onesie.