When it's over

Will you still come over

I recently read the brilliant book Matrescence by Lucy Jones - a quasi memoir about the transition into motherhood. In it, she talks about how becoming a mother is selfless, but in the literal sense: SELF-LESS - as if by becoming a mother you lose yourself entirely. Selflessness is always posited as a good thing, a noble thing, but my emo brain enjoyed this more mopey perspective. I finally get to live out my dream of becoming a ghost.

Lucy is a science journalist by trade, so she also opens chapters with sentences like “six species of spider consume their mother upon birth.” This is called Matriphagy or “Mother-Eating.” 10 out of 10, would recommend (the book not eating your spider mum).

All my friends (me included) talk about how we spent the first few weeks of parenthood mourning the person we used to be. My chosen grieving anthem for this transition was Sugar Ray’s 90’s anthem “When It’s Over” (Will You Still Come Over).

I am definitely living a very different life than I was 3 months ago - but I have found that in the one hour I get to myself a day, the very undiluted version of my old self returns - like i’m being haunted by someone who really likes to draw dogs.

So today I wanted to share some of the work I made while possessed by old Julia.