Southern Seducer (North Carolina Highlands 1)

I also feel a familiar sense of overwhelm as I get ready. I always have a handful of different perfumes on hand—which I brought with me, but God knows why as I haven’t worn any in months—and I can’t pick one. I smudge my eyeliner and have to re-do it twice. Since I never wear it anymore, my makeup skills are rusty. None of my clothes really work the way I want them to on the new body motherhood gave me.

A lump forms in my throat. I close my eyes and think about the advice my friend Shannon gave me. You’re focusing on the right things. Give yourself grace until it gets better. It does get better.

To be honest, I haven’t had that much time to think about or look at my body. Between keeping Maisie and myself fed, I barely have time to shower, much less ponder the enormous physical transformation I’ve undergone.

But now that I’m staring myself down in the mirror, I’m confronted with an unpleasant reality. Nothing looks right.

Nothing feels right.

Yes, I’m focused on my baby and on survival. It’s been nice, having a break from focusing on the size of my jeans. Still, I thought my body would be mine again after I delivered Maisie. I didn’t hate being pregnant, but I didn’t love it either, and I was very much looking forward to having my physical freedom back.

Now, though, I’m realizing I’m still not free. Not while I’m nursing, anyway. I’m in this weird limbo phase where my body is and isn’t mine. I’ve lost most of the weight I gained while pregnant, but my tits are enormous, and they still leak so much I have to wear extra padding in my ugly nursing bras. My stomach is soft and kinda saggy. I have this lovely little fupa—basically an extra roll of chunk—hanging over my C-section scar, a visible red grimace that cuts across my pubic hair. I’ve lost the muscle tone in my ass and legs. They’ve gotten smaller while everything else on my torso has gotten bigger, making me look like an upside-down pear in my jeans and sweater.

And the hair loss? I only have to look down at the sink, currently filled with handfuls of my hair that came out while I blow-dried it, to be reminded of the male-pattern baldness starting to appear along my scalp.

No one talks about these things.

Rationally, I know I can’t be the only one who’s struggling. But the silence that surrounds the difficult reality of new motherhood makes me feel as though I’m alone on my own little leaky, balding island.

It makes me feel like a failure.

The baby starts to cry in the next room, and a beat later, my milk lets down. The sensation is like hot fingers pressing down on my breasts, reminding me it’s time for Maisie to eat again.

I start to cry, too. How, I wonder. How do people think this is fun or magical or fulfilling?

I grab a tissue from beside the sink. “Stop. Stop. My eyeliner. Please.”

My doctor named this as a symptom of my depression: always being on the verge of tears. I feel like my fuse is so, so short these days. The smallest things, like messing up my eye makeup, overwhelm me to the point that I lose my shit.

Just—

Ugh. I put so much effort into getting dressed up. I wanted to feel sexy and carefree and confident.

I wanted to feel like me, but I’m starting to think that person doesn’t exist anymore. For the first time since my divorce, I’m starting to question if I’m headed for a happy ending, or if I’ve irreparably ruined my life.

Whatever the case, I definitely don’t feel like going to a bonfire concert tonight. I’m too tired. Too overwhelmed.

“Oh, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Mom asks, furrowing her brow when I come out into the cavernous living room. She has Maisie in a football hold—part of our bag of tricks for when she gets fussy during her witching hour, which ironically lasts not one but three hours, every day from four PM until she goes down after seven—and is breathlessly bouncing her.

“Nothing. Everything.” I blink, hard. “You know, the usual. I think I’m gonna skip the bonfire tonight. I was an idiot to think I could swing it.”

Mom cuts me a look as I take the baby and settle on the couch, pulling up my sweater. “I really think you should go. You can’t rely on the meds alone to make you feel better, Annabel. Seeing your friends and getting away from Maisie for a bit will be good for you. You’ll be glad you went.”

Maisie arches her back, refusing my nipple. She’s going through this weird phase where she does that sometimes. I asked the pediatrician about it, and she said it could be acid reflux, or the baby getting distracted, or something I’m eating.