It’s been two years since my last doctor’s appointment. At that visit our discussion was shrouded by social distancing and early motherhood. It was a time when I desperately begged for closeness and the world replied with a stern and final, “No.” My days were held together with a matching pair of bookends, tiredness, and sadness. The doctor asked me to rate them on a scale from 1 to 10 and I wanted to laugh. I gave birth to those feelings around the same time as my son and everyone knows you can’t compare your children.
As always my blood pressure was high and the doctor talked about my weight. Mercifully she indicated that I didn’t have to worry about it quite yet. I was given a hall pass by society to walk freely in my body for a few more months until it would need to pass inspection. I greedily accepted my temporary bill of health and left the doctor’s office with the casual urgency of a shoplifter.