Having a Toddler: What Could Have Been But Wasn't and Never Could Be and Now Just Won't

On watching a former version of yourself in a coffee shop like an annoying writer waxing poetic in her journal; please god someone make it stop

Picture this: it’s mid-November and everyone needs a giant pick-me-up from the state of the world, so we’re all packed into the local coffee shop on a bright blustery Sunday morning. The greenery has started to deck the exposed brick halls of the former industrial building turned local haunt. It’s creeping in earlier this year because we all need it. Soon the woven twinkle lights will follow and that’s a promise we’re all counting on— yes, please, god help us.

There’s a two-piece band playing up front near the door— one dude singing with a guitar and another with a pony tail and an upright bass. They’re playing “Wish You Were Here” and you don’t actually hate it. Everything smells like cinnamon, preemptively and welcomely.

Through the outside window, you see a couple walking slowly. The woman is stooped as if dragging a sack of potatoes along the sidewalk. They open the door to the coffee shop and you see it’s a toddler— a toddler stumbles in, lead by a stiff arm. A toddler wearing a red cable knit hat with furry round pompoms on top, soft round cheeks bubbling below. Dark eyelashes, cold red nose, wide eyes watching the pony tailed upright bass. The three of them stand in line at the counter, ordering two coffees and a muffin— a chocolate chip muffin— wrists bent for strained security in the crowded weekend coffee shop.

And it’s been a long time since you’ve had a rounded cheek toddler, since you’ve brushed your lips against the soft downy hair of a sleeping forehead in your arms. It’s been a long time since you’ve half-dragged half-lead a wobbling human-creature towards a destination, unsure if you’d ever make it.

But you haven’t forgotten what it felt like, the overwhelm. The need to corral for everyone’s safety, but the knowing they need to explore and discover. And the beauty, the fleeting gorgeousness and tenderness and softness. And stickiness. So much stickiness.

I am sitting at my table alone and I am watching the three of them. The mother peeling the muffin’s wrapper, the dad crossing his legs at the table while he scrolls his phone, the toddler dangling limbs and watching the musicians.

I feel a pang of regret— so distinct, so sharp. That was me once, setting up a muffin for small creature consumption while my coffee grew cold. I wish I could have savored my children’s toddlerhoods, their soft newness and sweet neediness. I wish I could have known that those chastising grandmotherly older women who told me I’d miss it someday were right, instead of feeling angry in the moment because they had no idea what I was going through, and even angrier that I knew even then that they’d someday be right.

I do miss it now, but I don’t miss it the way I had to do it then. With the things I didn’t know and the help I didn’t have. I don’t miss it the way it actually happened but I mourn what I wish it could have been— calmer, slower, more rested and supported, less traumatic and quarantined. Less alone.

I am not some glossy Instagram carpe diem meme subscriber; I think regrets are not only mandatory but important. I think regrets are inescapable and if you say anything otherwise, you’re likely on some avoidant addict journey somewhere deep down in a place you refuse to admit. And that’s fine; you’ll get there when you get there. But where I am, right now, is missing what could have been from those tiny wiggling toddler days, those pulled in so many directions and doing none of them well days, those no sleep and throwing scrambled eggs on the floor days. Because I know I’ll never get those days back, but isn’t that true for everything? For anything? Isn’t it all just fleeting presences and then grappling with what you missed?

I read something once about how humans can never actually “catch up” on sleep; it’s just gone if you lose it and then you have to cope with the deficit.

What kills me is when my kids were sweet-faced round-toothed toddlers, I knew I was missing stuff while I was missing stuff but I didn’t know how to not miss stuff and survive at the same time. I knew that I didn’t know how to savor it while also grasping at straws to relieve my bladder or eat my own meal.

I knew I’d someday be here, sitting in this coffee shop alone on a Sunday morning in mid-November when the world is slowly turning towards merry-making and twinkling lights, and I knew I’d see a gorgeous sticky toddler amble across my sightline and my sternum would pang with sweet regret someday. I knew it. And I was right. And here we are.