I Wanted Candle Sticks

It was my husband's birthday last weekend. The older he gets, the less he likes to make a big fuss of his birthday but it's one of my favorite holidays of the year. We used to go out to a big fancy Michelin star dinner, and I'd try my hardest to out-do myself with a gift better than the last. I'm out of gift ideas for now, but the best gift I have is the acknowledgement for everything my husband does. This year has asked so much of him beyond parenthood and I don't see how hard he grinds when he leaves us for the day. I just have the audacity to tell him 'work less' and 'why are we not in Greece right now?' when the reality is he's giving and providing and then giving some more. The first years of parenthood feel like running a relentless race through somewhere really beautiful and scenic. Every day, you feel like your legs might give out from under you but look over there! What a nice view! Must keep going! I like to think I'm a strong swimmer. We were on our honeymoon in Italy and we tried to swim out to these big rocks just off the shore from our resort. We made it one way and my arms and legs felt like noodles. As strong of a swimmer as I might be, my husband is stronger and when my arms and legs are noodles, he carries us all back behind the safety rope, even if his limbs feel like noodles too. We've been together for five years and I do my best to say thank you and reiterate how grateful I am for this life we have. Some might think you don't have to thank your partner for the life you share together but I disagree. A thank-you goes a long way. There's no one else we stick with forever that we choose. You don't choose the family you're born into or the kids you'll have, you pick your person. And a few words of affirmation mean the world when you're both growing and changing alongside each other, wondering if you're doing anything right anymore. A year or so into our relationship, we went to a friend's house for dinner and I started to fantasize about a day when we'd no longer be sitting at our coffee table for meals. They brought out candle sticks and we went home that night and I told my husband, I want candle sticks one day. That's what I remembered about the meal. I couldn't just enjoy the good company, I found myself sitting and comparing, fantasizing about a future in which we have candle sticks. I married someone really good who gives me the world. We moved into the home we live in now and we bought our candle sticks. They're asymmetrical, white ceramic and they frame the fresh flowers on the dining table. We bought them just before our first Thanksgiving in our new home because I was so hell bent onthose darn candle sticks! And then there was so much more I asked for. The cloud couch:This one we both wanted, but it felt ridiculous to buy such a status symbol disguised as a couch, especially when it swallowed half of our shoebox of a living room. There wasmaybefive inches between where the couch ended and my husband's desk began. We only bought the two corner pieces and the ottoman. The delivery driver called ahead to make sure we weren't missing a piece.Nope! All good, sir! We're aware we've completely ruined the intended configuration of this couch, we would like it delivered anyway! Thanks!For the first week, I beat all the jokes to death—we live on this couch now!It felt like the equivalent of selling all of our belongings for a swimming pool. But you know what, we do live on that couch. We have lived so much on that couch. We waited for our daughter on that couch with marathons of our favorite movies. I spent my first postpartum weeks fused to that couch, and now we have a daughter who treats it like her personal trampoline. It could use a steam clean, and one day, we'll buy the missing piece to expand it to the size it was intended to be. The Leica:I wanted a new camera to follow my dreams. I learned to dream late in life and these dreams of mine took over me at the time. We were about to get married, we spent a year planning everything ourselves and as the planning came to an end, I started to mope about how I'd use my energy when I didn't have a wedding to plan anymore. I got the post-wedding blues at the top of the ninth. I started to remember that I was an artist and a photographer but the film camera I was always perfectly content with was no good anymore. It wasn't broken, I just couldn't see myself as a serious photographer with what I had. My husband went out and bought me the crème de la crème. A Leica M6 camera, the Porsche of film photography. I wasn't nearly ready for it but I made that camera my entire personality from the moment I clicked the lens in place. All my husband cared about was that I was happy and that my dreams felt validated. The apartment:I wanted a two-bedroom apartment on the water, facing the city — what a ridiculous ask this was. What else would the lady like? A personal driver? Because I have one of those too, thanks to my beloved. We lived in a nice one-bedroom apartment in North Williamsburg when we learned we were expecting our first baby. This is a part of Brooklyn all the cool kids are flocking to. Anyone else would beg for our apartment!But it didn't have enough natural light, there's hardly room for anything in this shithole! How do we exist here!We certainly couldn't have a baby within those paper-thin walls. We worked with a broker to find the apartment I wished for in my wildest New Yorker dreams — high ceilings, a view of the city, a washer and dryer in-unit, a doorman, an elevator, a dishwasher and enough room for our growing family. We couldn't possibly afford all of this, could we? And somehow we did, and we do. The king-sized bed:I don't know how we survived in a queen-sized bed for as long as we did. I swore we could keep sleeping cozy like we always have, why do we need so much space? We're only two people. But every time we traveled, we got to experience what more room feels like. A couple of weeks before moving into our new apartment, we went to the Saatva store in Union Square to try out new beds. We were still just newly pregnant. We imagined what it would be like to share a space with my growing belly and my husband picked the option that made the most sense for my sleep. Little did we know, we were upgrading our bed to share it with our baby and here we are, waking up to gummy smiles and morning sillies. Who needs the luxury of space when sleeping anyway, it's not like we're large people. We'll get the bed back one day and I bet we'll be a bit sad about it at first, waking up to each other, thinking about how less fun life would be if we didn't have our girl. A lot of cake, usually from Martha's bakery:I could finally eat again after my first trimester nausea. We used to sauna together up the street, we even bought matching embroidered sauna hats. We'd walk over in our matching Roots sweatpants and Birkenstocks and rotate between the saunas and cold plunge, then we'd talk about the high we felt, get an iced coffee on our walk home and retreat to one of our shows — lifestyles of the childless. Being pregnant, we lost our sauna ritual before I was ready. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to it. But as a consolation prize, my husband would go to the sauna and come home with Oreo cheesecake and a cannoli. Just like that, he started a new ritual, one that involved really good cake — a reliable way to keep your pregnant wife happy. The babymoon:I was growing a human and felt literally stuck in place. My whole world shrunk to a six block radius where I walked our dog and came right back home. I was thrilled to become a mom but I couldn't shake the feeling of mourning my past life. Where do we go? I'd ask, but I was begging more than I was asking. I asked the question so many times and I'm pretty sure he would've taken me anywhere if it made me happy. He would've personally chartered a submarine if that's what I asked for. Every day felt more inconvenient.I can't go to France, I won't be able to enjoy the cured meat or the soft cheese or the wine. I can't go to the snowy lodge upstate, I won't be able to enjoy the hot tubs or the spa and what if I slip and fall on a walking trail.My husband stayed up late one night and booked us a trip to Turks and Caicos for my birthday week. Five nights in the sun were the thing my OB never prescribed. How badly I needed those five nights to stop counting kicks and to pause the anxious Googling. And it was the thing I needed more than anything to stop the terrifying quicksand sinkage into motherhood. After that, I was ready to sink into whatever came next. A week of sunning my bump, and not a dollar was missed. The Dyson air wrap:I wanted my long hair down, my beautiful dark brown hair that I always used to wear like I just got a fresh blowout from the salon. It's just hair, but after growing mine out from a pixie cut for years, my hair was a security blanket. I could have a garbage day but as long as my hair looked and felt like the me I patiently grew into, I could look myself in the mirror, chin up and get back to whatever life was asking of me. My hair was my cloak of confidence. And then I became a mother and my hair went up into a messy bun that I washed once a week, if that. For the price of $699 my husband bought me back some of my oomph and bounce. I pawned it away the moment I had a baby and decided I could just keep layering dry shampoo on my dry, graying hair and he decided that wasn't good enough. The security to quit my job:I spent months in therapy screaming and crying about how badly I wanted to do something I was passionate about. When we learned we were having a girl, one of my first thoughts was: I don't want her to watch me do something I hate for money, especially if it steals me away from her first years. I knew for many years that tech was not my destiny, it was a means to an end. My maternity leave started and I decided I'd treat the decision like a New York apartment. These decisions happen quickly but you don't actually need to start looking for a decision to make until a few weeks out. The anxiety I felt about going back to work turned into a full-body no. I felt sick about it. After a few weeks of trying to work and mother at the same time, my husband held my hand while I made the decision to quit. He's carried us ever since and I'll always be grateful for this time I get with our girl. He works while we 'let's send a picture to daddy' and 'how many hours until daddy's home' all day. The Doen cardigan, and then the Farm Rio coat:I imagine it must be hard to watch the person you love misplace their sense of self, even when it's for the sake of something as heroic as raising children — to watch your partner go from being someone who loved to get dressed and walk out the door confidently to then become someone who keeps a pile of clothes on a stack of throw pillows that she cycles through over and over again. My husband listened to my vain comparisons and criticisms, and how annoying that must be to also want to shake your person into seeing themselves the way you see them. 'I'm not chic like the Doen-wearing moms.' And 'I'm not cool like the Farm-Rio-wearing moms.' On two separate occasions, there was a cardigan purchased and a waxed jacket. Both of which went back because I found that I'm neither of these kinds of moms and it's okay if it takes me longer to find my style again. I have a small handful of pieces that make me feel like a million bucks and that's all I need. But how special is it to live with someone who wouldn't notice if you were stereotypically chic or just the same you you've always been in their eyes, and that person is just as chic. The sea (it's important that I break the chronological order for this one):We were only a few days engaged and I declared I needed the sea. I shouted from the water, 'This is all I need! I just needed the sea! And now I'm happy!'We took that trip after a few hard months of grinding teeth and clenched jaws. I wonder if New York living gives me TMJ. But I jumped into the sea off the Tuscan coast and became a different person and I know my husband works as hard as he does to give me that equivalent. He keeps a note in his phone of things I've demanded, like the sea, and I have no clue how often he looks back at that note but when he does, he thinks to himself — work harder, she doesn't have the sea yet! And this whole love letter is to tell him he's the sea. I have the whole sea. And then there's everything else I've ever said I wanted, big and small. Anything else I could possibly want, he says the same thing: Buy it. Buy it all. He's not working as hard as he is so that we become hoarders in our increasingly shrinking apartment. I married a good man who works hard so that I'm never anything but happy. But dearest husband, you can't MAKE me happy. None of these things make me happy. I chose happiness when I chose a life with you. The greatest advantage in parenthood is choosing the right person to have kids with. I picked someone who deals with a lot of personalities from me and many, many different desires. I've asked for the moon, no,demandedit. And he climbs up with a bow and arrow and shoots it down for me. And he wakes up and does that over and over for us each day, and I have the nerve to sit here and say,'But what about all of those stars, can we get those too please?' Thank you for the candle sticks, dearest. We don't use them nearly enough but they're lovely. The Nap Trap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.