Tagihan

Selepas menulis coretan peribadi tentang Nathania (yang baru kembali senyum dan berlari, malam ini, selepas demam), ungkapan ini terasa "semacam relevan":

People often compare having a new baby to the early days of a love affair, which is true as far as it goes, but one’s physical fixation on, and craving for, a newborn is much stronger and more intense that that. How often in a love affair can you literally find yourself in tears because you were away from a man for three hours?

I imagine a better metaphor would be addiction. There is an opium-den quality to maternity leave. The high of a love that obliterates everything. A need so consuming that it is threatening to everything you are and care about. Where did your day go? Did you stare blankly at the baby for hours? And was that staring blankly more fiercely pleasurable, more compelling than nearly anything you have ever done?**

Tetapi aku bukan ibu dan tidak pernah menikmati erti cuti bersalin!

** sumber: My Newborn Is Like a Narcotic oleh Katie Roiphe [Double X, 25 Ogos 2009]