Little Black Book
An ancient relic uncovered on a kitchen shelf.
The other day, I was remembering a journal I had kept when I was pregnant. Not really a journal, even, more like a notebook. I didn't write my thoughts or feelings in it. I wrote to do lists and planned out projects. It was a notebook for the logistics of my life at the time.
And my life at the time was this: I was freshly pregnant and usually nauseous; my husband had just asked for a divorce and moved out of our house; we were separated and he had a girlfriend; I was doubling down on my design business and plotting to leave my day job for good. It's funny to think about it now – who even was that girl?
She was tenacious and scrappy. She was hurting over the life that was over, but hungry for the new one she was carving for herself.
I could visualize one specific list in this notebook. It was on the right side of the spread, and I had written down everywhere I would need to change my last name back to my maiden name. This particular list has stuck in my mind for the 11 years since I wrote it. I vividly remember where I was sitting at my kitchen table as I wrote it. I referenced it for months as I worked my way through the muddy waters of divorce.
This list popped in my head recently, and I wondered where the notebook had settled. And then a few days later, I moved a stack of books on a shelf to replace them with an outside plant that was getting too cold on these October nights, and there it was. The black hard cover with a dusty outline of the smaller book that sat on top. I opened it up, and it naturally fell to the most frequented page: the name change list. And it all came flooding back.
I carefully turned the pages as if it were an ancient relic that might be contaminated by new air and dirty fingers. And it kind of was a relic. A piece of my history. A season frozen in time, immortalized in ink. Tucked in around the name changes was a myriad of other mundane tasks:
Goodwill drop off
Give dog a bath
Design client website concepts
Assemble crib
Paint nursery
On one early page, a list of half-questions for my first meeting with my divorce attorney:
File before baby born or after?
Legal separation until finalized?
Name change with legal separation?
Last name of baby?
Custody of newborn?
My heart broke for that version of me. I remembered, but I had forgotten, too. Beneath the list was a pros/cons chart: filing for divorce before birth vs. after birth.
Opposite that page: a sketch of a website design I was working on for a client. Notes about font sizes, colors, photo placement, button links. As if it had no idea the weight of the list across from it.
A few pages later: a numbered list from 8 to 40 — the weeks of my pregnancy — and their coordinating calendar dates. Scribbles on where the trimesters fell, travel dates, ultrasound appointments, the dreaded glucose test. I've always liked to plan ahead. See what's coming next. It was the only concrete thing I could hold onto at the time: in about 40 weeks, I would have a baby, ready or not.
A quick small list — I almost missed it — scratched in the margin next to some ebook layout changes from a client:
Taxes
Custody
Middle name
Car title
Delivery room
It was a list of talking points for the monthly meeting with my soon-to-be ex-husband. The changes in my life in the margins of the changes to an ebook design. What a time.
Another one later on, perhaps the next month’s meeting:
Roommates' names + phone #s
Baby on my health insurance
Needs a diaper bag + car seat
Smoking at his mom's house
Directly under that, my monthly income from my day job added with the freelance design projects I had booked out until my due date. What my salary would be during maternity leave. How long that would last. Would it be enough?
The thing that strikes me now, sifting through these pages again, is how devoid the entire notebook is of feelings. It's all logistics. I had other places to pour out my heart of course — the grief, hurt, anger, sadness, confusion. But this little black book wasn't that. This space was for my brain to have some semblance of control. To set my feelings aside, make a plan... and then get to work.
The juxtaposition of topics in this notebook reflected my reality perfectly. I was pregnant and divorcing and designing and figuring out how to hit reset on my life. It was a logistical feat.
The notes and sketches and lists and scribbles went on and on… until they just stopped. The rest of the pages were blank. Unwritten. I must have needed a clean slate and reached for a new notebook at some point.
I must have moved on.
There are years where the sight of that notebook would have broken me. I would have been on the floor in the kitchen re-reading it, probably curled up in a ball by the last page. The rest of my evening lost to these contrasting lists.
But it's been 11 years. Today. Eleven years today: October 21.
And now I'm so grateful that I can just toss the notebook on my desk and chuckle. What a weird phase of life that was.
I'm grateful that I can finish straightening the new plant on the shelf and find a new place for the other books.
I'm grateful I can go about my evening routine: wash my face, brush my teeth, prep the coffee maker.
I'm grateful I can peek in on that baby — now 10 years old — see her arm draped over the side of the bed and lightly pull the covers back up over her.
I'm grateful I can crawl into my own bed and hear my phone ding with a text from someone I love very much telling me to sleep tight and that he loves me too.
I'm grateful I can close the notebook and just sleep.
Happy October 21st.