At 10:45 AM, or so, on March 30th, my bubble of solitude clasped. And faded. I crossed the sand colored marble lobby of the office building on Hudson Street.

“Hiya,” the tall, barrel-chested security guard said from behind his wooden post.

Okay, Issy missed me, I thought. Turns out, many of my co-workers did, too. I stared and gawked at the thirty or forty so men and women who shared the fifth floor of my advertising agency with me, in awe. As my co-workers delivered their life and work updates, the same thought crossed my mind until it reached a gallop, no matter if I listened to a man or a woman.

“Wow, you’re speaking in complete sentences.”

I’d listened to a steady stream of ba-bahhhh-BAH! for two months. Now it was back to work for the single baby mama. This world, inhabited by well-dressed folks who used subjects and verbs in their communiques. An adults-only environment? Wow, I’d forgotten.

In some freaky, bizarre way, I had, over the eight weeks, begun to believe the company paid me to stay home and care for my daughter. That taking care of Julia was my only job. Since Julia’s adopted I can’t blame my lunacy on post-pregnancy depression. Or hormonal fall out. My best assessment: being crazy in love will make you nuts.

*

That sad Tuesday, I headed to the door of my apartment three times, my purse and cell phone in hand. And three times I came back to tell Dominique, the nanny, some previously forgotten detail about Julia:
“The stuffed butterfly is her favorite toy.”
“She’ll go right down for her naps, she doesn’t get chirpy.”
“At least three tablespoons of protein at lunch.”

Finally, I walked through the door, dark sunglasses in place. I figured that crying in front of the baby sitter on the first day was not a good look. Yet and still, as I waited for the elevator, the moment sunk into my chest, like a deep-sea diver who’d rush to the surface too fast. The coming reality, crushed into my chest and consciousness. I’d left everything dear to me—my nine-month-old-daughter, my home and all its contents—in the hands of a stranger. One woman. Dominique. I had to trust and believe all would go well.