I just... I can’t take it anymore. I swear to god I’m going to lose it. I haven’t talked to another adult face-to-face in weeks. Weeks! Not counting like, the cashier at Target, but that doesn’t count. That’s just… a transaction. I mean a real conversation. With someone who isn’t a client, someone who actually sees me as a person, not just the graphic designer. I work from home, obviously. (It's great, right? So flexible!) And my husband works long hours. So it’s just me. And the baby. All day. Every day. And I love my baby, I really do. She’s amazing. But she doesn’t *talk* back. Not really. She babbles and coos and laughs at the cat, and it’s cute, but it’s not… a discussion. It’s not someone asking how my day was, or what I thought about that dumb movie, or even just bitching about the weather. It’s just me. All the time. And I know what you’re thinking. “Make friends!” “Go out!” “Join a mom group!” And I try! I really do! I messaged Sarah from college last week, just like “hey, how are you?” No reply. Crickets. And the mom groups around here are… intense. All about organic purees and sleep training and I just want to talk about literally anything else. Anything! I spent an hour yesterday trying to get a decent photo of a bowl of macaroni and cheese for a client and I just wanted to tell someone how infuriating it was. How the light was all wrong, how the pasta kept looking mushy even though it wasn’t. But there’s no one. It’s like I’m disappearing. I used to have opinions. I used to have jokes. I used to have a whole life that wasn’t about deadlines and diaper changes. I see old pictures of myself and I don’t even recognize that person. Like she was so… vibrant. And now I’m just this… echo. This person who answers emails and wipes up spit-up. I feel so guilty even saying this out loud. (Or typing it, whatever.) Like I should be grateful. And I am! I have a healthy baby, a job, a roof over my head. But god, I miss just… being a person. A person with friends. A person who gets to say something more complex than “More peas, darling?” I was on a client call this morning, and the guy was like “Oh, I remember you! You did that amazing brochure for us a few years back!” And I almost cried. Like, he remembered me. From before. Before all this. Before I became… this. It was just a stupid comment, but it hit me so hard. Like someone actually *saw* me for a second. For who I used to be. And then the call ended, and it was back to just me and the baby, and the silence. And I just don’t know how much more of the silence I can take.