What I Did All Day
who wants to know?
This essay was always about the poem. It started out pretty much as you see it here, but when I was ready to publish I became restless, anxious. I perseverated. It got longer and longer as words and themes proliferated, but they didn’t fit because all those words and ideas were trying to obscure and soften a post about coercive control in a marriage.
I was compelled to be honest here when I got into a conversation about coercive control on LinkedIn, but most notably I was inspired by a conversation1 between M. Gessen and Rachel Louise Snyder, reporters at the New York Times, about the parallels between authoritarianism and domestic violence.
In the end Gessen says: “…so here’s the recipe: Talk to one another, call things by their proper names… And help one another.”
After the birth of my first child, when I called the midwife almost every day about breastfeeding and being bone tired, when I walked the razor’s edge of postpartum depression, my ex husband, a psychologist in private practice, came home after work, saw me in a bathrobe, baby and puke rag on my shoulder, saw dishes in the sink, clothes overflowing the laundry basket, and who knows what else, and said, What did you do all day?
But his tone of voice, sour face and impatient gestures conveyed what he really wanted to say: What the fuck did you do all day?
I heard that clearly but no matter. I didn’t know what to say since what I was obviously doing—standing in the foyer in a bathrobe with our baby on my shoulder—was insufficient. And I couldn’t remember what I did anyway.
To me, that fact that I was still alive was a small miracle. Not that I ever seriously considered hurting myself, but in any given moment I was considering this world, this family, this man, and wondering, what will I do?
______________
What I did all day
That’s what you want to know
when you come home after work.
I meet you at the door in a bathrobe,
infant on my shoulder.
You walk by without touching me
without asking to hold the baby.
The empty doorway frames a suburban scene:
a brick walkway, an arbor heavy with roses
planted in anticipation—
Across the street the handsome neighbor
smiles and waves. I close the door.
I walk through foyer and hallway
into the kitchen where you wipe counters— vigorously—
you fling my plate of half eaten toast in the sink— it shatters—
the baby startles— cries—I am a writer, poet, life coach and someone who has lived with type 1 diabetes for 30+ years. I’m launching a new newsletter this month, Type 1 Diabetes Dilemma. Stay tuned! I’m also refocusing my coaching niche to work with people living with type 1.
A note about AI: I do not use it. I do not use it in any part of my creative process: from conceiving and nurturing ideas, to editing drafts, to writing and recording the final essay. Everything you listen to and read—including the em dashes—is the work of one human.
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Dear Valerie
That poem broke my heart as the dish broke . Beastly experience ..
much love Kathleen
Yes, call things by their names, talk to one another and care for one another. Your essay goes right to the heart of things, as does your poem. It’s heartbreaking, and it’s truth telling, as we must do for ourselves as well as each other. Thank you, Valerie for sharing this.