The Medicine Cabinet
BY CHRISTINE CARPENTER
Photo Courtesy | Christine Carpenter
On a visit back to my parents’ house when I was 25, I remember the climb up the staircase toward my childhood bedroom. Every familiar creak comforted me on my ascent. When I reached my old room, I had felt a certain joy taking in the walls that housed my youth, still painted soft pink with a mint green ceiling. I remember slinking out of my jeans, slipping into soft joggers and a loose, worn-out tee. Once comfortably dressed in my mismatched pajamas, I entered the bathroom down the short hallway to wash up for bed. I loved coming back to sleep in the home I grew up in. As I brushed my teeth, I pressed at the magnetic touch door to the mirrored medicine cabinet that sprung open. From my reflection to that familiar shelving that housed all my essentials, I noticed that although it’s been almost a year since I moved out, my designated area of the cabinet was entirely untouched. An array of product bottles, some nearly finished and others empty still stood in varying heights exactly as I left them. I wanted to question my mom about it or throw them out myself; most of the products are ones I would never use again, but something told me to leave it alone. As I pressed the door closed, the toiletries in their untouched glory remained beneath a thin layer of dust. I peered too beyond the shower doors, noticed that even my body wash remains on the bathtub ledge, nearly empty. I laughed out loud. It was as if no time had passed, as if I had still lived there. Silently, I wondered why she kept these seemingly insignificant things. And yet, I flicked off the bathroom light, allowed the moment to pass without further thought and never brought it to her attention.
When I moved out of my parents, I was a recent college graduate, and my then-boyfriend, now-husband had just bought his grandmother’s house. It was the next unspoken step in our relationship that insinuated I would move in with him, but I struggled to make the transition from my childhood home to his new place. The idea of taking this leap in one official move, both triggered and overwhelmed me. I had a strong bond with my parents, and even though I hadn’t lived at home the four years prior while I completed my undergraduate degree, it was going to take time for me to adjust to the idea of officially moving from the sanctuary where I came of age.
I made a subconscious decision to move out slowly.
A little at a time, I’d take a bag of essentials for an overnight stay, followed by some extra clothes, books, and other various personal items. Abrupt transitions tend to rattle me to my core and treading lightly helps me glide through them with more ease. My anxious personality demanded that I navigate this very gently. Change can throw me so off-course. An official “move” was difficult for me to swallow and at the time it felt respectful of my parents to take it slow. Was I projecting my feelings onto them? Maybe.
It took several months to feel at home in my new space. A marriage proposal followed by a big wedding, many date nights, a pregnancy that at the time seemed eternal, and bringing home our baby boy, all happened between these walls. The same walls that I struggled for so long to identify with as home, finally were.
Nearly ten years after I was poking through the medicine cabinet at my parents' house, I find myself in bed, reading alongside my husband. Our twenty-month-old son has been sleeping between us for the last several months. It is the only way he will settle down and it works for us. I have been justifying this decision to so many, myself included. Pangs of guilt for not mothering him by societal standards constantly plague me.
I am in the midst of a chapter of my latest guilty pleasure fiction paperback when my left pointer finger wanders to a dry patch of skin on my chin. I will myself not to pick at the graveyard site of a cystic pimple that has recently occupied a painful existence on my otherwise clear face. Peeling the ruffled comforter back, I head to the bathroom. Opening the top left drawer of our vanity, I search for my retinol moisturizer to smooth this uneven skin, a balm to glob on in the hopes of sealing in some sense of youth that early motherhood has since robbed from me.
As I reach for the small white container to pump the lotion onto the finger that discovered the impurity on my parched complexion, I notice a cerulean blue infant pacifier, tucked underneath a heap of products. The soother is tossed among compacts of old bronzers, pressed highlighters, and various shades of mauve to blush lip glosses.
I recently purged several bathroom items that I no longer needed. It felt good to rid my toiletry drawer of some old things. I happily tossed dried-up clumpy mascaras, q-tips made fuzzy and dirtied by makeup residue, and an array of eyeshadows in a rainbow of colors that I’ll never wear again. I disposed of many things from that vanity drawer, but I did not throw away that binky. I couldn’t. It’s been well over a year since the silicone pacifier has crossed the threshold of my son’s tiny pout, and yet I cannot bring myself to dispose of it. The nipple has a film of dust and makeup and God-knows-what else. It’s not as if my baby was very attached, in fact, he never fell even remotely in love with it. A couple of weeks during the foggy early days of babyhood, we pressed the nipple into his mouth in an attempt to soothe him, simultaneously bouncing him at a very specific rhythm. How we figured out what he needed with each ever-shifting stage, I’ll never know. Trial and error take on new meaning when it comes to parenting. It worked for a very short time when my bloodshot, dark encircled eyes mirrored my husband’s. We would have tried anything during those early days. Who knew I would long for them?
When I reflect on my mom holding onto my nearly empty bath products, I can’t help but smile in solidarity. This pacifier, this little plastic artifact, while nothing special, reminds me of a time so hazy and yet so beautiful. It reminds me of pure exhaustion, milk-stained tank tops, breasts that screamed in unison with my son’s howls; my body synchronizing with his, an alarm that it was time to feed. It reminds me of that sweet baby smell, those soft infant grunts, and the moments of quiet fatigue where all I could do was gaze in awe of the sleepy little human who had taken residence on my chest.
And while at the time I was confused as to why my mom would hold onto such an insignificant piece of me, I realize now that maybe it meant something more. Maybe it meant that even in my absence, I was still present in her house. Maybe it was kept to keep things the way they were, that maybe things didn’t have to change so rapidly. Maybe my moving out slowly wasn’t just for my sake, but for hers as well.
I flip the ring of the binky back and forth between my thumb and pointer fingers. My lips upturn slowly as I slide it back into the vanity drawer. I allow this piece of my son’s infancy to live for just a little longer alongside our lives the way they look today. I hold on; safekeeping those early baby days closer to my heart, for just a little while longer.
Mom, I get it now.
CHRISTINE CARPENTER is a mother and storyteller from New York. She is passionate about composing and sharing her journey through non-fiction stories, poetry, and an iPhone camera roll with over 70,000 images. She approaches her craft with a strong intent to make women feel less alone in motherhood, anxiety, and creative living. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys knitting, asking too many questions, reading, and most of all, quality time with her family.