By Liza Ruggiero

Who let the dogs out?

(Who, who, who, who)

In the breath between stanzas my daughter frantically signs and yells, simultaneously, “again! again!” This is the nine hundredth time we’ve listened to Who let the dogs out? during our current car ride. But it’s the only thing that keeps her from crying, so I make a bargain and trade a bellow for a bark.

Later, my husband sighs into the car with us; reaching for the radio dial, he presses skip. I can’t help but smile as the song starts over. He doesn’t realize it is set to repeat.

It’s a light moment between us, a welcome reprieve from interactions that have felt so heavy lately.

Years ago (a lifetime, really) the two of us were back on our college campus for homecoming. We gathered at our favorite watering hole, temporarily shedding professional responsibilities and giddily catching up with friends. A few hours in, Who let the dogs out? started playing on the jukebox. Not once, not twice, not three times, but over and over. The machine must be broken, we muttered absentmindedly between sips of watery beer. 

Eventually, though, it became clear that something else was going on: An old class clown had fed the machine 100 quarters to play the song on repeat…for hours. It was an annoying, but admittedly hilarious, prank. Any lingering social discomfort dissipated as laughter rippled through the bar. That night we danced together, drunkenly, carefree and grinning.

Those people, those kids, feel unrecognizable in this moment.

Recently, I uprooted my life for a cross-country move to be closer to family. Back in our old city, during my daughter’s first months of life, I worked full time while my husband finished his surgical residency. Some of those days were excruciatingly hard. There were flickers of darkness, moments when I sunk into the couch nearly catatonic with exhaustion, followed by bursts of fury, a fuzzy background of overwhelm. 

But somehow, the fog of busyness created a buffer for our relationship. Our schedule felt extreme, so out of our own control, that we were able to skate by with a badge of mutual exhaustion and survival.

Now that there is the semblance of choice—about daily schedules, who’s taking the night shift, how, if at all, to reenter the impossible world of child care—every conversation feels fraught.

I toggle between fearing that it’s me, with my loss of professional identity and sudden rudderlessness, and raging about the societal systems designed to make parents, and mothers especially, feel as though they’re drowning.

But really, I don’t feel like I’m drowning. Instead, I feel as though I’m pulling the metaphorical emergency brake, awkwardly swerving as I careen downhill, seemingly unable to stop. I slam my feet down, dig my heels in, desperately willing myself, pleading with my brain. Please, no.

I’ve made it this far. Fifteen months without postpartum depression. No. Please no.

But the momentum builds each day; my desperate resistance is no match for my depression’s conviction. The descent is rapid and terrifying, a devastatingly familiar fall. 

I’m no stranger to antidepressants, with their night sweats and friendly heart palpitations. But this time I’ve weaned myself off. First by getting less disciplined about my daily dose, then, more purposefully, and a bit defiantly, stopping altogether.

Now, I can’t seem to contain the tears shooting out of my eyes. This beast within me is bursting through, raging wildly at my husband, crying softly for myself.

I sit across from a friend at a tiny café, my child spitting her food out and fussing on my lap, and I try to keep myself from losing it as my friend gently asks how I’m doing. An amalgam of tears and snot and dignity drips on the ground as I lean over to pick up the grilled cheese my daughter has thrown to the floor.

It’s me. I’ve let the dogs out.

It will all be okay, she says, hugging me. You’ve been through so much, so many transitions.

Remember transition, during delivery? When your body prepares for something momentous, trembling and clenching and pulling you inwards, towards the uncertainty? Remember what it feels like to hang on the precipice, to straddle two worlds at once? How somehow, desperation and peace lived side by side?

Maybe Who let the dogs out? is the wrong question. Maybe it’s less of a question of who or even why and more of a question of what now?

I miss my old life, not necessarily pre-baby, as so many do, but pre-move. I miss ease and laughter in my relationship. I miss my home and my job and my friends, especially my best friend who lived in my neighborhood, walking and working and witnessing beside me throughout the last six years. 

That same friend shared an Anne Lamott quote with me once. Something about life being like driving on a winding road at night, how the headlights can only illuminate what’s directly in front of you, but not what’s around the corner. 

In the meantime, there is no easy answer, no skip, no fast forward. My daughter is beginning to wean, now drinking another beast’s milk. Her soft belly rises and falls, small snorts escaping from her mouth; she curls into the warm crescent of her mother.

At dawn she stretches awake, eyes blinking, limbs flexed and pushing away, ready to conquer the world outside the den. We press play and listen on a loop until gradually, steadily, without consciously realizing it, our howling has become a home.

Liza Ruggiero is an educator whose work focuses on helping adolescents and adults cultivate inner growth, self-compassion, and greater self-awareness. She recently relocated to Rhode Island, where she can be found tending to her garden, snuggling her dog, and chasing her toddler. 

Like what you are reading at Motherwell? Please consider supporting us here. 

Keep up with Motherwell on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and via our newsletter.