From the beginning of March, my baby has gone back to daycare after a year. It’s so hard to write that actually – a whole year. I feel intense guilt and no matter how chirpy I sound to my therapist for sharing how this is a good thing for all of us, I don’t know if I truly feel like that. Sometimes I see an old photo of my baby and my heart feels intensely sad. How is he growing so quick? Do I let my mental tiredness come in the way of me being fully present with my child?

After handling a full-time job for so long with a baby, I just didn’t feel that I had any more energy. And he was beginning to think there are two people in the world. The pandemic was beginning to suck all the joy out of parenting and work. The ability to afford and find good childcare is a blessing, but like all things parenting, it’s easy to get on to a guilt trip and grieve small things that the pandemic took away or gave to us as a family on a timed basis.

The only thing saving me is consistent walks with my audiobooks, and reading in general. I’ve not posted here in a while, but here are my March Books so far.

• Hunger, Roxane Gay: This is a deftly written memoir, and I decided to read because Gay recently married Debbie Millman (who I love) and I was curious. It made me think a lot about things that are normalized in our media and culture that we don’t seem to question. It gave me the vocabulary and thoughts I seldom had as a child trying to process information around me. It feels like something I’d love for my children to read to grow up more humane, and understand how trauma can or does impact lives. Gay has a great ability to make everything sound so regular when it’s actually tragic in so many ways.

• Inner Sky, Mari Andrews: I love Mari’s little drawings and this is the first book I’ve read from her. We all fight our own demons, and Mari does so with extreme sensitivity and gentleness. She is vulnerable and direct in her writing, and I can imagine that this is not an easy one to pen. It’s very personal but expressed in a way that is relatable like most of her creative work. My key highlight was Mari’s lovely documentation of the joys and sorrows of in-between times, like today, a year after the pandemic. It also has those cringe moments (for me at least) where she goes through her healing journey and chooses methods that I questioned. It’s not because I wouldn’t (or haven’t) tried things like these in dealing with my own issues, but it felt like I was judgemental in her talking about them. Maybe it’s because I haven’t fully processed some of those emotions on my own. Don’t know if that makes a lot of sense, but it’s a book that will speak to those who engage fully with her work.

• The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky: Just finished the audiobook and Noah Galvin deserves a lot of praise for narrating it so masterfully. I can’t wait to see the film, although, I’m sure it possibly loses some of its nuances in that medium limited by time. I enjoyed the book, and it does have the voice that’s inspired by Catcher in the Rye. It still holds its own and has an emotional arc that is suddenly accelerated toward the end. It all adds up but makes it a lot more tender than I was prepared for somehow. This book sneaks in on you.

• The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides: I really loved the twists and turns. The writing is fast-paced and feels well-researched which is a good ally for a book that almost reads technical in parts. But in this whodunnit kind of genre, it’s hard to believe that I could read it again – although I am very, very picky about reading anything again.

• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong: Vuong is an incredible writer, and this book is very, very deeply felt. Although it’s just spring, I won’t be shocked if this is one of the best books I read this year. There’s so much to it from the immigrant experience to the Asian American characterization to survival amid a war, to deeply felt love and addiction. It’s the magnum opus of  Vuong’s life with very his intensely provocative and observant writing style. This is an incredible read especially in today’s times when the Asian American race tensions are so high.

I am now wondering what to pick next…