Before I knew it I was in Glyfada, I parked at the seaside as usual and walked to my psychiatrist's office. The street where the office was the same as usual. A posh shop at the end of the road. I always looked for the posh store to make sure I was on the right street. I was lucky that it was near a bank too. That helped me find the door with the dark grey marble or granite frame.
Once I arrived at the door, I walked to the elevator and took it to the psychiatrist's floor. After the elevator door opened, I looked for a fortress-like door. I rang the doorbell and went into an office that looked the same as the one in my timeline. I looked for the receptionist who had an office with sliding doors that were open. The receptionist looked how I expected, with her short dyed blonde hair and dark brown eyes. Her style reminded me of a teacher I had when I was in high school except the teacher's hair was dyed bright red and her cheeks were noticeably red because of too much blusher. Both the receptionist and teacher made me think of artists, and that their hair and faces were their canvases.
"Hello," she said to me in English. I always felt guilty that my Greek wasn't better and that people felt they had to speak to me in English. When I had arrived in Greece I had hoped that I would conquer the language quicker but due to depression and the constant lack of belief, and criticism of myself I was unable to make as much progress as I wanted. I was always tortured the thoughts of how much of a failure I was, that it stopped me from even doing every day jobs properly .
"Γεια σας! (Hello - polite, but means good health to you)" I replied and sat down to look at skylines showing the Eiffel tower and New York City. I found a magazine and flicked through it while I waited for my doctor.
I jumped when I heard the door of the inner office open. A dark haired fragile lady walked out but instead of the man I expected to see, a tall man with short mousy hair and bespeckled blue eyes followed her. This was new. The doctor in my time had medium-length, dark hair with strands. He had glasses as well but his eyes were dark and he looked very Mediterranean.
"Hello, how are you? I'll just be a second." he said, signalling me to go into the other room while he talked to his receptionist.
"I'm fine thanks," I replied nervously because this was the first time I'd ever seen this man. I didn't know what kind of person he was, but I still walked into the room he told me to. I sat in a chair and waited anxiously for the psychiatrist to enter the room. I wondered what this doctor thought of me. What did he think of my makeupless face? Or my dyed hair that was bobbed with frizzy brittle hair and strands of different lengths? The frizzy brittle hair is caused by the fact that I am getting closer to menopause. Why was I thinking like this? I never really thought like this when I was with my usual psychiatrist. Sometimes I might have these passing thoughts before the appointment but never while I was actually at his office. Maybe I had been shocked into feeling uncomfortable because it was a different psychiatrist than I was expecting.
"So how have you been?" the tall man said, as he entered the room.
"Okay," I said, not knowing what to say because I didn't know what I had discussed in previous sessions.
"How is everything going with Lucas?" the new psychiatrist asked.
"It takes getting used to not having sleep again. He's started eating solids now. He is eating creamed rice pudding now. He's like Eleni in that way, Tina didn't like food like that and she only ate yoghurts. But she was born in February. So when she was six months old it was summer. So I think the paediatrician probably thought it would be easier on her stomach to eat yoghurt for her evening meal.
"I think I'll get into a routine eventually. I'm still breastfeeding though but after his evening meal Lucas doesn't want any milk until bedtime." I replied.
I looked at the stranger saying what I thought he expected me to say. The truth was I had no idea how I really felt about Lucas. I'd only known him for two days. I hadn't had a chance to experience the lack of sleep that came with a baby. I was trying to be calm and pretend that I was all right about the situation but I wasn't sure if I would ever become used to the routine of looking after an infant again.
In my mind, I was screaming, " Ahhhh....I hope I can do this!"
"How do you feel about Lucas?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, perplexed.
"Well, Lucas wasn't planned. He was an accident. But because you are getting closer to menopause, you thought at first maybe that's why you missed your period. So it was a shock." he explained.
"Yes, it was a shock. I only planned on having two children, I never wanted three. Even though I wanted to have a girl and boy initially, Tina was enough. After her I felt our family was complete. I had no need to try for a boy.
" I was so nervous, with Eleni and Tina, when they were babies. Because every time I put them down to sleep, I would worry they would die of cot death. I tried to do what the baby magazines said but I gave into Nikos's opinions about how to put them down to sleep. I put Eleni and Tina on their sides instead of on their backs like suggested in the magazines. That's another reason I didn't want to have another baby. I didn't want to be constantly on edge.
" I felt guilty that I didn't fight to look after the girls as I wanted to and as the evidence proved best. I didn't want to not fight for another baby again."
" So you felt that everyone was questioning the way you were looking after your children?"
" Not so much when I was looking after Tina, but with Eleni I felt like I was questioned a lot." I said, looking towards the window.
"We were still living with Nikos's parents when Eleni was born. My mother-in-law tried to show me what to do, but I realised later that she hadn't had that much experience looking after babies. Because after birth to both her children, she went back to work immediately after the recommended six weeks of recovery. Nikos's mum had a hair salon so didn't think she could take any more time off.
"My sister-in-law, Anna, told me, my mother-in-law, was so excited when she saw Anna's kids take their first steps because my mother-in-law had never seen Anna's or Nikos's first steps. Because she was so busy working. My mother-in-law took over looking after Nikos and his sister after my mother-in-law's father died and Nikos's grandmother hurt her hip when Nikos's sister was 18 months old. My mother-in-law never had to look after her children, when they were babies. She didn't have many nights without sleep because her mother and father looked after them at night when they needed changing or feeding as soon as she went back to work.
" I just realised I was trying to impress someone I thought had a lot of experience looking after babies. But later I realised she didn't.
"It was easier with Tina because I no longer had someone questioning why I was breastfeeding so much. Or why I had to change diapers so much during the night. I could throw the dirty diapers into the toilet bins rather than take them outside to the garbage can. A big fuss wouldn't be made if I left dirty diapers in a bin in the bedroom and they were left there because Nikos didn't remember to empty the bin."
I took a breath and continued, "At night because I had to change Eleni, I couldn't take her diaper to the outside bin, because the house alarm was on and I would have had to turn it off several times a night. And it was also tiring to keep taking them to the outside bin, so I had a bin in her bedroom that I would empty every morning.
" What happened was, I left with Nikos's parents and Eleni for a holiday. Nikos stayed behind because he had to work and only had a week of paid vacation because he had not been at his job that long. We left early in the morning so I forgot to throw the dirty diapers from the night before in the outside bin. Manos went to work all week and never looked in the bin in the bedroom. When he left for the holiday, he still hadn't looked in the bin and when the cleaner arrived the diapers smelt the house out.
" Then the questions came. Why hadn't I put them in the outside bin? My answer: Because they were dirty diapers I had changed at night. Did I really need to change Eleni's diapers so much at night? Answer: Yes, I did need to change them at night because Eleni woke me up when her diaper was full.
"With Tina I didn't have to worry about my in-laws' opinions, so I was more relaxed."
"So what do you feel about that now?" he asked.
" I feel angry. I'm angry that Nikos, my mother-in-law, and father-in-law weren't more understanding about the diaper situation. I try not to blame them too much, because none of them had to get up in the middle of the night to change diapers while being exhausted. Nikos found a job quite soon after Eleni was born so I never woke him up in the night if Eleni needed changing or soothing back to sleep.
"I can still feel the pain I felt by letting everyone down and also the pain I felt that I couldn't be a superwoman and made mistakes.
"One time my father-in-law complained to Nikos that I wasn't feeding Eleni properly and that I was only giving milk and no solids. But by the time he came home from work I had already given her a midday meal of pureed meat and vegetables. I sometimes gave her milk as well if she didn't eat it all. By the time my father-in-law arrived home the meat and vegetables were given to some of the stray cats living outside the house and Eleni was sometimes drinking milk.
"It just felt like I was always justifying my actions.
"It felt like they were saying why aren't you the perfect mother? Why aren't you a natural mother? Why don't you know what to do instinctively?" I answered.
I couldn't believe how honest I was being but it felt good and a relief to finally say out aloud what I felt now and when I first became a mother with Eleni.