While waiting for what’s left of my meager breast milk to dry up, so that I can do what I need to do to stay Myself, I find myself weirdly wishing that my daughter needed me, that she needed something so desperately and that I, and only, I, had that thing. That’s one of the few things I like about breastfeeding, being Needed. And closeness. And the front seat to her Face. Then my son leaves to get ice cream. BYE MAMA! I go to the store. MAMA BYE! I’m gone for two weeks making a musical, what adult person does that? MAMA BYE! I toggle between the two parts of myself seamlessly, for the most part, because I’m needed, but not desperately. And I realize that if I were desperately needed by either of them, I would never leave their side or the house and we would all shrivel up into a pile of family, a single mass with no individual dreams or desires or steady income. So this is better. Anyone can feed her, so she will always, always be Fed.