Where Am I?

When people have a baby, they change overnight. Basically what happens is they disappear and are replaced with other people who look just like them but are in reality New Baby's Mommy and Daddy. Their job is to feed, clothe and care for the baby, of course, but there is more: they must also take hundreds--nay, thousands-- of pictures of the New Baby. They document everything, keeping record books detailing New Baby's first step, first lock of hair, first tooth, first solid food, first laugh, first word--all must be noted and, these days, posted on Facebook.

I know this both from observation and from firsthand experience because I did it myself--everything but the Facebook part since there was no Facebook back then. I imagine that if there were, my son's face would have been plastered all over it. This is all fine and good and understandable, but looking back at it now, and seeing it happening all around me with the current baby boom, I find myself wondering why we lose ourselves so readily inside another creature, all but abandoning the first one who we used to call Me. And then years later, after New Baby is grown and gone, Me is sometimes nowhere to be found, or worse, near-dead from lack of nourishment.