Thursday, July 12, 2018

Take care

I don’t want to go to work this afternoon. I don’t want to have to multitask or compartmentalize. It’s really all I know. It’s how I operate. I take care of everyone. I tell them where to go and what to do and how to do it. I hold their hands and walk them through the most difficult moments of their lives. I make sure emergency services get where they need to go to help the people they need to help. I give them vital information so they can save the day. It’s a thankless and draining existence.

I say existence and not job because it’s not a job to me. It’s my life. I take it home with me. I dream about the 6yo child left home alone with only his 4yo sibling, crying to me on the phone while his mother was nowhere to be found. I remember the anger I felt when she was finally located at the bar down the street an hour later. 

I keep the voices with me, tucked safely in my soul. I know when my units are in distress or need backup merely by the inflection in their voices and the rapid way their breath catches the radio. My fingers fly across the keyboard and my pulse quickens and I steady my voice and enlist backup. It’s imperative that I remain calm in the face of uncertainty. For if I can’t keep calm, how can I calm them?
But for me, I just need to be able to let everything go sometimes. To unload and remove the burdens that weigh down my already heavy frame. To not have to be “on” all the time. Just for a little while. To be held and comforted and made to feel protected. But who protects the protectors? Who cares for the caretakers?

Monday, June 4, 2018

Unmasked

In the mornings, I creep into her bedroom to steal one last look at her peacefully dreaming,
Curled up and quiet
Knowing that when she awakens she’ll be all gangly legs and attitude
She lives in that delicate place in childhood where she is unabashedly confident and yet
needing her mother’s reassurance at every turn

In the evenings every conversation is a minefield
Dinner is a negotiation, bedtime a losing battle
I’ve somehow forgotten not to negotiate with tiny terrorists
Stall tactics, manipulation and psychological warfare
Hours later in the dark, I am overcome with flashbacks of past battles, none of which have a clear winner,
All parties exhausted with bruised egos and tear-stained cheeks

In the mornings, as I shower away the previous night’s grime and sins and disappointments,
I imagine slipping on the slick tub’s porcelain
What would it feel like to go down
Suspended for a fraction of an instant
And then crashing down in a dazzling display of splayed limbs and shooting streams of water

I want to be present
I want to get out of my own way and be the parent I needed mine to be
But they were imperfect, as am I
They did what they thought was best, as do I
Neither of us truly incorrect
Neither of us fully grasping the consequences of our actions
The waves of inadequacy crashing along the shores of the best laid plans

In my child I recognize all of the hopes and dreams of my youth
She feels so deeply that any dissent is an act of treason
My deepest fear is that one day Mommy will no longer be the super hero
With cape gently flapping in the breeze
What do I do when I’m unmasked and she exposes me for the villain that I am
There is no instruction manual in my utility belt