nobody told me.
I watch friends celebrate the two pink lines and rearrange their rooms and their lives for the induction of new life but nobody tells them that research on breathing and bradley methods is all well and good, preparation for dilation and delivery is useful and helpful, but what comes next and then next and then next after that? nobody told me what to expect when my child says that the world is not a safe place anymore, that she feels unloved and unwanted, that she wishes she were never born i hold her and comfort her with words that spill from an empty well. i watch families celebrate the milestones that give scrapbooks and yearbooks their stories to tell, the academic and athletic years the trophy and certificate years as children pass through the rippling and dancing creek of childhood, but nobody tells them about the heartbreak years and the deception years, the wading years and the drowning years; deep waters of fear and doubt, of stumbling feet and fumbling hearts of weakened resolve and the worrying furrows that burrow into your brow, your heavy-laden back, the breaking of your very being. nobody told me. these children, bone of my bone and blood of my soul; i pretend to carry the rod of discipline and the staff of truth while knowing that they can crush me with their words their wills the wily missteps of their invincible youth they can. they will. they do. nobody told me that the sleeplessness of infancy and the patience required of toddlers are but the footpaths we meander as we train for the great climb and eventual summit of everest (and each child is their very own mountain, making some of us triathletes as we simultaneously surmount multiple heights with diverse terrains amidst various weather systems)... why do we only share the pictures with happy faces and only tell the stories with happy endings? how many distended hearts suffer through the struggles of relationship alone because of pride and guilt and disappointment felt, hopes that have died and fears realized, for which we withdraw and withhold the broken years and the hurting years and the hidden truths about divergent choice, your child's (my child's!) intrinsic right to be wrong, to do wrong. we once chose, and so they do the same, but it is the missteps that mirror our own failures and regrets that pierce our hearts with the sharpest blade. and so another sun sets and i crawl into this lonely bed as tears fall from honest eyes (for the truth has a way of breaking our delusions and dilutions of how wistful and watery we wished life to be) and i am reminded that the world is not a safe place anymore, that these children (bone of my bone and blood of my soul!) concern themselves not with whether i feel unloved or unwanted, that some days, i too perhaps wish that i were never born. i long to be held and find a safe comfort, but tonight i find only empty words drawn from an empty well.
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about the writer.“Words are only postage stamps delivering the object for you to unwrap” (George Bernard Shaw) past tense.
January 2019
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