I’m sitting in my glider rocking chair, covered in a quilt
that has seen far better days but was made by my grandmother out of grandpa’s
work shirts and other bits of fabric she had collected over the years. Tattered and torn is accompanied by loved and
cherished in this covering. It has been
quite a long day. Because I’ve run out,
I haven’t taken my depression medication in four days. After one day, my nervous system gets upset,
and makes it known by sending electric shocks through my body each time I blink
my eyes. As this is day four, it is a
bit of an understatement to say that it’s worse than that. I woke this morning and Riley was up and
ready to play. I felt like I would fly
apart at any second, but gave my best effort not to. We watched some cartoons, and Riley played
some in his room while I rested on the couch.
I gathered myself together as best I could and took us to church. I suppose twenty minutes late is better than
a 4th week in a row of not attending. After church we went for fried chicken at the
diner. I wore sunglasses from the time
we left the house until the time we returned.
Riley had been talking all morning about playing outside with his
Frisbee. I didn’t have it in me, but
hoped that Michael would take the Frisbee shift and let Riley burn off his
lunch of pancakes and syrup followed by bites of each of our brownies for
dessert before laying low a couple of hours.
I for some reason tried instead to get Riley to lay down with me. Michael got up and Riley didn’t want to lie
still, probably from the loads of sugar we just sent coursing through his veins
only minutes before. I told him he could go play in his room. I remember falling asleep really fast. Then I remember waking up to the sound of
Riley kicking the wall; a thing he knows far better than to do. I suspected that he was looking for attention
from one of us. He got it. It was not positive attention, but Riley
isn’t picky. He will take any attention
he can get, positive or negative. I just
wish I could get him to seek the positive with as much fervency as he seeks the
negative. When I woke, It was my shift
again, as I promised Michael I would make sure he could go out for a ride on
his motorcycle today, since I preempted his trip yesterday with a trip of my
own. So, he left and Riley and I played
some, and I watched a little bit of a show, and then we went outside. I had been what we call ‘barky’ all day. Cranky and irritable doesn’t quite describe it. While outside, the renters downstairs came to
pay the rent while Riley played in the yard.
I called Michael’s Mom and Dad to tell them the renters had paid, and I
made the mistake of complaining to Mom about my frustrations with Riley and
Michael. She rightfully chastised me for
doing Riley a disservice in his life by not getting my stuff together, and by
not communicating with my husband. I was
on the edge of falling apart all day.
She is the last person on this earth that I would ever want to upset,
but at that moment the fine threads like that of my quilt holding together the
outer shell of me gave way, and I was reduced to tears. I did something that I have never done in my
life. I hung up on her. I couldn’t bear to face my feeling like a
disgrace to parenthood-to say nothing of daughterhood. I sat there in my lawn chair and cried and
cried until I couldn’t breathe. Riley
tried to comfort me. He said, “It’s okay
mama, I take care of ooh.” I cried
more. What a lovely heart God placed in
my boy. The boy I was failing with. The exchange was only seconds, but years of
failures flooded my thoughts. “I am a
bad mama.” I said, meaning it to the
depths of my soul. Through my sobs, he
hugged me and patted my head. “You are a
good mama. It be okay.” I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stand the thought of failing
him. I couldn’t stand the thought that I
had hung up on Mom. I tried to call back
if only to apologize. The line was
busy. More tears. I couldn’t see. My head was pounding. I finally took a deep breath and calmed a bit. I called again. The phone rang. She answered.
I burst into tears. We talked and
I cried and eventually I had worked myself into a frenzy. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t see. I was a bad mom and a bad daughter. No one said these things except me, but I
believed them to be true. I had fallen
completely apart. Michael came home from
his ride then. He coaxed me inside,
hoping to avoid the scene I could easily have made. I went to the bathroom and climbed in the
shower and sat down under the stream of heat and steam and continued to
sob. I could not stop
hyperventilating. The tears flowed from
my eyes as if they had been held back for ages.
I had to take a sedative to finally calm down. My heart is so fragile. My temper is so short. I am able to forget that about myself when I
have my medication to rely on. After my
attack, I took a moment to calm down, and then I played school-buses with my
boy until his bed time. He is such a
good boy. This is not the life I wanted
for him. He has struggles and obstacles
of his own. No child deserves to have to
reassure their mother at the tender age of six.
They need to play hard and live a full and fun life. I feel sorry that he has to wait for me
because I am slow. That he has to be
gentle with me because I’m fragile.
Please note at this point that just because he is supposed to be gentle
doesn’t at all mean that he is. But he doesn’t
understand, and quite frankly he shouldn’t have to. But alas, I suppose each of
us has to take our life’s experiences as they come, and from each one choose to
either learn a lesson and grow, or drink in the draughts of bitterness set
before us and simply endure. Tonight I
will try to accomplish the former, and shrug off the latter and substitute
a cup of hot chamomile tea.
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