Of covert candy bars and a life surrendered
Elsa : May I have some of that? (eyeing my candy)
Me: No.
Elsa: Why are you having extra sugar today?
Me: I have a sugar condition.
Elsa : Is it the kind that needs insulin or the kind that needs an IV? We also have gatorade.
Me: The kind you need to leave the room and let me eat my candy in peace!
She really thinks she can reason me out of everything, which let’s face it most time she does. I promised I wasn’t going to be the mom that said “because I said so,” but FUCK. That IS the best response in all these situations. I didn’t come from a childhood where my opinion was any part of consideration in any matter really. It was always yes. No was only used to protest the whooping I was about to get in my attempt to challenge the decision of a consequence.
I used to feel so guilty when hiding things from her or when I would avoid eye contact so as not to have to explain myself in any of the sneaky snacking. But fuck man, there has got to be balance for all the times I had to uncomfortably involuntarily subjected to the matinee of me taking a shit whilst devoid of my phone as I gave it to her so I don’t have to endure her staring at me as the concerto and rancid smells clog our noses. Its pay back time, she’s old enough to regulate emotions, she’s old enough to do shit on her own and understand she cannot have candy just whenever her heart wills it. She’s 6 years old, the cohort in the toddler shit matinee is now 4 years old.
How much of us are we to give before it diminishes all of that is our self? I decided not to work to give all my time to mothering, but holy cow, time does not equal me. It seems as though that time, like the definite shell of a car, is restricted to its quantity, but me, it seems is forced into rapid perpetual regeneration that though it tears my skin, it keeps stretching. My service defies time.
Some days I breakdown and I sneak the chocolate into the laundry room, call my best friend Jenny and cry about the assholes. Some days I push myself to give them whatever it is they need. My oldest has several social campaigns, and environmental one, social injustice one, she even has a business. She is brilliant and I feel a failure for not facilitating and nurturing the fruits of her brilliant mind. So I stretch and I push, my skin burning with the haste and urgency, my mind numb and tormented from the constant banging, the pressure in the cavity that holds my brains threaten to combust on itself.
But I give, because they are brilliant, they are kind, they are seeds of success, they are to be citizens of the world as I walk around skin stretched tout and brains about to explode.
But for today, I will fucking eat this damn butterfinger on my own in my space, in my closet, the whole damn thing, missing no rat nibbles. I will eat my fucking candy.