February 24, 2014 -Â Monday 8:59 am - 9:28 am Count: 673 words
No one ever said it would be easy. How many times have you heard that phrase? No one ever said it would be easy. The thing is, half the time when I make big decisions I know in my heart what I'm going to do long before I make the words real from my mouth. The thing is, I already know it won't be easy and I don't need anyone to tell me that. My mother taught me difficulty while I grew, and my eyes saw everything, and she would turn to her friends and say "She has an old soul" as though it gave her bragging rights. Look at my daughter, look how I've forced her to grow up at the tender age of eight. Isn't she precious and clever and mature? Look at how broken she is! I learned difficulty at the hands of a teenaged fuck-up, at the hands of embittered middle-aged women, at the hands of a mother who thought feminism meant hating pink and being a bitch all the time.
So I knew; I knew it before I knew the limits of my own body. I knew that life was going to kick my ass and keep kicking once I was on the ground. But I also learned that nothing lasts forever, neither good or bad. Mothers, mental health, sense of security, jobs, marriages, friendships, promises. I learned that if you wanted to keep something, even small things, you had to work at it. Plants and animals and best friends and good grades and the breath in your lungs. It was all work.
When I decided I would care for my brothers, I knew (more or less) what I was getting into. Though, judging by the way my mother took care of things while I was growing, I imagined it would take more effort than I had been exposed to. I suspected I might have to do it by myself. And even with my father's help, it's just enough to get by some days. I'm still not getting everything done, although it feels as though I keep my head above the water. Better than the instability of my own childhood, where some days felt like I was sputtering and choking on the the ocean of problems my mother made for us.
It doesn't have to be hard. Not really.
There are bills to pay (that I thought were not going to be bills at all), and school pictures to buy (that I thought I had paid for, but I suppose that money was to pay the photographer), and blood tests to process (despite the fact that the first ones might have been accurate if someone had the wits to tell me about the blood sugar issue beforehand), and the social workers to call (even though I have called and left messages several times and no one seems interested in returning my calls), and meetings to have with teachers (even though they already know everything there is to know, because I am doing all I can and telling them about it as it happens), and money to make (somehow, with my limited skills, so I can feed my little brothers).Â
A fraction, really, of the major things that need doing. A small fraction that is somehow enough to swallow me whole if I let it. A part of me wants to decompose and become something more simple, more directly useful. But a bigger part of me, a part of me I might even label as rebellious, wants to be stronger than the ocean of problems I have to solve. The tides might sweep at my brothers' feet, trying to draw them in and drown them, but today I feel like the moon. I am bright and present, and I can command the tides if I want to. Even when the sun tries to blind them, if they have the good sense to look away then they'll find me quiet in the sky, letting them know that I'm always there.Â