So I have been freakishly calm lately. Calm enough that I know it’s disfunction because calm is just not synonymous with my nature.
I’ve been scheduling 752 appointments for my girls with ENTs and speech pathologists. I’ve been trying to learn everything I can to figure out the best path for each of them. I’m thoroughly ignorant on the issues before us, and so becoming a lay expert has been an uphill and thoroughly exhausting battle.
But through it all, I’ve talked calmly about it and have been, as I said, freakishly calm.
I also haven’t been writing. And I think the two might be related. See, if I sat down to write, all of those feelings that I have been hiding from would have come out. They say writing is like opening a wound and then bleeding out over the page. I think somewhere deep inside I knew if I let that wound out, it would never close.
But I didn’t know that. I thought I just had nothing to say. I thought I was taking it all in stride. I thought the slightly obsessive control over the things I could control was just me evolving.
And then Magoo had her surgery today, and she came out perfectly fine on the other side. And now I feel like I’m losing it.
I remember when she had surgery as an infant. It was just a very brief procedure to have her tear duct unclogged. It was horrible. Having the nurse take her away screaming and then bringing her back a few minutes later with her eyes open but unconscious and screaming was traumatic for us all. It’s less traumatic with a seven year old… I thought.
Before the procedure, she sat on the bed and crocheted with her new Care Bear from Grandma and Grandpa. She laughed at the nurses’ and doctors’ jokes. She had no questions. We had already gone over the procedure a few times, so she knew what to expect. She only looked slightly like she was going to cry as they wheeled her back.
While she was gone, I knitted. Fiercely. I wasn’t worried, I told myself. I just needed to keep busy. The two Xanax I took would surely do the job.
And then finally it was over and they wheeled her back, and all I wanted to do was crawl into the bed and lay with her. I wanted to stroke her hair and cry. I didn’t.
Then we came home, and I just wanted to sit next to her and cuddle her and never leave go. That’s what we did this evening. I could barely talk because I would choke up every time. She was just happy stroking her new Care Bear because the fur really is exceptionally soft.
And now she is in bed.
She said she wanted to sleep with me. I told her to please crawl into bed with me tonight if she wakes up. I don’t think she will. She likes her space. But secretly I hope to have her by my side tonight.
And now that she is asleep and safe and peaceful, I am sitting down here shaking and I can’t stop the tears from threatening my eyes.
They are telling me the truth – that it wasn’t a freakish calm I was experiencing. It was a fear so deep that I couldn’t face it. It wasn’t calm – it was a complete shut down.
I tried my best not to think about her surgery yesterday. When I did, all that popped into my head was what life would be like without her. How I couldn’t handle it. How I couldn’t go on. How as her mom she needs me, but how as her mom, I need her so much more.
I know it was a routine procedure. I know every day countless numbers of kids have it done. But it’s not my kid every day. It’s not my little Magoo. It’s not the baby who brought so much light into our lives that it was blinding.
Ever since the day she was born, I thought she was too perfect for this world. It’s a mother’s delusion, I know. I didn’t understand how something so perfect could come from me, and as such, I’ve always had this fear in the back of my head that it would all be taken away. Days like today intensify that fear.
It’s over now, and she is safe and has mostly recovered. Now I just need a few days to nurse my own wounds.
Being a mom is hard. There are no bandaids to cover our scars.