Ancient battles

I’m not a poet. I wouldn’t know how to technically craft a poem to save my life. I like to write funny. Funny is safe. Funny is easy. But sometimes nothing feels funny. Every moment hurts. Bitterly.

Ancient Battles

When they are small it’s so easy to

kiss away boo-boos,

Wipe soggy tears,

And dab ointment on cuts and bruises.

A mother’s salve.

Healing.

But time changes all that.

And pains become immeasurable.

My words cannot erase the hurt

of treacherous laughter

and taunting betrayal.

My heart aches inside me.

I want so to help.

Instead I remain outside his fortress,

Unable to soothe.

Ill-equipped to protect him from the child warriors

who rage at the walls of his porcelain ego.

We are both wearied from battle.

“Don’t give up,” I manage to eke out the words

like a fallen soldier,

desperate to embolden the barely breathing comrade by my side.

“You will win in the end.”

He tries to believe me.

The corner of his mouth curls just enough

to tell me he’s not ignoring me.

And then silence.

We drive on through the night

alone —

together.

His fresh wounds bleeding.

My scabs ripped open to

once again remember the agony of childhood.

Don’t mean to depress anyone. But this is where I’ve been living this past week. So many good, kind parents have no idea that their children are viciously tormenting others. Please, talk to your kids about bullying. Teach them that cruelty wounds deeply and childhood scars can last lifetimes. Even if you’re certain it’s “not your kid,” think again. Because it just may be.

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Long day’s journey…

Life is calling

Just finished a long day. Close friend on suicide alert. Not sure that’s actually the right term. But it’s a scary prospect. I’ve never known anyone who killed himself. I’m more than a little familiar with folks who have teetered on the brink, and I have personally faced off with the kind of darkness that leads one to the edge of that cliff. I often wonder if someone who hasn’t suffered from major depression can even begin to understand how suicide can honestly seem like someone’s best or most viable option. If you’ve never experienced the halting and insurmountable pain of that darkness, how can you even approach an understanding of it.

A lot of kids commit suicide. They’re often bright kids; heads of their class, well liked, accomplished in several areas. But in spite of how the rest of the world sees them, they are internally drowning in a turbulent sea of blackness that is unrelenting, overwhelming and hopeless.

I think about my own kids a lot; will they ever fall prey to the merciless and unpredictable villain of depression? My funny, playful little boys who race around the backyard chasing puppy tails and running through sprinklers. Will they ever be so overcome with pain that they will contemplate leaving this world, just as I have done? And will I know it in time to help? Will I see the signs? Will I be capable of objective observation; the distance that’s necessary to see the bigger picture?

My friend is still alive. And aside from the obvious, maybe there’s another gift that comes with this kind of close call. It allowed us to hear the warning cry, the blaring siren of distress that screams, “Stop being so self-absorbed. Stop living in your tiny, self-contained little world. Look around. See who needs you. Reach out. Step up to the plate. Share your life with people you care about. Stop pretending this couldn’t all end in a millisecond.”

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Pull yourself together…or apart rather!

I am lying in traction at the physical therapist’s office, my lower lumbar spine being gently pulled apart vertebra by vertebra. It’s an incredibly freeing feeling. Elongation, extension, expansion. I feel like we all spend our lives in compression; tightened, condensed, making ourselves smaller. Trying to disappear.

I’ve had issues with my back for years, (ever since I had children, ironically). Sometimes I give up trying to feel better and just attempt to accept a life of constant (yet bearable) discomfort. But then I hear of a new treatment or meet someone who knows someone who went to someone…and I’m back on the case; pursuing a cure like a committed archeologist, unwilling to leave even a single stone unturned. Hence, I am back on the rack in a swanky Scottsdale office, hoping my insurance will pay for this primitive form of torture that may ultimately bring relief.

They say that back problems have to do with support. I believe in that whole “new agey” thing that all physical ailments are related to psycho-spiritual issues we’re facing. The whole support thing makes sense to me. It’s hard to get enough support as a mom. Even with partners who pitch in, relatively well behaved children, and family nearby, life for a mom can feel unsupported when it’s mainly up to us to support anyone and everyone around us.

So the theory says that we manifest a physical ailment in lieu of expressing a tortured emotional state or facing what we deem to be an unacceptable psychological position. I buy that. In our society, it’s a hell of a lot more acceptable to be out of commission for a herniated disc than to have to lie down in a dark room because you’re kids have pushed you to the brink of insanity.

Somewhere along the line we learned that taking care of ourselves emotionally didn’t count nearly as much as our efforts to mend our physical selves and acknowledge our bodily problems. Feelings of helplessness, of being overwhelmed, unsupported, all the things that moms feel, we deemed were weak, needy, unacceptable. So we pushed them aside and donned our supermom capes and set out to show the world how strong, capable and competent we were. But without acknowledging the pain, the fear, the weakness, we become less of who we are . We compress our soles. We make ourselves fit into a role that doesn’t always allow our spirits to soar. And then we feel alone, small, unsupported.

Hmmm…maybe that’s why it feels so good to be in traction, to grow longer, to extend ourselves, to take up more space.

I think I may be on to something.