I scooped up that five year old, all arms and legs, brought him to my lap and I hugged him tight. I held him and I told him he had every right to feel angry.
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what’s too hard to say out loud
Sometimes it all feels like swallowing glass; you reach for a solution but it's like trying to catch smoke in your hand.
let it go in the water
silver as the / magnetic moonrise.
dear pandemic parents:
for the guilt you harvest for falling to pieces.
ode to my other half
let's pretend this / never happened
restoration
when touch / becomes a / leap of faith / we don't ignore
sometimes our children are the stabilizers.
The key chain from the aquarium sat at the other end of the kitchen table. I watched the blue-dyed water and the turtle inside shake, each time he sunk into his chair and wriggled, refusing to read an assignment.
when hyper self-awareness is exhausting.
You'd think it would be some kind of magic, being so tuned in to your own conscience that you can pinpoint where a feeling comes from and why; to know where your own power lies, to be able to dig through the misty ether and say hey, don't be so hard on yourself, you know what your trigger is.
today I managed to be fully present for you.
I snapped quick photos of your concentration, placed the phone down and watched your fingers move, how you dipped your brushes a little too aggressively, swirled through the orange like a hurricane then slapped on too many layers.
sometimes self care looks like self pity
Coping mechanisms are great - they're important - but the occasional self pity session can bring some relief, too.