When we’ve had all that we can take…when we are sure we are about to break…what do we do?
When we have kids to protect, and homes and jobs to manage, and the hits just keep on coming...what do we do?
We can wallow. We can kick and scream. We can pray. We can stand tall, and act like nothing affects us at all.
When the shit really hits the fan, and you find yourself staring at the void of rock bottom, scared you’re about to fall in, it can feel as though there is no recourse. That you have been hit with too much. That everything just flat out sucks and there is nothing to be done for it. But, we would be wrong.
If we are lucky…we can lean. Lean on our friends and our family – those that care and love us, and are willing to share in the misery.
When I was a teenager, I would fight with my parents about my phone curfew. I refused to tell my friends that they couldn’t call me past a certain time. “What if they need me?” I would argue. Even then, I wouldn’t turn them away. So, my phone consequently rang and rang, long past an hour my father or mother liked.
Today, I’m much the same way. I will drop everything in a moment’s notice and go running. I will show up at your door. But it is not them who have needed me in the past that are lucky to have my friendship. No. I am the lucky one.
I am the lucky one, because I have those that will do the same for me. That will blow up my phone even when I try not to answer. That will show up at my door, without having to be asked. They offer money, or time, or “anything they can do.” But the most precious of them all, is the love that ensues.
They will sit with me. Talk with me. Rock with me. Cry.
The people we love will share in the burden. Misery really does love company. And when we can, we do all we can do to help holster the pain, share in the frustration, and shed some of the weight.
This is what defines family.
Even when we don’t wish to spread the hurt, our family will always bare a portion of the consequences.
Even our kids - the innocents in the turmoil that is an adult life - are unfortunate victims to catastrophes. Some we must admit we are the makers of. Some things we can do nothing to change, but try and do all we can to fix. We try to do all we can to protect them. We wish, above all else, that they will not be affected.
When I had only one child, the notion of protecting him was not quite as scary. I had this vision in my head that if the world came to an end I could hold him in my arms and run to safety.
Now there are three. The prospect of protecting them from the reaches of the outside world is daunting – terrifying to say the least.
I want to keep them safe from harm’s way. I want to keep them unencumbered by pain and torment. I want to shoulder the entire load. But, again, they are family. And family always shares in that burden.
How can I make sure the divorce doesn’t affect them too much? That the transition of being a working mother doesn’t scar them too much? That they won’t notice the house is a little more messy and the cabinets a little more bare?
Their cries when I come home, remind me that I can’t. But I can sit with them. I can talk with them. I can rock with them. I can cry with them. I can share the weight, as they share mine. My family.
So to those I love, and have loved me in return - bound by blood or friendship alone - I thank you for sharing the weight of the world in the struggle to thrive. No level of personal perseverance could strengthen my will to rise above it all as you do. With nothing but the knowledge of that support, I find the courage to fight. With it, there is no losing battle…only lights, at the end of the tunnel.
