Truth Has a Different Shape

Excerpt

*****

But when I get mad, I get brave and my hands shake until I say what I have to say even if it means I get sent to my room or spanked. Sometimes it’s enough to say what I think and hope they remember it later in case they want to. But Chris and Katy never ask questions and I think they must know that I’ll do it for everyone or they just don’t get as mad as me. Maybe I’m crazy and I see things different than other people. Maybe all those times I thought something was a big deal, it really wasn’t. Maybe all those times I thought someone was trying to hurt me, even though they said they didn’t mean it, I was being oversensitive. The more I watch people to try and understand where I am going wrong, the more I feel like I’m not going wrong, I just am wrong.

*****

I begin to realize that motherhood is an exercise in opposites; the crashing together of the two most profound human emotions – love and fear. As much as I had felt those things with Katy, I was not prepared for the intensity of emotion I experienced with Erin. The pure, golden light of mother-love is quickly tainted by the crushing responsibility I feel. The sudden dawning that I am not prepared to bear the weight of each and every decision made on behalf of this human being is accompanied by the solid weight of warmth wrapped in a flannel blanket in my arms and the joy I feel at calling her daughter. I want to spend every second gazing down at her, consumed by the sight and smell and heft of her. But that adoration is tinged with pangs of absolute terror every time I hold her, touch her, look at her ruddy cheeks or her tiny toes. That explosive burst of love exists side-by-side with the metallic ache of fear; the joy of having this thing that I love so much and the possibility that I will one day fail her.