Other times it's a general feeling of a physical pressure, compressing on every square inch of my skin. It feels as if at any given moment, there is a chance all of my extremities will collapse into the walls of my heart and never unfurl.
There are moments it feels real. Just real and raw. It feels deserved, as if I am not living a real life without going through these motions.
For the most part, I appreciate the clarity it offers. Usually I feel blessed for the experience. I feel tough as nails.
This could, possibly, be the most difficult thing on the planet for me to describe.
This feeling.
It's this starvation deep inside my stomach, but deeper. A yank on the edges of my heart, a bubble trapping the tears from leaving my ducts, a tension encompassing my throat. It never subsides. I never forget it. I never ignore it. I will never escape it. I don't bother trying.
I feel a tremendous, misunderstood guilt.
It is not the kind of guilt that a person can be pep-talked out of. It is not the kind that makes me feel like a worthless person or a terrible mother or an unmotivated lump. I don't feel like I have done something awful and must be punished.
It's a weight, an unimaginable weight, to love a creature to the degree, with the depth, that I love my son. It is a burden to want so many things for this small person and to be so willing to do anything on the planet to obtain those things for him. It is a pained, disappointed feeling when - at the end of the day, you feel no better, no less defeated.
It is all-encompassing. And it's amazing how it takes things over.
I sit and ponder all the ways I can make things better for he and I. I try to forsee any obstacles, avoid them. I plan ways to protect him from ever knowing how truly painful it is to feel as if every bit of energy, directed at one place, is not enough. It is hard to see him wonder. I hate when he misses me. I want so entirely to provide a buffer between his heart and the realization that the world is huge.
I can work two jobs, I will work four. I will/have sleep at red lights in the car, on the toilet, in the shower. I will avoid people that I love. I will ignore people who love me. I will make a conscious effort to keep anyone from getting in. I will do all this and more to maintain focus and push, push in a direction that will eventually plateau.
I take criticism as a grain of salt. I search endlessly for comfort within my intentions, knowing this is not all for nothing. I latch on to Dylan, and he latches on to me, because we keep one another afloat. I would skip as many meals as necessary to give him one filling one, and I have, and I will every day forever if it gives him a peace in his heart and the stability that every tiny person deserves.
It amazes me how little I want.
How simple I have become.
How meaningless so many things are.
I'm amazed at how easy the truth is once you have solidified what is important in your life.
Once you have a true purpose.
How easy 'any means necessary' is when you know a part of you will suffer if you give any less than everything.
I am completely astounded at how easily I can overcome defeat. How quickly I dismiss it so that I can keep going and have what he needs, be who he needs, and make him realize that his needs are mine.
I never thought I would be the kind of person to walk away from a million things, a million different people. I never thought I would find myself in a place where I am completely unaffected by everyone around me, a place where no one can change a thing. A place where I cannot be touched.
But here I sit, in a place where I cannot be touched. And all of these emotions and all of the exhausting guilt that I wear like a backpack. All of the things I do without so he doesn't have to. We all sit in this place, quietly together, and always on alert. We cannot be touched, he and I.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
"It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich." -Henry Wars Beecher
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