This is the Life

October sometime in 2003

Anymore I think it’s not so much depression but a lack of purpose, or persistence. Sometimes I think usually at the sink, why am I here, how could I have believed this life would bring me fulfillment? Maybe I have a purpose in parenting the fabulous child bestowed me, yet does it meet my needs. Am I presumptuous to even dream there could be something beyond the day to day? What else would I do anyway?

I am trained in naught, although I am self taught. To cook and clean comes not naturally though a woman I be.

Is it not enough to be a nurturer of the future? It is an awesome responsibility after all raising the leaders, followers and workers, artists and mothers and fathers of tomorrow. Without conscious knowledge of where it will all lead, still you lead, advise, pretend to be wise. When all along it is the child who teaches the parent who learns how to be a more present human being.

Depression avoids the issue, whatever it might be. Life confronts us. Not up to the challenge I retreat, so to speak, fear and self doubt my shell, my own personal hell. No doubt there is a chemical link, but it does more than affect how I think. Is caring for myself so hard? When I would accept any fate so that my dear son won’t have to.

It is easier to go about each day the same old fashioned way. In the bed I lay until the last possible moment, ignoring the part of me longing for exercise. My body always gets it why not my mind? Laziness in itself or a symptom of something else? Forge ahead, do what you love and the rest will fall into place. I thought I would love being a mom. It is great don’t get me wrong. It is a part of who I am: I’ve lost the rest of the puzzle.

I don’t want to get caught when he doesn’t need me anymore with nothing to do because I forgot. Forgot to cultivate that which is in me withering and whining but not quite dying. Acknowledgment holds a certain appeal, though it’s difficult to be real except in the mirror. My reverse doppelganger knows all, will she ever tell? My secrets of which there are but a few are no longer useful to me as such and I get such a rush watching what flows when I let it all go.

For today it is this, the riptide of my mind easing a bit, to let me get fit. And later I’ll work that canvas a bit.

 

Melissa Roxanne Flores