Hanging by a Thread
Scarred, uncertain, and fearful
Emotionally scarred by a year locked down, uncertain about the future of my marriage (and my own), and still fearful of this virus - the ever-present threat that can potentially kill or worsen one’s health in ways not yet completely understood. I am, dear reader, hanging by a thread.
My thread is holding my young children’s sanity together, albeit imperfectly — they are both showing OCD symptoms, one of them is seeing a therapist. Pre-pandemic, they were an only joy. Or, perhaps, the simplicity of life disguised their issues. The present times’ darkness has opened a pandora’s box: stuck with our loved ones for longer hours when all are affected by the unwelcome change, we are now faced with the everyday challenge of loving first, trying to “fix them” later.
My rope is so close to breaking in the part that holds my marriage together that I sometimes wonder whether it’s already torn. Is my partner even trying to hold it with me? His denial of everything that worries me weighs heavily on the thinning fiber.
And then there is fear. The “what if’s.” The sudden realizations that interrupt my attempts at sanity. “I don’t make enough money.” “Would he try to take my kids?” “All of this could be easier if I were just better at housekeeping.”
This is the edited version of the worst conversation of my life so far:
“Let’s send them back to school.”
“Kids can die from this.”
“It’s the survival of the fittest.”
“Are you okay with them dying?”
“If they die, they die.”
“I wish YOU would die.”
I didn't mean it. I wish I could take it back. I wish he were not so casual about sickness and death. Maybe he is not. Maybe this was how he expressed his willingness to take the same chances other families are taking out of choice or necessity. The kids don’t want to go back yet either. They are not ready. We feel protected together, homeschooling, playing, and sometimes replacing lunch with corn chips and bananas.
But the world keeps turning. The pandemic is moving from acute to chronic. As much as I want to keep the front door closed, I will have to open it, eventually. It terrifies me. I am paralyzed. Numb.
And then, the girl asks me to do my makeup, and we laugh at her beginner skills with eyeliner — I have not mastered that either. And she shows me how to draw an anime, step by step. The boy then asks me to follow him: he wants to show me the cat’s latest hiding spot. He hugs me, and I smell his hair. And time stops, allowing me to cry and hope for a nice future.
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