The Unrest

When I finally laid claim to the anguish in my own heart. When I understood it was of my own creation. I could begin to forgive myself for enslaving others to carry what was not theirs to carry. Something about ownership. It seems to me that our daughters are not taught about unrest. About what to do with the silence. We know to fill it with noise. With activity. To stay busy. But these are momentary distractions from the it that is. OK, so the soft remedy, the one from Vogue. A paperback. Some cardamom tea and cozy slippers. Always, some patch. But what if the source of the ache is really kind of boringly scientific? Some primitive reflex, a fear of rejection, a very necessary fear that kept us alive before we knew about fire and central heat and footed pajamas. And maybe a lack of that fear meant dying--actually dying--cold and alone in a cave somewhere with no one to sing to? Or lost in the woods with no identity, no family, no home.

NOTE TO SELF: I'm really, really sorry for giving you so much grief all these years. For reminding you time and time again what a loser you've been at love. For not telling you enough that even when you hated yourself the most, the world had not forgotten your beauty. And that your desires, no matter how seemingly marked or misguided, were really just a fight to draw breath. To find warmth. And to live another day.