Tonight I failed. I failed my children, I failed my spouse, and I failed my home.
Lying on my bed in the darkness, hiding behind the closed door, I can hear the sounds of daily chaos in our home. I know that I should be out there. I know that it is unfair of me to hide, leaving Dar to battle the kids and their defiance, selective hearing, and stubbornness through their evening routines. I should be helping, but I just can’t do it.
I have a sudden flashback. I see a young girl, perhaps 4 years old -the age my daughter is now- sitting silently atop a tower of stacked chairs. She gazes solemnly out the large paneled windows, seemingly oblivious to the sounds of music and laughter behind her. Sometimes the other children look over at her and point and whisper. The preschool dance class teacher quietly herds them back to their circle and starts a new song. It’s impossible to know what thoughts are running through the solitary girl’s little mind.
I know.
I know exactly what she was thinking, week after week, as she developed her routine of coming to the class holding her mother’s hand and reluctantly letting go to step into the vast echoey dance hall and shuffle over to the stoic embrace of the impartial chairs. The light always seemed dim, despite the windows that made up most of one wall of the room. Dim, like her mood.
She wasn’t a dark child. She wasn’t gloomy in any way. She was bright and energetic, and she absolutely loved to dance. That was why her mother had enrolled her in the class in the first place. Rhythm and Movement for Preschoolers. She had been excited about it. But she was shy. Horribly, painfully shy. She knew that it frustrated her mother. She knew that she just had to get past it – that once she relaxed she would enjoy it, even make some friends. Every week she promised her mother that she would try. “Today,” she would say, “I’ll dance today.”
It never happened.
Now, as I lay in the darkness listening to the children eating dinner, then having cupcakes and watching television, I recall the details of that dreadful memory. Lying on the bed in the dark, my thoughts mirror the those of that young girl, wanting desperately to get off the stack of chairs and join the laughter but not being able to. The feeling of being held back by some giant heavy blanket, prohibiting the movement necessary to take that first step, washes over me in a torrent of emotional flashback. There’s no reason, no sense to the isolation. But when have emotions, especially strong ones, every made sense or listened to reason?
I admit, I originally fled to the room to escape the children. It had been a particularly frustrating afternoon. Michael and Marie had been at it since they woke from their naps. Michael had come dangerously close to having to sit on the bench and watch his swimming class go on without him. Yet he still seemed to lack the ability to control his behavior even for the slightest moment. By the time we arrived at home, I had declared that I was done, and he no longer had permission to speak to me for any reason. Coming home to 2-year-old Ryan and the chaos that increased exponentially as the number of bodies in the apartment rose was just too much. I knew I had to separate myself before I erupted.
Once I settled into the room, I was lost. Doubts and worries flooded my mind and I imagined the family getting on splendidly as I ran away to some unknown faraway place.
I have failed everyone. I’m supposed to be stronger than this. I’m supposed to be the rock. I’m the calm one. I’m the Mommy and the wife. But tonight I have failed. I just can’t do it.