...notes on the endpapers:fill in the blank...

 I am still waiting. And finding my way through uncharted territory and along a very narrow path in the dark.  I am falling apart and breaking up, and rebuilding.  Glueing my pieces back together with cups of tea and the ongoing action of motherhood.  I’m looking for all the words that I would offer someone else in my shoes.  I am grasping at…something…  Because I am the function of my family…of my children…and they need of me to keep being functional…

So, I am sitting, occasionally.  I am pausing in my automation, allowing my mind to wander and return.  I am letting memories overwhelm, momentarily.  I am writing.

I am watching.  Scrolling through ‘the gram’ and letting bits and pieces find me. Hoping to be found.

Yesterday, my scrolling netted a keeper.  A reel.  A mother and child.  A little test…

It’s not revolutionary. Others have done it. In fact, others had to do it first, so that I would find it.

And I did.  I have.  Several times now, in several forms.

But now?  In this time?  In this space between when waiting on the end?

This was the time to test my own gardening skills…to see what I had planted and tended and grown.

The practice itself is simple.  Ask your child to fill in the final words of phrases you commonly heard growing up.  Ask, listen…and, if all goes to plan…if all goes to show you how you’ve changed the course…revel in the beauty of your child’s answers.

I used some of the standard options and peppered in my own lived experience.

I didn’t turn the camera on. I didn’t film. I just wrote down the answers…recording with pen stroke the words that my youngest offered up.  He, content and secure at my feet, thought it a fun game: “finish Mami’s thoughts”, and played along happily, while also happily deconstructing several sheets of paper.  (He’s in a cut-up-all-the-things-and-glue-them-back-together phase…which, now as I see the words I’m typing, is wildly appropriate to the time!  Perhaps he’ll find the right glue for me as well?!?)

Let’s start with the formatted phrases:

• I brought you into this world + so I can grow up into me!

• I’ll give you something + to play with!

• Just you wait + until next year!

• As long as you live under my roof + you won’t get hurt!

• Children should be seen + playing in the summer!

And add in a few of the ones that became my internal voice:

• You owe (us) me + big hugs and kisses!

• Why are you so + smart and nice!

• What’s wrong with + playing and having fun toys? Nothing!

• (We) I wish you would just + play with me!

• Why can’t you be more + huggy?  Right now! Let’s hug!

• You’re just so + loveable and soft!

What a beautiful work in progress.  What a miraculous cycle-breaking effort.

I knew I was trying.

I didn’t know I was succeeding.

To think he, and his brother as well, will never flinch when they look in the mirror because the words inside their heads are cruel and critical…  Healing.