I’m in my head, eking through thoughts about what to write. A welcome guest kneels beside me, pointing out page after page of warblers in the 1,008-page Birds of North America. She wrinkles her nose at the name grosbeak, and I tell her it’s okay—it’s not because they’re actually gross.
At six—aka kindergarten—Evelyn’s reading has passed the airplane-takeoff phase. She’s ascending and descending rapidly now. I don’t need to take the wheel. She pilots common grackle, blackbird, cardinal all on her own, and my heart swells in that quiet, almost-physical way it does when something good sneaks up on you.
She’s in bed now. Somewhere between then and now, something surfaces.
It’s pointless, I think.
Despair arrives, familiar and efficient. I am suddenly a sad old woman looking back, knowing it all was never enough. The feeling stretches like tar to the horizon. I see sagging skin. I see a bad book with my name on the spine. I want out. I am myself again in fifth grade, having peed my pants in Mr. Russell’s class because I was too scared to ask for the bathroom pass.
I examine my vulnerability, sniff at it. The warty-nosed witch is already there, breath hot at my throat. Her coarse hair pokes me—little stabbing slivers. And I don’t fight her. I sit. I take it. Like a coward.
Because of her, I edit my experience in real time. I make it worse, then better. I sand it down. I dress it up. I try to make it palatable, relatable, acceptable. It becomes a strange mash-up where I’m no longer sure who’s talking, and I want to ask, Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?
I am a bad writer. I use simple words. I think simple thoughts. I want attention. I don’t know what I’m saying. This is a vomit post—unpolished, unworthy of the page.
And then—because she always shows up—Superman Jaclynn steps in and says: Worth is in the eye of the beholder.
This’ll do.
Love,
Jaclynn
Going On 40 