A Balancing Act

As a child, I tried to make my mother laugh often enough to keep her happy, but not to get close enough to annoy her, and have her treat me as an impediment, which felt much worse than feeling unloved.

When I started school, I tried to be enough of who I really was to be able to recognize myself, while still flying under the radar to keep myself safe from falling bombs as I danced on life’s stage.

Later, I tried to define what working hard and playing hard enough meant for me, refusing to listen to the know-it-all advice everyone so eagerly offered.

Later still, in various short and long relationships with men, I tried to be authentically myself while also attempting to contribute just enough of what was needed to make us a couple.

When my own child was born, I reveled in providing milk for him while eventually yearning to have my body back, not so it could return to the way it used to be, but simply for it to be more mine than his, even while I mourned the eventual loss of the miraculous connection nursing created.

As a professor, I tried to demonstrate how to be a good human, while I attempted to fit the course material in around the edges.

I currently struggle with the cocktail of guilt, annoyance, and loss I find myself downing often while dealing with the administrative and relationship realities of my mother’s dementia.

Today I baked myself a tiny individual pie with one Empire apple and a dollop of fig jam, attempting to provide myself comfort after reading far too many New York Times articles about the insane state of our world.

All of this is more a slack rope walk than a tightrope one. There’s a lot more swaying, but recovery is more likely when, not if, I fall.

Cinse Bonino
2024