My daughter is in bed, crying. I don’t know whether to beat her, or cry, too.

I’m done. I’m done with PT and the freezing waiting room with its gale force air conditioning that gusts on my head no matter which freakin’ place I sit, giving me an even bigger headache than my son crawling all over me, fighting inter-galactic battles in his full-voiced soprano. I’m done with the drive, with the interruption to every single day I’m off work, with the need to entertain my son at the constant cost of entertaining myself.

I’m done with talking about full range of motion and letters of medical necessity and random, made-up insurance limits that have nothing to do with our actual needs. I’m done with the whining—about the splint, about the exercises, about the appointments. I’m done with fighting with her—about the splint, about the exercises, about the appointments. I’m done caring about her stupid arm. And I’m done paying for it, in more ways than one.

Whose consequence was this, anyway?!?!

And so, tonight, there are tears, this time because she didn’t do all her exercises today at her Grandmother’s (despite our discussion about it this morning… and last night… and yesterday at PT…) which meant Poppa had to pull on her arm for 20 minutes instead of five. Again, whose consequence should this be? Why is it constantly mine?

And so I sit here, torn between feeling like the worst mother in the world because I allowed her to feel the consequence of my anger and frustration, which translates into “I allowed myself to get angry in front of her about this flippin’ ordeal for ONCE,” and feeling completely justified in my anger, if not in my lengthy format for expressing it. She is not alone in this. She took us all with her down that damn tube when she broke her arm, and me more so than the rest. I am trying to let that go, but it is a daily battle. A raging, bloody, ugly battle. Some days I overcome. Today…

“I love you more than you’ll ever know,” Lifehouse sings over my new Switchfoot station on pandora.com, “and a part of me died when I let you go.” I die a millions deaths with this child. Each one harder than the last. I am weary of this process.

Apparently crying is the option I choose tonight as well, though I don’t recall the point at which I chose it. But the tears are there, nonetheless, and I do not think I can bear them much longer. Hers are enough.

I am done.

family life motherhood overload raising girls reflection