08/05/2025
Yesterday left a mark.
I’m still sore in places no one can see.
Not from injury, but from effort—
from holding the weight of my child
and the weight of keeping him safe
at the exact same time.
The tension I carry isn’t always visible.
It lives in the way I brace my body as a shield.
The way I slow my breath so he might mirror it.
The way I don’t let myself fall apart
because he needs to feel okay.
And it was okay—eventually.
Once he could rest.
Once his system knew it was safe again.
Once he leaned on me and exhaled.
But now that he’s calm,
the tremble starts in me.
The aftershocks.
The ache in my muscles.
The loop of questions in my mind.
There is some guilt.
Not self-punishment, but searching.
Trying to locate the moments
I might have missed—
the cues I didn’t see
or didn’t honor
because I was running on too little sleep
and too few spoons.
The loops are my attempt
to find the triggers
and file them away in the folder marked:
“Cues to look for before we feel the ground fall away at our feet.”
Because I can’t stop imagining
how he must have felt in the thick of it.
How overwhelming, how scary it must be
to lose control of your body,
your voice,
your sense of the world.
And I will carry him through it again.
And again.
And again.
