Emerging from a world which had consumed me, you—nameless but familiar—showed up with your own offspring. They tugged at your arms as you set them up for entertainment in front of their monitors. You were frustrated by their capricious desires.
And yet you still treated them as if they were tiny adults—asking them what they would like to do—as if they were aware of the value of each option and were capable of discerning the differences in them, as if they were simply miniature versions of yourself, fully formed—just shorter. Then you devised an outline for them in which to create, as if that was enough direction to buy you five minutes of peace. It was your handiwork. Just as they were part of your handiwork. And despite your plan to sate them, it didn’t happen. They sucked up your time and kept derailing your train of thought so that your frustration mounted in a horrific crescendo.
So I left.
I walked outside into the summer and turned my face toward the sun, closed my eyes, and let the heat dry them beneath their lids.
I would have give anything to have my kids waste my time, to have them say Dad repeatedly for no reason, to have them hang on me and weigh me down, to feel those tiny hands wrapped around the back of neck, to roll down the hill with them in the tall grass, to walk barefooted with them in the running water.
But there was nothing I could give to make that happen.
So instead, I wrote this down so that I would remember.