The Book of Ruth Chapter 16: Hangnail

My fingernail has gotten…weird.

I Googled it.

It’s probably cancer.

Or nothing.

Maybe a hangnail that decided to do something with its life? For two weeks it hurt. A chronic searing pain that oozed green sludge. “It'll go away soon. Pain usually doesn’t last more than two days” I told myself. It lasted two whole weeks before it stopped. Now, it’s grown thick on one side and is slightly discoloured. Imperceivable to anyone but me. Or Ruth. “What happened mama? You okay?” I don’t know how to answer her. It kind of hurts. But not really. It’s just a low grade, slight pulsing, itchy-level of annoying.

For most of my life I bit my nails. Until one day I just told myself I wasn’t going to anymore. These days, the urge to bite them only appears two days before my period. Hormones?

Sometimes, when I'm really sleep deprived, I wonder if I’m really here. 

I have a sunspot that’s spreading across my crow’s feet. There’s one on both sides of my face. My mother takes great care of her skin.

I stand there picking out clothes to wear to work from home. gray and unfamiliar to myself. Some days I catch myself in the mirror in the flurry out the door to do drop off, my gray hair wild and silver. Sometimes I don’t even recognize myself as I step out of the shower. High school me would have said, “ew”. When I was 16 and on vacation, I remember seeing my best friend’s mom’s unshaven pubic hair crawl out of her bathing suit as we tanned on the beach. Back then I was mortified for her. How could she let that happen?! I was blissfully unaware of the demands on her time as a mom who works outside the home. Errant hairs aren't high on the top of her to-do list. Now, when the memory pops into my mind I just think “good for her”.

I feel like I can't keep up. My thoughts, like the days recently, rush by. If I blink, I'll miss something. The moments are like flies. Buzzing and impossible to catch. I tell myself all this blogging will mean something to her someday. Especially if this hangnail turns out to be more deadly than I originally assumed. But really I write to keep some kind of account of this time in our lives as it rushes by.

I feel like I'm holding on too tight.

I yelled at a child at an indoor playground a few weeks ago. As Ruth began to melt down mid mile-long slide an older kid barrelled behind her. Scared she would become playground roadkill, a voice busted out of my mouth:

‘Hey!Hey!Hey!’. I alert-bark at him. He snaps to, realizes what’s happening, and backs off. I scream "thank you! I’m sorry for yelling!” to a child I don't know. This is my life now. This is who I am. Now. I scream at strangers. I scream at children I don't know. My heart is racing. I’m a mixture of pride and embarrassment. For both me and Ruth. I peel her off the slide and she squirms out of my arms to go jump on a trampoline. 

She climbs to the highest part of the indoor adventure park. All by herself. I shed a tear. My brother in law gives me that ‘you’re being nuts in public again’ look and I whimper “this is the first time she hasn't needed me to follow her”. She climbs. Jumps. Swings. All on her own. For a moment she’s gone. I can’t find her among the insane amount of children rampaging around this indoor hellscape.

“Hilo, Mommaaaa!” she sings through the mesh encasing. She found me. 

We have conversations now. It still amazes me. I waited two and a half years to hear what she thinks. Every time she lets me into her inner world it knocks me on my ass. I want to know everything and she knows it.

That night, Thomas hollers “You want quesadillas for dinner?”

I'm relieved I don't have to decide what to make "Yeah, thanks”.

“I have a dream mommy.”

“What’s your dream, baby?”

“Last night I dream I a butterfly. Flap flap flap, mommy!” I watch her clap her hands and the wings she’s simulating become big claps.

“Where were you going in your dream? When you were a butterfly?”

Silence. She looks at me and blinks. The moment’s gone.

One day in the park, We climbed the playstructure stairs. “SIT RIGHT THERE MAMA!!!” I  sit on the bench, as instructed. She looks out the play-structure window onto a neighbourhood friend’s lawn. She asks where their dog, Teddy, is. I say he’s probably at home snoozing. She commands me to make up a song about Brisket and him. I do. She laughs. I sing it over. And over. And over again. She usually tells me to “stop singing”, but not this time. A rare treat.

Later that week she asks me to sing it to her during her bath. Thank god I sang it to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, something I can remember. Crisis averted. 

The next week, she and her cousins play quietly in the other room while the adults enjoy a child-freeish dinner. Their world is becoming their own. And as delicious as the company, time, and food are I’m a little sad. 

It’s painfully obvious things are shifting. As they always do.

She needs me differently. Less.

She flits from person to person. Activity to activity. Interest to interest. The world is opening up to her and everything is new, exciting, and discoverable. She has desires. 

I see her admiring the bigger kids. Probably asking herself questions about how they’re different from her. Which ones have more status. Whose energy she likes. There’s so much awareness in her gaze. So much heartache and joy on the horizon.

So much I can’t save her from feeling.

The space between us widens just that little bit more. It feels like my chest is being torn in two. To be away from her even an inch feels too far. And yet, that’s the whole point. To eventually put myself out of a job. To teach her to mother herself long after I'm gone. As the centimeters between us grow almost imperceptibly, I realize what lies between us is a tiny bit more room for me. 

Later that month, my new dentist injected botox into my jaw and temple to address my TMJ. He tells me my masseter muscle is asymmetrical because I’m clenching so hard. It’s rare, he hasn't seen many like it. I cry. At the dentist’s office. As he injects botox into my face. He looks at me and says ‘it’s okay. You haven’t done anything wrong.” Which hits me hard because I always assume I have.

And then I laugh because I imagine someone asking me where I get my work done and responding "the dentist."

Every day the space between Ruth and I widens ever so slowly and I’m scared to address the me I’ll find on the other side. She’s older. A bit wiser. More tired. Fine line-ier.

Raising children is not for the faint of heart. Especially as you’re re-raising yourself at the same time. Baby steps.

I try not to hover but I can't help myself. I hope Ruth keeps trying to find me like she did that day at the indoor adventure park. And I hope I can let myself give her enough space to figure things out for herself.