Holding your breath

There’s no space to eat, without someone wanting what you’re having.

There’s no space to sleep, without someone waking you part-way though.

There’s no space to think, without someone asking you a million questions.

There’s no space to work, without someone climbing all over you.

There’s no space to have a break, without someone hurrying you.

There’s no space for quiet, without someone being loud around you.

Heck, there’s no space to breathe, without someone interrupting you.

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There’s no space.

That’s how it can feel some days, or a lot of days actually.

Little children are glued to you every moment.

Constant interruptions.

Contant needs.

Constant priorities that are very rarely your own.

And they don’t understand, nor should they.

They are only children after all.

And their needs are well-founded.

They are not self-sufficient.

They are dependent,

On us.

On us sharing our space with them.

On us holding space for them.

And we do.

Every single day.

But the lack of shared space left for us can feel suffocating.

It can feel hard to breathe.

It can feel impossible.

And it’s hard to rationalise that.

Because they are the love we breathe.

They are the easiest hard to love.

They make everything worth the impossible.

And when you think about that at all, let alone too much, there’s the guilt that follows. It welcomes itself into unwelcome territory.

And so the space you crave then feels like something you shouldn’t have, or that can wait, or that you don’t need right now.

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But you do.

From everyone sometimes, but particularly from those you love most.

And it doesn’t mean you love them any less.

It just means you love them so much and so hard with all of you, that there isn’t much space left for you to breathe.

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Some days the space to breathe comes.

Other days you have no choice but to keep holding your breath.

But you are deserving of space every day.

⠀

We all need space to breathe.

Breathing is how we survive.