A Mom's Life

Growing up, my big brother was your typical older brother. He loved to torture me and his favorite hobby was making me mad or making me cry. He took my own stuff and made me buy it back from him at a yard sale. He put dog crap in my socks and sneakers. He threw spit balls at me, pinched me and never let me win at any games. Despite his daily doses of teasing and displeasing me, I did notice that he wasn't particularly interested in other people making me mad or making me cry. I'm not saying he was ready to fight on my behalf, or ride up on a white horse to protect me, but he was pretty firm in his position as the number one bane of my existence. Despite the fact that he no longer tortures me quite like he used to, our relationship has left a lasting impression on me, long into adulthood. As a self proclaimed arm chair therapist, I take note that I have been trying to work through that relationship for years-with Andy. Poor Andy had no idea that, when we started dating, I...

The other night, while changing out of her work clothes, a woman looked in the mirror. Her hair was flattened against the side of her face. Her eye liner, slid from under her lids, resembled a raccoon. Her makeup had long faded, revealing deep creases around the edges of her eyes. The skin on her neck, like the eye liner, looked as though it had slid down her body, little rolls and folds where there used to be tight flesh. The veins on her skin popped up from her hands and feet, uncovering the wear and tear of time. Her naked body exposed years of use, of growing children, of nourishing children, of lifting children, of carrying children. Her breasts, her belly, her thighs and hips all rounder than they once were, all no longer able to fight gravity, their weight heavy on her frame. Her body had stretched and grown and given and been forgotten and neglected and loaned as a tool, as a vehicle, as a mechanism, as a means to an end and that end was giving light to others while she fell t...