I'm Fine

A quick bit of publishing news:

My poem, “After the All-Star Break,” was recently published in Moist Poetry Journal as part of a series they’re doing of Deep Summer poems. You can find the full poem as well a note about the inspiration behind it on Moist Poetry’s site. It’s been a slower publishing year for me as I’ve been working on longer projects and haven’t made much time for sending out submissions, so I’m excited to be able to share this one. I hope you’ll click the link and read the full piece.

Reminder to Baltimore writer-parents, I’ve got another session of my workshop The Written Womb coming up at The Womb Room on August 18th at 12:30 – 2:30. Register here.

Little Thoughts Press, the children’s literature magazine I run, recently opened for submissions for our 9th issue. The theme is Go Wild! and it’s all about endangered species. If you write for kids or have kids who write (or draw), check it out and send something our way. This issue’s theme is inspired by my son’s deep love of wildlife and his desire to help protect natural habitats. I’m very excited about this issue. Our Pride issue is still available in print or as a (free/pay-what-you-want) pdf with all proceeds going to The Trevor Project, and we just launched a new workshop series for kid-lit writers that I’m extremely pumped about. Our first workshop, From The Word Go, is being led by Jennifer Thomas who is an incredible children’s poet. It is definitely worth checking out if you are interested in kid-lit writing.

We are down to our last few weeks before school starts again and I’ll be honest, things are getting a little testy around my house. Finding the time and mental energy to write has been tough recently, but I’m still slowly plugging away at my novel, and I’ve finally got an actual post for this newsletter this month instead of just a list of things I’ve been up to. If you’re interested, you can find it below.

As always, thanks for reading and for all your support!

I’m Fine

on lies I tell my children

The other day, I collapsed in front of my son.

A few times each month, the weight of my wonky uterus puts a lot of pressure on my pelvic veins. This causes my legs to grow numb and extremely sore. Couple that with the way my hormones intensify my sciatica which sends electric pulses down the backs of my thighs, and I’m operating from an unsteady base much of the time. For the most part, I grit my teeth and bear it. I’m finally having surgery this October to get my uterus out and, from what I’ve been told, my pain should largely vanish. I can’t wait. But in the meantime, if I move too quickly, these legs that are barely holding me up to begin with will sometimes give out completely. Or if I take a funny step, it feels like the ground falls away beneath my feet and I lose my balance. When it is hot and I am tired (which it is and I am all the time lately), my balance worsens.

I reached for a glass and the world flipped. “Help,” I said with just enough time for my husband to grab my hand and prevent me from falling in a way that would have hurt me. My seven-year-old son was sitting right there and I heard him cry out, Mommy, in the way he does when he’s had a nightmare and wakes in the dark, terrified and alone. “I’m fine,” I reflexively replied as my butt hit the floor and my head dropped into the cradle of my palms.

“I’m fine,” I’ve said so many times with tears in my eyes.

Over the years, I have been perhaps too honest with my son about my depression and my pain, and the way the two interact. And yet, he doesn’t know the half of it. He doesn’t know how dark my thoughts can get. He doesn’t know that sometimes when he desperately needs to be held, the weight of his body in my lap makes my pelvis feel like it is on fire, makes my insides feel like they might explode. I don’t know what is the right amount to tell your children about your pain, both the physical and psychic kinds. I only know that I am not as good an actor as I would like to be. That when I am asked a question, my tired mind can rarely move fast enough to come up with a decent lie so I just go with the truth, or whatever version of the truth I think my son will understand.

I always start with “I’m fine,” which is a lie, but a small reassurance. I’m fine, just feeling a little sad. I’m fine, just feeling extra tired. I’m fine, just having some pain. But then he presses and I have to go a little deeper. He knows what depression is. He knows more about the effects of a boggy uterus than a seven-year-old boy could ever need to know.

Years ago when she was in college and doing a project for a class, my sister asked me if I thought there was anything positive about having depression. My answer was and remains, mostly no. People like to point to a connection between depression and creativity, but I think the truth is that creative people are creative. That some of them also happen to be depressed is just a matter of statistics. It is easy to fall a little in love with your sadness. To see it as something special, a unique quality that suggests you are more connected to the world and all its sorrows, that you feel things more deeply and more fully than other people. That you are somehow smarter and more perceptive than everyone else. A depressed mind is very good at convincing you it is worth it to remain depressed. I told my sister that I thought the one positive thing about having depression, if you can remind yourself often enough to really make it stick, is an awareness that there’s a lot more to people than what meets the eye. There’s a whole world of unspoken truths behind the lie, “I’m fine.” Sure, some of this awareness is of the “be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” sort and that’s important, but it’s also an acknowledgment that you don’t control other people’s emotions. You have to try your best to be kind and helpful and do good in the world and let your life be about those efforts and not other people’s responses to them.

I like to think that I’ve passed along this awareness to my son, that my candidness about my own experience has reinforced this message to him that we can be thoughtful, while simultaneously acknowledging that we do not know the full breadth of people’s lives and thus are not responsible for their reactions. But I worry that instead, I’ve created confusion about his own emotions, that I’ve given him more language than he needs or is capable of properly applying. He will often tell me that he is sad and doesn’t know why. I know why. It’s because he is hungry. As soon as he eats something, his sorrow vanishes. He will tell me he is hurt, but he can’t name the source of his pain. It’s because he is tired. Thankfully his needs are still mostly those of basic survival—rest and sustenance—but he processes every feeling in terms of sorrow or pain. Every discomfort is named sadness. I will ask him what I can do to help and offer a few recommendations (let’s eat something! let’s lie down and rest! here, give me your legs and I will rub them for a bit to help you feel better). Often his response is, “No, forget it. I’m fine.”

Our toddler is in the middle of a language explosion and it feels like every day he’s picking up new words and phrases. His latest is, “No, not that.” Most of the time he uses it correctly, replying “No, not that,” as I offer one food after another before finally caving and pulling out the graham crackers which receive a resounding “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!” But on occasion, he goes on a “no, not that” spree and uses it as his response to everything, including the thing he wants. “Would you like some water?” I’ll ask and he’ll emphatically reply, “No, not that,” while grabbing the water bottle out of my hands and taking a big, long sip that nearly chokes him. It’s his version of my older son’s “I’m sad”—a phrase applied too broadly to situations where it doesn’t match his true feelings. It’s his version of my “I’m fine”—a misuse of language, an outright lie, the exact opposite of what I really mean.

You can find more of my writing & contact information at clairemtaylor.com. If you’d like to further support my work, please consider purchasing one of my books, or a copy of Little Thoughts Press. I also have a ko-fi page.