The Day I Disappeared

by Brandi Reeds

We hold women to a different standard. And I know this better than anyone.

It doesn’t come naturally to all of us, you know. We’re not all meant to spend our lives performing puppet shows and building with blocks and coloring in books and singing nonsensical songs to entertain our offspring. That doesn’t mean I don’t love my daughter.

“Motherhood isn’t a competition,”

Words. Words mean nothing if they’re not backed by action,

Like my father used to say to my mother, nothing changes if nothing changes.

But the funny thing about inebriation: it silences you as soon as it steals your ability to think and walk in straight lines.

Toss me, bound, into deep, riotous water. If I drown, I’m innocent. If I survive, I’m a witch.

It was like hearing stories of something you did when you were a little kid. Everyone else remembers and tells you about it. So it becomes real to you. Not because you remember it. But because everyone else does.

in times of trauma, you have to save yourself before you can tend to others.

But the thing about feeling comfortable . . . sometimes you feel comfortable in a bad situation because you’re used to it. It’s comfortable because it’s familiar. Not because it’s good for you.”

One of the hardest things about being a mother: watching your kid trip on the same cracks in the pavement you stumbled on.