The Shallows

by Holly Craig

When you’re married to a man who used to kill for a living, you’re hardly going to bring up emotional clients and how to deal with depression at the dinner table.

But the kids were there, and that’s all that mattered. The kids were the salve for me, the nourishing balm over a neglected soul.

Ridiculous how the brain cannot form logical steps during fight or flight.

Trust is the treasure breeding safety, communication, intimacy, friendship.

This responsibility of ‘mother’ sometimes feels too overwhelming.

I step towards the railing, gazing overboard and my tears leak over the edge, meeting the salt sea like companions.

A Disney princess sings about being trapped in a tower, longing to escape.

And this is what I believe most mothers pride themselves on. Our children are connected to us with an invisible umbilical cord that never severs, no matter how far away they are. It’s an energy that’s felt. A quiet knowing.

This fear won’t own me. I own me. I’m the queen of my own thoughts.

Amazing the way anxiety appears like an old cancer. I’m constricted from all angles, a tightness I can’t seem to loosen.

Mindfulness is the only strategy left to combat a panic attack.