Weary

There are days that begin with malaise and trepidation, but you fling off the bleakness with something you want to call determination, but that is more likely fury.  And you make bold, healthful start-of-the-day decisions which you hope will sweep you up in a tidal wave of manufactured optimism that you pray will somehow morph magically into sincere optimism.  You make a fucking smoothie for breakfast--you put goddamn spinach and chia seeds in it, for fuck's sake. You make a plan to go to the gym with Casper and Dion.  It will be the first time Casper has ever been to childcare that isn't at a grandparent's house.  You give him a brave smile and stride down to the pool without looking back, hoping to impart confidence versus the pained reticence you exude most days lately.  Dion works out for half an hour and then brings Casper down to the pool.  You hop from the big chilly pool to the little warm one to play with your lovely family.  Casper smiles and splashes and climbs into the gutter to walk the perimeter like it's a tightrope while singing Popeye The Sailor Man.  You shower up and head home to make lunch.  Suddenly everything hurts and feels dead-tired-- your eyeballs, your gut, the crown of your head.  Dion takes over the meal preparation as you strain to engage with Casper, hoping a little food will make the awful go away.  It does not.  It builds and turns solid, a force you cannot bargain with.  Nap time is an eternity away.  You make pointless attempts to hasten sleep for the both of you.  At one point you doze off for a few minutes, waking suddenly to find that Casper has climbed atop a file cabinet and has, impressively, peeled off a long strip of decorative wallpaper.  You scoop him up and wash the paint chips from his hands.  Next you turn on cartoons to babysit your child, but he wants your attention.  "Play cars, mama? Read book?"  He's listing any number of things you could and should be doing with him, but cannot as the pain has spread into crevices of your head and body you didn't know existed.  Still you pull him into your lap and read him stories until his head lolls warmly against your chest and his breath grows rhythmic.  When you put him down you feel relieved and lonely.  Your loneliness is as acute as your inability to be around humans--friend, family, or stranger--because you cannot summon anything at all--not a smile, or a bland remark about the weather, or talk of some future plan.  There is no forecasting anything from minute to minute--your outlook, mood, ambition, pain, energy--are all subject to change at unpredictable intervals and you don't care to explain this to anyone.  It's tiresome.  And you're very tired, of all of it.  You often think to yourself, if I'm here for any reason in particular it's to document the minutiae of human suffering without bringing a shred of wisdom or hope into the discussion.  And you call that honesty.  But your anger and emotional contradictions don't make you special.  They just are.