A Thousand Deaths

Sometimes I watch my toddler run ahead on our morning walk to daycare and I think about him being in grade 8, pimply and painfully unsure. I wonder if he’ll be the class clown, if he’ll get invited to sleepover parties, if he’ll worry about everything or nothing at all. I think about him getting picked last for dodgeball (if kids in 10 years will even play such a thing), or not making the team, getting called a loser, still being earnest when everyone around him has come to the conclusion that it’s cooler not to care.

I let myself perseverate on the possibilities of his life and I feel the urge to protect him from all of it. Then I feel sad over the fact that he’s getting so tall that all of his pants are too short, and every day he’s getting closer to that future I can’t control, and I think about my friend saying that her therapist told her that motherhood is like a thousand deaths. Constant endings, endless beginnings.