au compte-goute

My moments with the children are measured, drops into a vast bucket. Never enough at a time. Never enough to fill to the brim.

Once, I was drowning. I couldn't breathe. I grabbed onto life preservers; some tore me up a fair bit. A drowning woman can't tell a buoy from a stone. I told him I had to go. I had to be in a wide-open space, alone. He thought I meant without the kids. I could not even fathom the idea of leaving them. Alone includes them.

My moments with the children are measured. Sunday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. With a break mid-week, so it's never seven days.

Once, I would feel relief at the end of the week, when they were leaving to go to Dad. The near-drowning had left me so very tired. I loved them and held them for dear life. We fought and they wanted to know why, why. They wanted to fix it, I know.

The tide turned at some point. The whys abated; my breathing steadied. Now I began counting in reverse, till the moment I would see them again.

We drove the country, those children and me, and I never felt so happy and so free as I was in the great, gorgeous openness of the Saskatchewan prairie. Past the waters and into the wide, wonderful sky. I breathed. We breathed together.

Nineteen days. That's the longest I've ever gone without seeing them. One day, I know it will be so much longer. When one of them decides to go off to school, or to take a year or a few months to travel. Or they move to another city for a job. For now, I live in a sort of denial that those days exist somewhere in the vague future. Last night we broke the 19-day streak. While they were still fighting off jet lag, I picked them up at Dad's and we set out for gelato. Ninety minutes. An hour and a half of chatting, laughing, hugging, teasing, sharing. Never quite enough to fill to brim, but it will do.