Strong Binaries Just Don't Work

On How Heartbreak and Joy Happen All at Once

I almost cancelled, I was just so tired. But I kept the date with my friend, I wanted friend time. Colby had seized since Friday. I was the kind of tired that made me feel on the verge of tears. Not because everything was tragic or anything was wrong, though there are many reasons to cry. I was on the verge of tears or crying because I was scrubbed raw from tiredness, my filtering layers were gone.

My dear, kind friend, said something about how hard my care life is, and I was too tired to say, It’s not only hard. I’m not crying because it’s hard.

In the car beside her, I was thinking about how just that morning at 5am Colby had cried out, her way of saying a seizure was coming. They scare her or maybe she just wants to know a warm, capable body is near. I laid beside her and took her hand in mine. Her hands and feet get hot and clammy (the perfect word) when she is seizing or about to seize, it’s one of the first signs her body gives.

I held her hot hand and we waited. The seizure arrived. The violence, I always think of them as violent because they are vigorous, because she turns blue, because her body writhes and contorts.

Moments later, she looked over at me and blinked her sky blue eyes. I felt her relief, felt something like a Thank you, felt her infinite intelligence. My heart in my chest flooded with softness. I felt gratitude, awe, honor to be right there. Exhausted and full of joy all at once.

This was the ricochet I thought about when my friend said caring for Colby is hard. I could not summon the string of words to say, That just does not do the immensity of the experience justice. It is tiring. It is joyful. It is life. It is care. Care takes all of you, your whole heart, and you get to see, just how vast a place love can be.