toad in the hole

it's so easy to get derailed. to feel my stiletto snag on the rug right before it's pulled out from under me so that i also sprain a metaphorical ankle before crashing to the ground, broken flowers strewn about. the fact that i haven't worn a pair of stilettos in, well...longer than i can remember, has something to do with the story, i just don't know what. it bubbles, this anxiety. it raises pressure under the skin and in my veins and i finally understand why it's called blood pressure. it bobs on the undercurrents of waves we can't see, flowing past us and through us and stopping us in our tracks when we least expect it.
i have to teach her that sometimes people don't mean what they say, that there are people who will stand by their warped perceptions of the way in which their world works and that you have to know yourself well enough to not let it make you crazy. because another person's crazy is contagious. and it can fester and ripen and slowly build while you're busy picking your heels out of rugs, so focused on the stray threads that you don't even realize there is a gaping wide hole inches away waiting for you to fall in.

*sigh*

but then there is this:

there is breakfast, hearts in bread filled with eggs and fresh coffee steaming between the love we never take for granted. there is our family, always on our side with love and support and honesty, the three most important intangibles to pass down from one generation to the next. there is finn's first full sentence "i like cookies" and her seemingly misplaced inflections that actually make me think she sees things that i don't and i better start listening a little bit better.
there is the painstaking love that seeps out of every pore of my body when she sleeps and i stand over her, watching her breath in and out and in and out, kneeling down next to her so that i can count every eyelash and whisper love into her hair and make sure she has enough of my love there with her when she sleeps to scare away the owl that bit her foot in her very first articulated nightmare.
there is the belief that even if i don't deserve perfect happiness, she does. and that hers is still so intrinsically tied up with mine that i better get to working on it asap.
starting now.