What if at the end of the day, I don’t want to cradle her for extra minutes

What if I want her to be independent, to fall asleep on her own, to somehow, simply, not need me, even as her mother

What if instead I want to go downstairs, get the day set for tomorrow, right down to the shoes and socks and washed lunchbox repacked in the fridge, ease the friction of the early mornings, and put the kitchen to bed for the night

What if instead I fold the piles of clothes, staring at my reflection in the window, my mind finding quiet in the soft repetition

What if instead I read post after post, screaming about the atrocities on children, innocents, bearing witness through a warm device that fits in the palm of my hands, until it is out of its batteries

What if instead of heading to bed to wrap myself in a novel or find more ways to avoid the sleep I promised myself would come earlier on this particular night, I’d open my laptop, wrap up the thing that was hanging over me at work, requiring more than two brain cells rubbed together, not a quick-just-jotting-off-kind-of-reply, a deep thinking that demands sustained attention, somehow, through bleary eyes

What if instead I come back upstairs after a few hours, use the regular toothbrush because the fancy electric toothbrush would take the full 2 minutes I didn’t have in me, and crawl into bed

What if I read that if you immediately fell asleep when getting into bed, it is clear you’re overtired, that it should take a full 15 mins to fall asleep if you are getting the sleep your body needs

What if I simply wanted more time for me

What if this is the days and months that turn into years then decades

What if this is the beautiful trudging, the devastating gallop, the despair of reminiscence, the longing for the humdrums of someone else’s childhood

What if of time

When my time is now, full well likely, less than the time I have already been here

What will be left of the miracle of the connection made cradling her in my arms

What if instead those arms are tired

What if instead they are heavy with regret

What if at the end of the day, I only want to cradle her for extra minutes