Sometimes these kids…
This post is modified from Sunday’s journal entry, which was a pretty rough day this week… at first. Bone pain woke me up at 3 am, has been cycling through being worse and abating since then. I had plans to do a lot of writing but can’t even make it down the stairs anymore. So I’ve pretty much spent the day using the pillows on my bed to lean myself into the only comfortable position I can find. The pain meds I have are either too weak but let me sleep or too strong and juice my mind. I opted for sleep. The last time I faded in from sleep my almost 9 year old niece knocked on my door. “Come in.” We greeted each other. I asked her what she needed, expecting that she wanted to charge my old iPhone so she could post a musical.ly video or Google something. She did. “I also wanted to see how you are.” She’s so considerate, in a way that you can tell comes naturally for her. As what her mother would call her third parent, I worry about this for her. I was in my 20s before I realized I could satisfy my need to be generous without it being at my own expense. “You can want two things.” I smiled this at her, for my own benefit too. I’ve struggled with where to draw the line in helping to care for these kids who call me Momo. I’ve had to learn