Drowning at the Principal’s Office
To this day…
I went to a Catholic elementary school. This was when fear was the driver to motivate students and before it was acceptable to hug your teacher. I wasn’t a bad kid. I did not want to get in trouble. Occasionally though, I would question authority or giggle in church.
At some point, thereafter, the P.A. would click on announcing that I would need to go to the principal’s office. This created an all-consuming anxiety, making the act of breathing unbearable. I survived each trip to the principal’s office relatively unscathed. I even learned new words.
“Mommy, what does in-sub-ord-i-na-tion mean?”
Forty years later, I’m still not a bad person and I still do occasional stupid things. Thankfully, there is no scratchy P.A. system to announce my human indignities. I broke free from all of that.
Yet, there is an inner child still sitting in the principal’s office. She is drowning inside of me, gasping for sips of air. She claws at my chest. I try to console her with breath, but she is with me.
Still waiting for the principal.
I’m just a little late for work, which is not life-shattering, but the girl chastises me. She is relentless. I try to tame her with a mantra: “Worry will not get you there faster.” With each red light, I am one more minute late. I feel her suffocating, rage bubbling up inside of me.
The mantra settles her, for now.
I try to master the art of graduate school, while balancing work and motherhood. Her tantrum consumes me. I feel her rage and suffer inside of me. I become one with her. I take her to my doctor and come home with a new prescription. She goes back to the waiting room. I lock the door.
School is done. I should be fine. The hospital preps for an unknown contagious disease — a pandemic. Nurses look to me for help. What do we do? Administrators tell me there is no PPE, and then tell me to tell nurses they don’t need it.
Doctors walk around in special masks and suits, spend only seconds in the room, while nurses and aides are in rooms for hours and perform the most private of tasks.
The girl screams inside of me.
Wine soothes her, but she wants to know why she is waiting so long for the principal to come. She doesn’t know what she did wrong. Will you keep me safe? Relax, feel the buzz. Sleep, little one.
My nurses are exhausted. My children are at home and alone for virtual school. My chest tightens every day. The girl is dulled with all of my tools, but she is so scared of the principal. The phone rings. Dad needs heart surgery. I tell her to calm down. It will be ok.
My mom and brother are there. I thought I could rely on my brother for support. He worries only about himself. His narcissism is beyond my understanding. He’s not worried about dad. Drowns himself with drink. My niece, she is me, but not me. Innocence. Unscathed. She will not wait at the office. Her father does the unthinkable. I cannot return from this.
The girl inside is torn apart.
The girl has been left to worry and angst for longer than any child should. She reminds me when I least expect it.
Sudden unexplained breathlessness.
A heaviness that won’t leave. The wine lifts the weight for a temporary moment, enough for sleep. The nightly pattern quiets the girl each night. I hope the principal will see her soon. I’m exhausted.
Please, make it stop.
