What I Didn’t Know
| December 3, 2024Ima, I never knew that you went through this, too
I never knew that adulthood could be filled with so many complex and nuanced emotions that could keep my head spinning for days. I never knew that even if I’m not dealing with major life crises like divorce, poverty, or illness, I could still feel crushing waves of overwhelm from my day-to-day routine.
I never knew that my toddler’s tantrum because I cut his chicken the wrong way — after being woken multiple times in the night for a child’s night terrors, after spending a day in the office staring at a computer with a sheitel pressing against my skull, after fighting with another child to just sit and do his homework — could cause me to snap and yell at my children.
I never knew that hormones play a real part in mental health, and that some days I would feel so out of sorts. I never knew that the hamster wheel of life, while such a blessing, can be so depleting.
Ima, I never knew that you went through this, too.
All I knew was that often you were harried and hurried. All I knew was that sometimes you just needed to lie on the couch without my (or any of my many siblings) tugging at your sleeve every two seconds.
Your work hours were long, yet you served us a hot dinner each night, but I didn’t always like the chicken cut that way, so I refused to eat it. But all I knew was that you yelled at me to go to my room, and I slammed the door so hard I shattered the mirror. All I knew was that I sank to the floor in my room and cried and cried.
What I didn’t know was that you were at the kitchen table crying, too.
Ima, I didn’t know.
And I think that even if I did know, I couldn’t have understood. The same way my toddler doesn’t understand why tears stream down my face when he’s the one crying over the chicken. Ima, I didn’t know, and I want you to know that I see you now.
Now as I juggle my family, day job, night job, meal planning, Yom Tov prep, keeping house — did I mention being a devoted wife as well — while trying to keep me me, all I can think about when I sink into my bed at night is: I didn’t know.
In another time and place this would pivot to expound on my newfound feelings of awe and admiration for you. But in this time and place, my newfound feelings are of sadness. I know that I never heard about you going on coffee dates with friends. I know that you told me many times that in the first ten years of marriage, when children are young, there’s not much opportunity to come up for air, let alone have deep friendships.
I don’t need to hear: Try meds and or therapy. I do that already. Self-care. I go on many a coffee date and shopping spree. More cleaning help. I have that, too, even if you, Ima, didn’t back then.
And while I’m sitting at the empty kitchen table with my tear-streaked face, sipping a hot drink called self-care, I call you knowing that you’re sipping a hot drink at your empty (nest) kitchen table. You listen to me sigh and share that tonight I wasn’t the best version of myself at dinner time, and you give me chizuk in a way that only a mother can.
I know that you see yourself so clearly reflected in me. And I wonder what else I didn’t know.
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 921)
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