Rattley Bumpa

NB: this was written in early October.

The sound a pick-up truck makes driving near a fresh construction sit. The name of a great kids’ book. The feeling of my heart beating erratically in this moment. It’s been a doozy of a month with my older son Ben starting pre-school, saying goodbye to the crib/toddler bed and none of us sleeping through the night once yet since it all started. I have a benign heart arrhythmia, which is apparently very common. It was really bad when Ben was an infant; so much so that I saw a heart specialist, got a (clear) echocardiogram, wore a holter monitor for 24 hrs and had blood tests. The results, apart from being relatively reassuring, did nothing to curb the missing beat. My blood pressure is also outrageously low (80/50 or something). Eventually it went away. Didn’t really rear its head when Daniel was born. Just now, around the time Ben was going to start pre-school. I have different philosophical and existential explanations for these phenomena. Being deeply empathic to your offspring is a mixed blessing and so our own foundation is shaken along with theirs when paradigms shift in their little lives. Some of that is our own projection, either of what we think they must be going through or tapping into our own childhood grief. They say having kids is like watching your heart walking around outside your body, only moderately being able to protect it. The whole thing [love] is epic. All I know is that when I am earth rattlingly worried and overtired, in the way that Ben deftly inspires, my heart starts screaming! It goes boom, boom, boom – pause – adrenaline shot – breath intake – massive boom! Over and over. I feel like I should take off like a rocket!

I just left Ben’s bedroom after watching that precious kid go to sleep and then giving him some Reiki. Alongside the usual mantras and energy involved was a bone-deep, soul aching plea that I could ever fill him up with enough healing energy and strength to make up for my anger, frustration and shortcomings, not to mention all the other daily afflictions in his young sensitive person’s life.

Oh sweet Ben, how you set my heart aflutter!

E