I got the pills weeks ago, and I’ve only taken one. But it helps to know they’re there. And I’m giving a speech imminently, so it really helps to know they’re there.

My days in New York, where I will return today and give said speech tomorrow, were a strange and wonderful blend of anonymity and being known. I developed deep friendships but could walk down the street without ever seeing anyone I knew. I could lose myself in a crowd but show up at an apartment later and immediately enter into meaningful conversation. I flitted in and out of stores without a word but George, the owner of the coffee truck on my way to work, knew my order and had it waiting every day.

There is a beauty to both: anonymity, and being known.

I think one of the hardest things about marriage, and parenthood, and any deep relationship, really, is the daily exposure that comes with it. There is no way my husband and children won’t see my bad side every day, especially on those days (all of them) when the bad side is every side. But this is also the safety, and the hope, of these relationships: a promise has been made. No one is leaving. Which means that we’re all stuck with each other–and that we all stick together.

The Kid and I went to his yearly round-up with the neurosurgeon (East Coast Edition) today. On the way, I detected a biological weapons-grade smell emanating from the back seat and I knew we had an explosive situation on our hands of the ass variety. “Dammit,” I muttered under my breath, because we were already late–and because I knew my near future was shit-laden. I gagged removing him from his carseat and it wasn’t until we got inside the medical building that I saw the smear covering an entire leg and ass cheek of his pants. The situation was out of control. I checked us in and asked the lady at the front desk if they had any gowns. She assured me they didn’t, and inside my head I assured her she was a lying bitch. TK and I headed to the bathroom, where a woman was doing her makeup in the mirror. Apparently she enjoyed the smell of diarrhea because SHE WOULD NOT EFFING LEAVE, even as I began to weep angry tears and remove from my son a substance so vile I considered calling for an exorcist. Finally, and one pair of pants in the trash later, I had him cleaned up, and we headed back to the doctor’s office, where he played happily in his pull-up as if nothing was amiss. I decided to go with it, having no fucks left to give since I left them all in the bathroom.

Once in our room, the nurse provided us a gown (FUNNY; I THOUGHT THERE WEREN’T ANY) and TK’s doctor, whom we haven’t seen in a year, came in. I got to brag on my boy–my speaking, reading, numbers-to-one-hundred-counting boy, and I got to hear that the MRI looked good: all is stable. The way his brain is, the little idiosyncrasies they found three years ago? Still there. Apparently that’s just the way he was made. Funny; at one time they were red flags.

My puffer-vested geisha and I headed to the car, which still reeked. I opened the sunroof and breathed.

Last week I visited the hospital without TK to pick up the copy of his scan to send to our other neurosurgeon (West Coast Edition). On my way out, I heard the lobby pianist playing something that just could not be what I thought it was. So I paused. Listened. Sure enough, the strains of “Hotel California” were dancing in my ears. “Dude,” I thought, as children in wheelchairs and head bandages moved about and the words “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave” came to mind, “Know your audience!”

My gym friend, with the son who mirrors TK plus fourteen years, talked to me the other day about what was already on my mind; she has a funny way of doing that. Almost as if she knows me better than I realize–or that someone else just knows the both of us. Anyway, she mentioned that her younger son could have been a “real asshole” if he hadn’t had his special older brother, who brought out an empathy that might never have materialized. And I think about this often, about what goes into making us who we are. I think about it as I notice Little Brother watching TK during those moments when he’s frustrated and grasping for words. I think about it as I see them pick at each other, or make each other laugh, or tickle each other, or drive each other–and me–insane.

Her words were a balm because they reminded me of what’s really going on here, in spite of all my anxiety (pill-relieved and not), in spite of all my attempts at and illusions of control: we were, all of us, created. Which makes us known. And this can be terrifying, uncomfortable stuff: this sense of being unable to hide, of being exposed. I have to laugh at how much effort I’ve expended in my life to avoid being seen. To hide. And here I am, telling you my shit stories and referencing the bottle of Xanax that sits in my bathroom drawer. My laughter turns to grateful tears mixed with embarrassment mixed with fear but ultimately buoyed by the good stuff–hope, and joy, and–oh, God–love, because the me from ten years ago would have been horrified at this gratuitous oversharing. At this self-exposed weakness, this counsel-seeking and pill-grabbing instead of bootstrap-pulling. I think of the Inner Child technique my (gasp) counselor told me about, and I just have to pat that twenty-something little girl–and her present-day counterpart, often–on the head, and tell her it’s all going to be okay. That even in her fear and hiding and general ass-hattery, she is known and loved and headed toward things at once awful and beautiful. Things she might need a pill to deal with, or not, because grace is big enough for both. She’s headed toward things–she’s headed toward people--just as broken as she is, and their amount of knowing each other will be graphic and real and day-by-day and full. She is headed where everyone knows her name, and coffee preference, and rap sheet, and handicaps. She is headed, always, home.