“It’s just not even worth it to go out,” I whined as we stood in the driveway in the dark. The boys were inside with their babysitter, our Uber was nine minutes away, and we had a twenty-five minute commute through traffic to get to the Opera House. At this rate we’d barely have enough time for a pre-show glass of champagne, and HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET THROUGH A SHOW WITHOUT BUBBLES?! We had rushed from swim lessons and home to the bath and downstairs to make dinner for the boys so we could get out the door. I was tired and irritable. Not to mention resentful, as usual, of all the duties that seem to fall on me as the mom. Not to mention blind, as usual, to the ways The Husband steps in.

I needed a drink.

But more than that, I needed–I need–to see. It’s what The Kid says to me all the time when he wants my attention, especially first thing in the morning: “See me.” I wake up and spend the better part of these mornings in his ass, with it poking in my face first thing because (a) he climbs into our bed without fail during the night; and (b) he prefers to sleep head-to-foot. So there I am, boy butt in my face, and a few minutes later that same ass is in my face again, now with him standing in front of me as I wipe it. Because we are not yet ready for poos in the toilet, apparently. Not when Mom has abandoned her doctorate to become Chief Ass Wiper (CAW) of TK’s nethers.

But “see me,” he says in the dark, before the sun has risen and before I’ve fully awoken and while the air is either still with possibility or heavy with responsibility, depending on how you’re wired. Me, I’m the latter, and let me tell you like you don’t know already: it’s hard to be Type A within a family. The rest of the people in the home, for their part, spend a lot of time lifting their legs to allow the vacuum cleaner to go by. I, meanwhile, count crumbs and wipe scuffs and scoop Cheerios and try to see it all as life, not burden.

How am I doing so far?

(Ask my pharmacist.)

There are the moments, though, when I am reminded that not all hope is lost. As though this is breaking news, even though preaching grace to myself has become a full time job–but I still forget. The boys and I were walking to TK’s school the other morning and the girl walking with her mom in front of us halted suddenly. I stifled a groan and grabbed our stroller before it hit her. Then she darted off the sidewalk and to the grass, where she began picking flowers. The next day, the same thing happened with a different girl. And the flowers–I hadn’t even seen them until someone else did. Spring bursting through the ground for the taking.

And TH, he said it the other day when Little Brother began yelling about some displeasing occurrence: “I wonder where he gets that temper?” It startled me, this trait we share that I hadn’t connected. It’s so easy for me to look at TK and see our common anxiety, to focus on that while wondering where this laid-back little guy came from. Then it’s pointed out for me that we can both light a room on fire. So maybe it’s not the cutest of genetic gifts, but hey–it’s ours. They’re ours. So the next day, at that swim lesson, I repay the favour when LB is climbing out of the pool with that knitted-brow expression: “He looks just like you right now,” I say to TH, and though we’re headed for a stressful next couple of hours (for me, anyway), his nod and smile ground me in this moment that belongs to the four of us.

On Thursdays, as always, I send TK to school with his News folder, but this week I imagine him up there, speaking to his class in his Loud Voice–“GOOD MORNING, KB!”–and it strikes me with brand-new ferocity that he is becoming a person. This is terrifying and wonderful. I feel overwhelmed, and incredibly privileged to have a front-row seat to it. The next day the school’s maintenance man tells me he’s leaving. This is the one who gifted TK with two vintage model cars from his own collection. He tells me that TK is a special kid–that they all are–but that James has something that makes you take to him. That he’s a blessing. Later, when I’m reading with TK’s class, one of the boys has a book with a character who has TK’s name. He grins, turns to me, and I think I know what he’s going to say, but I don’t. “That’s like our James!” I’d thought he was going to say your. I’m profoundly moved that he didn’t.

That night we made it out of the driveway. Our Uber driver was delightful. We even got a glass of champagne. Then we listened to two people who aren’t from there talk about my home state, and I watched as a concert hall full of people related. I listened as a New Yorker told an Australian about a square peg who couldn’t find his place, and about the beauty that happened anyway; about how he wanted to pursue a light ordinance in his town to keep the stars visible as neighbouring towns encroached. I listened as the audience, including TH, drew a sharp intake of breath at the stunning things others can help us see. I thought about my own square-peg status that pops up reliably, about how my anxiety mixes with bouts of depression to render me standing bitter in a driveway; but about how much it also lets me see. About what the New Yorker said about the Southerner whose own depression and outsider status were both born of and fuelled by an ability to see things the way they should be and to be angry when they weren’t that way. I thought the next day about it when I was at the beach with my three, the sky darkening with coming rain into a sapphire that mirrored the ocean, making the two almost indistinguishable. About how there would be days when I wouldn’t notice that, but there will be days when I will. Like today. About how that night out? Was totally worth it in the end. How all of it is.