A letter to Those Holding Things

Dear Holder of things,

The one who balances feelings, finances, the doing of life.The one who does the work, who holds the burden.The one who is the ebb and flow of life.The one who feels the sadness, heaviness, unfairness of the world.The one who wishes they could fix it, or

Disappear

from

it.

The one who feels small, or voiceless, or afraid.

The one who feels the sharpness of life.The one holding it all.

Holding the stories of our children’s wonder, their heartache and the pain of growing up, of life making its mark.

To the one who sees.

Sees others and wipes a tear from a wet cheek.The one who realizes they needed a tear swiped from their own face.

The way women for generations have held and carried and pushed and stretched themselves to fit or to hide or be “good,” “kind” and “wise.”

This is for the one who is holding all the things.

Things they are carrying like

a hand,

a bowl full of chocolate chip cookie dough,

a pen to sign a permission slip for school,

the grocery list,

the worry of doing enough.

Being enough.

doing

it

all.

This is a letter for those who are holding all the things.

I see you.I am you.

I feel the wind moving between the branches, and the river flowing through the rocks.

I feel the pain of life, the unfairness, the lies, the pain, the violence, the noise.

The way all the things somehow never feel like enough.

The perfectness, the messiness, the chaoticness.

keep going.

Keep going.

I love you.

Keep going.

I love you.

Keep going.