When going back means moving forward.

I said goodbye to the girls this morning and walked out of their school, feeling heavy with a peculiar kind of grief. I said goodbye to the girls and I did not say hello to Madeleine's first grade teachers. We didn't even make a right-hand turn down the hall where her classes were held. Didn't even tour past the room where I'd had several meetings with her teachers, worriedly scanning the notes I'd scrawled before driving to the school, nervously tracing over knuckles with fingertips, leaning back and trying to find the right combination of words that would tell them: I'm worried. Help Madeleine. What can I do? What is going to happen to her?

I said goodbye to Violet and I said goodbye to Madeleine and as I left the school I said goodbye to an old reality, some random fact about my daughter that somehow became a part of who I was. Mad was a first grader, now she's a kindergartner. Goodbye, first grade. Goodbye some odd idea of supposed to be.

It's good, great, wonderful that we were able to make this move for her. I feel pretty certain that this was the best thing we could do for her, things being what they are, but it doesn't make it hurt any less, shelving some idea of progress, coming to terms with the idea that Madeleine's peer group is a bit ahead of her. That we'll need to go back to move forward.

Because if motherhood has taught me anything, it's that progress isn't linear. Growth doesn't happen in an unceasing forward line. Growth is stops and starts, retracing steps and reconfiguring plans. Growth is a lurching heart on the way out of your kids' school building, your daughter's big eyes and thoughtful frown as she stares out of the car window, taking measure of what's to come, her palm in your palm and a gentle squeeze goodbye.

Now, now now.

The road stretches on and on, slicing thick through piles of old snow. Cold wind bites the car and we blast warm air at ourselves from the inside. We've been in the car for six hours now and we're not even halfway there. And that's okay. Of course it's okay. In the backseat my daughters are sleeping, little pulses of warmth and love. My husband at the helm. And for the briefest of moments I feel the gears and cogs of time align themselves around me. I'm there at the center and I can see so clearly where I stand, when I stand: now, now, now. This is happy. And just as I recognize it, it passes, and I'm sucked back through the cogs: forward, forward, forward.

Stuck and unstuck and everything in between.

If I fashioned myself as a container of blood, I would be clear glass and everyone could see the pulsing heart of me. But since I am made of skin I do my best to show everyone what it looks like in there, behind the steel frame of my ribcage. Here and here and here, I say, pulling strands from the center of me and holding out a fist. I am bleeding all over your carpet, and I'm sorry for that, but it won't stop me. Look at all the pieces, I say. The pretty bits and the ugly bits, the shards of bone and the vivid essence of red.

What I am not saying is, Here, look at me. Appreciate and validate and fix me. It's manically avoiding dealing with the inside bits and instead simply putting them on display. What I say is: Look, I have made another mistake. Look at that. Just look at it. Can you believe the mistake I have made? And then I file it away on a shelf, dust it off, step back, and take it in. Yup. That's a mistake alright.

What I am not saying is: Look how unhappy I am.

It's a nice, tidy form of apathy, a really good, self-perpetuating one. Because you feel like you are confronting something when you take it out and talk about it until the words stop making any sense.  Done and done, I think when I step back to take a look at those things I end up filing away on the shelf. I did all the work. I did what I was supposed to do. And then I walk away.

This is not just apathy, though, it's survival skills, too. If I stop talking about the muck inside and around me it's like poison. If I took the time to dive in and start sorting everything out, I'd get bogged down so quickly, sinking and drowning before I even got through the first thing.

This is not easy, finding yourself waist-deep in the muck when you didn't even know you were in it.