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I happen to be a big fan of the Oxygen networks hit series, Snapped. Bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this. I've had an epiphany during my tenure as Snapped's biggest fan. These women are not so different from the rest of us. The fundamental difference is that most of us are never confronted with that one thing that would send us over the edge. Their wick is shorter than most, perhaps, but the core issue is the same.

I say this not because I am on the verge of becoming a homicidal maniac (I have trouble killing anything larger than a fly), but because I sense that I am at the end of my rapidly fraying rope. The truly frightening element of this intuitive sensibility is that I am not able to sense the distance between where I am presently and where my rope ends. I do, however, know that beyond the rope is a bottomless pit.

To be specific, I am supposed to be writing the second chapter of my dissertation, though I have yet to complete the first. I am supposed to be sitting at a feeding clinic with my son 5 days per week, 7 hours per day, but I have to work. I am supposed to be doing research on Langston Hughes for a book that my colleagues are composing. I am supposed to call my terminally ill mother five times per day because that's what she needs to feel loved. The reality is that I can barely get out of bed each morning. I am operating on fumes.

Speaking of feeling loved, I want to confess that I felt a modicum of jealousy when my ex-husband's friends got together during Christmas for a random act of kindness. Several of John's friends got cards and filled them with both money and messages of encouragement. He had gone through a lot in that year what with Caleb being Autistic and our marriage ending. It was very moving. Still, I couldn't help wondering what exactly they knew about the circumstances surrounding the divorce. I wondered if John had presented it in such a way that he was an innocent. Did they perceive the end of our relationship as something that just happened to him or something that he actively (whether knowingly or obliviously) brought about?

I realize this sounds ugly, the green-eyed monster is rearing its head, but I'm only human. I ponder these things to this day, not because I am Narcissus returned, but because I considered some of John's friends to be my friends also. I wondered if I would ever have the opportunity to tell my side of the story. I am fully aware that their acts of kindness were not based solely on our divorce, but also on what is going on with Caleb. In the grand scheme of things, however, I had been as close to hell last year as I ever want to be. Many of the things that John had suffered were either the result of his actions or something that happened to me (people assume that when a friend's loved one is suffering that friend is also suffering - not always true). But to get to the crux of the issue, I believe that the perception my ex-husband has given to the world is that I "stepped out" on him while we were married and he, in the general sense, was a bad husband.

The truth of the matter is that I am involved with someone else. I did not foster that relationship until after John and I agreed to divorce. There are things that happened between us during that period that have barely seen the light of day. Suffice it to say that I was twice attacked, and the second assailant was John. Consider the fact that J began throwing furniture at the close of our relationship. I fled to a hotel room at midnight with my son, and called the police. I was told that unless the chair had hit me, they had nothing to write up. The officer advised me that  I should have called the cops when he attacked me the first time. I should call back, I was told, when he struck me again.

Now, I was raised in an environment where my mother was beaten by all but one of her boyfriends. When I was old enough, it became my job to step in. The pattern continued when I began dating men who struck me.  I do not want my son to believe that violence is an acceptable form of expression. That is not the man I want Caleb to become, and I certainly don't want him to believe that I am the type of woman who would accept that treatment. This life, for me, is about breaking cycles.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. While I would never contemplate harming another human being, I have considered giving up. This week, I almost didn't go to work. I stopped writing my dissertation. I didn't respond to business-related emails. I didn't call my mother. I didn't care. My partner and my BFF both heard it in my voice. I was afraid that I would snap.Then I thought about Caleb.

When I was a child, my mother would frequently threaten to kill herself (and on one occasion she threatened to kill me in my sleep). So, when she took to the bed due to her crushing depression, I became anxiety-filled. I had to mourn my mother daily, for fear that each day would be the day I found her lifeless body. I won't allow my son to see his mother in such a state. I want him to grow up with the belief that nothing can defeat him - not autism, not living in a single-parent household, and certainly not life.

So, I get up everyday, drag my tail to work, love on my son, and try to sleep at night. As long as God permits me to be on autopilot, I will keep plodding along. And maybe, someday soon, I will be back in the driver's seat.

But not today...