Sometimes my brain gets lost within four small walls, preferring darkness over horizons, swamps over mountain tops. My fuzzy eyes only dare see what is in front of my fingers, trapped in a haze of my own creation, happier to wallow than reverse. I put one foot in front of the other, kid myself that routine is a necessity; the routine of sleep-daytime-sleep: walk to the bathroom, don’t look at yourself, make coffee, eat, parent with clenched teeth, wonder why I find it so hard. Parenting is a double-edged maze, but perfection is an illusion. I tell myself it’s one step at a time, but that one step has to have direction, and not keep turning on itself, wide-eyed with fear. During those times my perception is selfish, limited to these four walls.

My perception is not a true mirror of who I am, and that it is my escape.

But most of the time my brain is tingling with phrases that bump into each other, colliding, exploding. The walls do not exist, my eyes see clearly into the past and the future, they look into the eyes of my counterpart across the world and shed tears because I can never do enough. I want to climb up the steps for her and carry her children for a while so that she can rest. I want to give up half of what I have so that we can own the same, share our love together and give our children the same opportunities and hopes.

My perception is open, it sees what I have and what others don’t and it kicks me in the behind, hard.

It’s time to get up and act, it’s time to relegate reactions to the sidelines and move forward with my words, my hands, my uneven coordination. There is something so powerful about understanding you have the power to make a difference, and each step matters. It’s natural to fall, to tumble into the cracks from time to time, and if we look up we will always see the fingers of those waiting to pull us out. Their gaze a sharp reminder that our perception can cloud our judgment as much as it can influence it.

Perception: to each their own, our outlook often a prism, shooting off a myriad of colors at every turn. Today will be pink and green, tomorrow black and red, unexplored and explored territories waiting for my feet to touch them. If we walk together, hand in hand, we can expect to make it through together. At least we will have each other to hold on to when we crawl through ditches, and laugh with when we slide down the rainbows.

I never really liked being alone anyway.