A Most Selfish Creature

I think if I had been left to my own devices, I could have been a most selfish creature.  My days drift in a pattern of serving others.  It begins often before I am even awake.  Somewhere between 1 and 3 a.m., when my 6 year old crawls into the bed and I slide over to make room.  Even my smile seems selfless at times.  I often bestow it wearily in my attempt to hide my worry for one of my children.  Daily, I practice giving of myself.  Despite being decades into this practice, I still, at times, find it unnatural.  Which leads me to my current mode of thought:  I could have been a most selfish creature.

I imagine I could spend hours lying in bed each morning, too exhausted from thinking of myself the previous day to get up.  I believe that I could spend an additional few hours powdering my nose and meticulously hiding my flaws.  I suppose I could prepare a meal with only me and my desires in mind and then leave the mess to clean up itself.  Indeed I have no doubt that I could talk endlessly about myself with such flourish that those around me have no choice but to be silenced.  I know that this could all be pulled off with amazingly little effort on my part.

Thankfully, I was not left to my own devices.  And, although at times I resent my responsibilities and find my mind in a state of unrest, I know that these same responsibilities and 'stressful' thoughts are what keep me from being the anti-heroine in my own novel.  They are the catalysts moving my story somewhere, in my humanness, I was never meant to go. A place of wholeness that can only be found in losing myself.  At the end of this exhausting day, I am grateful to my family for helping me become what I should never have been.