Falling To Pieces

By Melanie Dale
@melanierdale

There’s this word puzzle I work every morning. It has letter tiles like Scrabble but it’s a solitaire version I play by myself. I sip coffee and move letters around for twenty minutes and it calms me as the kids grind into gear and we set about the day. My aunt (the same one who gave me my Old Faithful nightgown), gave me this puzzle when I was pregnant with Elliott, and I have pictures of myself working the puzzle while balancing it on my pregnant belly and then of myself working the puzzle while preemie Elliott slept on my chest, and now my lapdog, Khaleesi, curls in my lap every morning while I play. This word game is probably the most consistent thing I’ve done for myself from the beginning of motherhood. Nerd alert.

A month ago (Two months? Time is meaningless and incalculable right now), I lifted my “If Daryl Dies We Riot” mug and its crossbow handle slipped in my fingers, spilling boiling hot coffee all over me, the table, and my word puzzle game.

I snatched a towel from the kitchen counter and started mopping up the mess. My dad had just refinished the table so I worked quickly to dry everything. I drink my coffee black—black like my soul, my son teases me—so I thought everything would be okay, no sticky sugar, no curdling milk to worry about, and then I saw the letter pieces on my game. Their black ink shriveled away like they were made of disappearing ink. My game, ergo my sanity, was vanishing before my eyes.

A sob bubbled out of me. I choked it back. I was fine. I kept cleaning. I rarely cry.

Another sob fought its way out of my throat, this time louder. Oh damn.

I rarely cry but when I do, it’s like all the tears that have been backbuilding for months erupt out of me. I am Vesuvius, and my home is the lost city of Pompeii. Somebody come dig my family out of the ashes.

I mopped coffee and sobbed and mopped and sobbed. By now I was attracting a crowd. First one, then all, of my family members trickled in, presumably to help, but the image of their mother sobbing and mopping froze them in place.

My oldest stood in front of me gaping silently. I snapped at her to stop staring at me, but honestly, how could she not? I was putting on an epic performance.

My husband marched into his office and disappeared. He was no use when I was crying. I glared toward his office door. He couldn’t even try to console me? I felt judged and abandoned. (Ew feelings, I hate feelings, just writing about the feelings makes my face scrunch up like I’ve just been crop-dusted. I’ve been crop-dusted by smelly feelings.)

I finally got everything mopped up and spread out the game pieces on a dry towel. I could still make out the outline of the letters but they were a mess. My hands started to shake.

The game was discontinued. I couldn’t just go to the store and replace it. I sobbed harder.

This is how nerds fall apart. We can run the world, but take away our word games and we’re toast.

The kids stared at me and stared at each other. I stared at them, at one in particular, and realized I wasn’t just crying about the game. It was the game, but it was more than the game. My bottled tears, when they finally fall, are never only about one thing. My tears are like individual letter tiles benignly collecting until they pour out into big words and bigger feelings.

I realized I was finally crying over one of my kids with special needs and a very scary and upsetting situation that had happened recently. At the time, I handled it with my usual lack of emotion. I am a problem-solver. I roll up my sleeves and fix whatever it is, while wise-cracking and taking nothing too seriously.

Maybe other special needs moms can relate. We handle crisis after crisis and we don’t fall apart because we can’t. Day in, day out, we keep our families ticking along, no matter what new surprises hit us in the face.

But my emotional letter tiles had accrued, unbeknownst to me, and now they were falling to pieces all over everyone and I couldn’t take them back. So in between crying contractions, I explained what was happening. I was crying about the spill but I was also crying retroactively about the crisis. The kids nodded in understanding. Sometimes our feelings come out at weird times.

I blew my nose, washed my hands—for 20 seconds, FOR 20 SECONDS!—took a deep breath, and stared forlornly at my withered game pieces. I let out my breath shakily. I’d played that game almost every day for 14 years.

And I guess I was more upset about the thing with my kid than I’d thought. So many unsolved problems. I sighed and started the day’s process of crisis management. Another day, another list of specialists and medicines.

Just then, my husband came out of his office and said that he’d found the last copy of the game and bought it used from someone on Amazon. He’d paid a fortune for it, but you can’t put a price tag on sanity. I think the whole family breathed a sigh of relief, because if I go down, we all do.

The game arrived a week later, good as new and carefully bubble wrapped. I’m looking at it now and am grateful. He saw what I needed when I was falling apart. He also knew what he needed, a relatively stable wife who plays her little 20-minute game to calm down each morning.

When I think about my 20-year marriage and all we’ve been through and who we’ve become, I don’t think about romantic getaways and flowers and gooey sentiments (ew feelings). I think about my nerdy little game and how my husband and I hold each other up when the other one is breaking down. Love is in the business of crisis management.

Later that day, Khaleesi wandered past me and I looked at her fur. Her white hair had brown streaks through it. Had she rolled in poop? I picked her up and sniffed her back. Coffee. I’d paid so much attention to the game that I forgot about my poor pooch. (Never tell her. She’s a diva.)