I’m in the make-up aisle at Shopper’s Drugmart with my eleven-year-old daughter. We just ran a bunch of boring errands, and I promised her she could pick out a treat at Shopper’s. She’s indecisive, wants to pick three things instead of one, says her brain is having a hard time deciding. She says I’m ruining her life, not letting her pick what she wants. She’s going to regret whatever she picks because I’m rushing her.
There’s a worker at the make-up counter and I can see her eyes lift off her phone every few minutes watching me struggle with my daughter and her feelings. It’s twenty minutes until closing time and I know that I need to get my daughter to pick a thing, use the self-checkout and then get into my car and drive home. I’ve made a huge mistake coming here at this time and saying my daughter could get anything she wanted up to $15. Suddenly I feel myself growing hot, my heart feels tights. A panic attack? Here? Now? My daughter can tell I’m getting upset and asks what is wrong.
“I’m time traveling,” I tell her.
*
It’s a few days ago and I am camping with my best friend and a pile of kids. On the first night we are there the kids are excitedly getting ready for bed. I go to the car to get something and a woman passing by on the path behind me says, “You know it is quiet hours, right?” My heart immediately tightens with the familiar panic that I’ve made a huge mistake.
*
I’m forty years old and one of my clients has had an unusual reaction to the kind of massage therapy treatment I provide. I call my best friend and go over and over the events and I feel certain that it was my fault that I missed something, that I made a mistake, that I’ll lose my job and be homeless. After hearing all the details, she talks me down from that ledge, assuring me that I did everything correctly. I cancel the rest of my day because I can still feel my panic deep in my heart.
*
I’m thirty-nine years old and I forgot to bring water bottles for me and my kids on a weekend visit to my parents house. I ask my mother if she can lend us some of her many water bottles. She is very upset that I’ve forgotten the water bottles and complains the whole time about how much she must do for me. I can feel my panic rising and I say we’ll just buy some. We stop at a convenience store on the way to the beach and buy three water bottles. My son asks what’s wrong and I wonder out loud if we should go home, my mom seems too upset for us to be visiting. Instead, we go to the beach and play, as I breath through my panic.
*
I’m thirty five years old and it’s a running joke in my family that I forget things every time I go anywhere. No matter how many lists I make one of my kids doesn’t have underwear and the other doesn’t have pyjamas for a four-day trip to our ancestral homelands. As I stand in the checkout line at Walmart buying those things after driving two hours to the nearest town I can feel my heart tighten and my panic rising. Will I ever be able to remember everything?
*
I’m thirty-two years old and my marriage is ending. I’ve finally admitted I need some medical support. I take my 18 month old daughter with me to the doctor and tell him all about how I am feeling. He prescribes sertraline and I start taking it right away. Every day I count each pill after I take one in case I have dropped one on the floor where my toddler might eat it. It is a mistake I could make and one I couldn’t live with.
*
I’m thirty-one years old and as far as my husband is concerned I can’t do anything right. My daughter is 15 months old and I haven’t had a full nights sleep in months. I become obsessed with the exposed insulation in our basement and have our landlord remove it, then I become obsessed with our house being too cold as a result. I can’t go into the basement because I am intensely afraid of a black widow spider being down there. I must shake out every piece of clothing carefully before I put it on. I constantly think about gigantic sink holes opening under my feet and swallowing me whole. About the Yellow Stone Caldera and the world ending on December 21, 2012. Anytime I try to talk to my husband about what’s happening inside me he scoffs and tells me to stop fucking worrying and not to start with the sinkholes again. My panic is a constant companion, and he stops talking to me at all for several weeks.
*
I’m twenty-nine years old and walking downtown with my husband and son. My son must be four years old and I forgot to bring something with us. I can’t remember what the object was now, just that I forgot to bring some seemingly important piece of our usual day bags. My husband is upset because our son is upset that I forgot, whatever it was I forgot. I can feel my heart getting tight and my face is hot. My breathing is so shallow I feel like I can’t take a breath at all.
“What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you remember things?” my husband asks.
My heart is so tight and I walk a few paces behind them as I hear over and over in my head: you should probably just kill yourself. It would be better for everyone if you didn’t exist.
*
I’m twenty five years old and my son is a baby. I haven’t slept well in months and I just can’t hold him again, can’t comfort him again. My husband insists that I take my son to walk around until he falls asleep. I accidentally bump my son’s head on a doorframe. My husband explodes with anger that I may have injured our son. I’ve committed the worst possible mistake. Our son cries for a few minutes and then is fine. My panic attack lasts four days.
*
I’m twenty-two years old and I live in a big, messy community house. We smoke a lot of cigarettes and weed, drink too much coffee and don’t sleep much. I’ve been up late for weeks working on the many essays I must complete to finish my university degree. I keep thinking I’m forgetting something. One of my roommates asks if I’ve cleaned the bathroom and I haven’t. She unloads her frustrations about our messy house on me and my heart tightens and I know its my fault because I’m forgetful. Later that night, the panic grips me again and I spend hours walking around my room talking myself out of hitting my leg with a hammer in the hopes that I would break a bone. If I don’t figure myself out, I’m going to be homeless, my thoughts tell me.
*
I’m thirteen years old at a soccer tournament. My brother is playing in the finals of his level but my team is finished. I’m bored of watching soccer. Some friends of mine live next to the soccer fields and so I ask if I can go to hang out with them in their house, watch a movie. My father is visibly upset but says it’s fine if I go and miss my brother’s game. Later, at my friend’s house my heart tightens and I know that I’ve made a mistake, I’ve made the wrong choice again.
*
I’m eleven years old and at bedtime one night I start thinking about how my mother is going to die someday. I start crying loudly because I don’t want to live in a world without my mother.
My mother hears me crying and pokes her head into my room to tell me to stop crying because my brother has an away game for his hockey team tomorrow and we have to leave very early to get there. Everyone needs to sleep and I am disrupting the quiet of the house. My panic starts rising and I cry as quietly as I can into my pillow until I fall asleep.
*
I am ten years old and I have become convinced that the only way to keep everyone in my house alive and healthy is for me to do a specific series of actions before bedtime. One of them is to pray and the other is to hold and talk to an Archie doll I have. He lives in the drawer of my night table for the next nine years until I lose him when I leave home for university. Once I go to a sleepover and forget the doll at home. When I realize this, I feel strange sensations of blood moving in my body and my heart tightening and I know this is because I can feel that something bad is about to happen to my family because I didn’t do all the right things.
I wake up my friend and tell her that I’m feeling sick and need to go home. My father is not impressed when he picks me up.
*
I’m four years old and it is my birthday. My mother has made matching red dresses for me and a stuffed bunny that is my main birthday present. I do not want to wear the dress because it is uncomfortable, but I do like the bunny in her red dress. My mother takes both the dresses away and gives the bunny back naked because she is so disappointed that I won’t wear the dress to my party. I realize what a terrible mistake I’ve made disappointing my mother like this and I don’t want to blow the candles out on my cake.
This is one of my first clear memories.
*
There is a picture of a moment when I am around two years old. My family is visiting my grandparents who live nine hours away from us. This may be the second or third time I have seen them. The picture is my grandmother holding my brother, who is about 6 months old. My mother is holding my crying, screaming toddler self. My grandfather is holding a blonde doll that is obviously mine. He is turned towards me and is speaking. My grandfather was in a mining accident when my father was a baby where he lost an arm and has a hook to replace it. My parents want to have a picture of my brother and I with our grandparents, but I have refused to participate – I do not want to sit on my grandfather’s lap. He is a confusing stranger. My mother takes me into her lap and my grandfather grabs my doll and holds it away from me. I am crying because I want my doll back, because these people are strangers, because I do not want to sit still.
My father takes this picture despite my obvious unhappiness.
My parents have kept it all these years.
*
Anything less than perfection feels like a failure. I have to remember everything and everything has to be exactly as it should be otherwise I will be abandoned, I will lose everything. I am too much when I forget. Too much when I am messy or anxious or want anything. I am too much when I run out of executive functioning spoons and start getting confused or overwhelmed. There is no room for error and yet so many times I think I’ve packed all the right things or ordered the correct item or done the correct ritual to ward off disaster and yet still I make a mistake. I fail. I fail. I am a failure.
*
From my adult place I can see my mother time travelling into her past at my fourth birthday party. I can see my father time travelling every time I have disappointed or annoyed him. I can see my grandfather time travelling when a toddler refused to sit on his lap. I can see my ex-husband time travelling when he holds me to an unreasonable standard of perfection. I can see my clients time travelling when outcomes aren’t perfect. I can see my friends and lovers time travelling when things become vulnerable.
“I’m time travelling,” I say to my daughter. It doesn’t solve everything in the moment. She’s still upset that I won’t let her pick both a lipstick and a bath bomb and a bath puff. The woman at the counter is still sighing and giving me the side-eye. I’m still going to have to rush my daughter more then she wants because the store is closing. She’s still going to be upset that I didn’t buy her a lipstick.
Knowing I’m time travelling doesn’t change the situation. It changes how I respond to the sharp tightening of my heart, the shallowness of my breathing, the thoughts that begin to seep in, telling me that I won’t ever be any good at anything. Naming this time travelling helps me to remain calm as I hold the boundary that she is only getting one thing, that we have to leave soon, that she will enjoy whatever she gets. I haven’t failed as a parent because I have made one small wrong decision today.
When we get back home, after she takes a bath with her new things, we cuddle in her bed.
“I’m sorry I was upset at the store,” I say, “I was time travelling through a bunch of other moments where I felt like I was making bad choices.”
“It’s okay, mama. I’m sorry I was getting upset about wanting the lipstick too. Can I get it another time?” she replies.
“Sure, buddy.”
I time travel often, but now I know the way back to the present moment, my body and myself.
