I was loved enough

We have privacy curtains at my workplace. They are on that track system. Inevitable one of the rollers the curtains are attached to will become stuck and turn into an annoyance vs. a convenience. It happened again the other day while I was attempting to close the curtain for my elderly client to get dressed. As I’m hanging onto the curtain, trying to knock loose the roller that got stuck in the track system, I got that instant flashback. Taking me back to a time and place long gone. Suddenly I was this little girl of 7 or 8 again. My mother had sheer curtains on that track system. She would wash them every weekend. Herself struggling to take them off the track and hang them back up to dry. I would scurry around her, more a nuisance than a pleasurable distraction since she just wanted to get it done and over with. As soon as the sheers were up, I would grab a tail end of it and start swirling myself inside of it. Spinning clockwise and counterclockwise,getting wrapped up in the sheers. Until without fail the rollers would spring off the track, popping one at a time, entangling me even more. My mother would come running, fussing at me, letting out that big sigh as she called my name to stop that nonsense. Never upset enough to react in anger. Just exasperated at my insistence of doing things that didn’t find much approval.

I came back from my flashback, looking at my client looking at me. I told her where my mind had wandered off to and both of us laughed at it, as I’m sure it brought back certain memories for her as well. In retelling the story, I told my client “ I don’t think I was the most loved child out of the bunch”. With the utterance of those words I had the immediate realization that I was indeed loved enough. No matter what foolish adventures I undertook, no matter how exhausted she was, no matter how desperate her personal situation was, she never lashed out at me with any kind of hostility. Frustrated and at times disappointed but always with endearment for the little girl who would un-tiredly try her patience.