I Finished My Sentence

• 

This morning, I was writing when my dad came out of his room.

I saw him.

And I finished writing my sentence.

That probably doesn’t sound particularly significant unless you have spent a long time caring for someone who needs you often.

There was a time when seeing him would have been enough.

I would have stopped typing.

Looked up.

Entered whatever was happening for him.

And sometimes, without realizing it, abandoned whatever had been happening in me.

But lately I have been working on boundaries.

Not because I want less of my dad.

Because I need to remain somewhere in my own life too.

So I finished the sentence.

Then I looked up.

“Hi, Dad.”

He started coming toward me, telling me about the brace he had put on because his wrist was sore.

Immediately, I felt it.

That little internal panic.

Please. I need this morning. I need this time.

So I interrupted him.

“Hey, Dad, I’m doing my morning routine right now. Can we talk about this when I’m done?”

He stopped.

“Oh! Of course, honey.”

Then, genuinely concerned that I might feel guilty for having said it, he added:

“Don’t ever feel bad about telling me that.”

Which was lovely.

Except he kept talking.

He was waving his arms emphatically as he explained how completely fine it was for me to tell him that I did not want to talk.

And while he was waving them, I noticed his wrist.

The brace was completely upside down.

“Wait.”

I got up.

“Oh my God. I can’t let you go like that.”

He looked at me.

“You look like a lobster!”

We both started laughing hysterically.

The brace was sticking out from his hand at such a ridiculous angle that once I said lobster, that was it.

I took it off, turned it around, and put it back on correctly.

“There. Human again.”

Then I went back upstairs.

“Okay. I’m going to finish now.”

He agreed.

We were both still laughing.

And then I looked down and saw him walking in a circle.

He couldn’t find his room.

This happens.

There is a chandelier that serves as one of his landmarks, so I gave him the familiar instruction.

“Walk toward the chandelier, Dad.”

He found it.

Then he turned around, held up his newly corrected brace like a lobster claw, and said in a silly little voice:

“Okay. Bye-bye.”

And we both started laughing again.

Then he went back to his room.

And I went back to writing.

I think I used to imagine boundaries as something much harder than this.

A wall.

A refusal.

A decision that I would not allow someone else’s needs to interfere with mine.

But that isn’t really what happened this morning.

I finished my sentence.

I told my dad I wasn’t available.

He respected it.

Then I noticed that he genuinely needed help, so I helped him.

We laughed.

He became disoriented, so I pointed him toward the chandelier.

And then I returned to myself.

Maybe that last part is what I have been learning.

I can return.

Helping him doesn’t have to mean disappearing.

Loving him doesn’t require surrendering every sentence.

And having a boundary doesn’t mean that once I have drawn it, I must refuse to cross it even when something tender or ridiculous or necessary appears on the other side.

The boundary isn’t there to keep my father out.

It is there so I can remain in the room too.

This morning there was space for my writing.

There was space for his confusion.

There was space for his sore wrist.

There was space for my boundary.

There was space for the chandelier.

And apparently, there was space for a lobster.

Then we each went back to our rooms.

And I finished what I was writing.