Raised by honey badgers

My parents were broken in the ways people get broken when life isn't easy. They were also people who loved me the most they possibly could, which sometimes looked like armor, sometimes a door, sometimes a warm dinner when I didn't know how they managed it. I'm a honey badger too. I got the toughness, the showing up, the not-flinching. I'm trying to be softer in the places they couldn't be, honest about what I inherited, and unwilling to pretend the inheritance was simple. These are those essays.

The Tally

I count the minutes to bedtime. And then they sleep, and I walk past the door and peek in and stand there longer than makes sense, watching them breathe. This person I was desperate to hand off forty minutes ago I now feel the ache of missing someone who is right in front of me.