On the Border Between Somewhere and Nowhere.

The only sound in the darkness is my own. Even the blinking of the hazard lights has faded into black.

I am somewhere near the border of Arizona and California, three hours in to a six-hour drive. And the helplessness and fear that I left behind years ago is the only thing familiar in the dark landscape around me.

Glancing into the rearview mirror, I see them watching me. Waiting.

For three days, we wandered through the Magic Kingdom, a cotton-candy-fueled frenzy of roller coasters and fantasy, princesses and pirates, fireworks and wonder. We fell blind in a Tower of Terror, raced across Route 66 and shot through the stars. We flew through Neverland and took a wild ride with a toad. We splashed down mountains and found fairies. Bunkbeds and hot tubs, monorails and buffets, dancing snowflakes and Santa himself.

Three days of Disney-fied bliss devoured by panic.

It’s an odd feeling to know that there are two versions of you, the “you” before and the “you” after. It’s different than the “you” in college that becomes the “you” upon graduation. The single “ you” and the married “you.” The daughter “you” and the mother “you.”

The pre- and post-trauma “you.”

I was an independent and stubborn girl that became and independent and stubborn woman. A daughter that became a mother. A single that became a double. A student that became an exhausted career professional. A dreamer that became a realist. A spender that became a saver. A dissatisfied that was satisfied. A reader that dreamed of writing. A double that became a single. A dissatisfied no longer satisfied. A mother failing. A daughter detached. A sister lost. A friend vanished. An empty smile.

A wraith in my own body.

They tell you that the pain of childbirth vanishes in your child’s first cry. What they don’t tell you, and perhaps it is because they don’t know, is that it becomes absorbed deep within you and, like all pain, it resurfaces in moments of agony. And the agony of loss has become entwined with the agony of my greatest gift, defining the post-trauma me and crashing over me in waves of panic let loose by dread of failure and hurt.

Here in the desert, my fear of the dark and night and loss have collided. And they watch silently, waiting for the tears and gasps to disappear.

“Mom, everything will be okay. I promise. We’ll take care of you.”