I have spent far too many moments picking up what
does not belong to me. Random pieces of foam and
plastic blown from someone else’s bin, the result
of exactly-as-expected gale. Debris and debriefings
from some suited exec who could not be bothered
to do the damn job himself. Lost paperwork that
should never be kept on paper. Pillowcases still
with the pillows in, yellow and sticky with drool
from someone else’s open mouth, an unpaired sock,
the overpriced underwear I can no longer confirm
as clean or dirty, and I certainly won’t be bringing
it to my nose. Then phone calls, emails, the notes,
the abject weight of having to be the one to ask
the right questions, to always answer immediately.
And while I know there is something to be said
for helping one another along, for stepping in,
for lending an open hand, I am starting to learn
not everything is my responsibility, not everything
is mine to hold, whether in my fingers that have
lost sensation or in my (miraculously) still loving
heart. And perhaps this resentment—no, I will call
it the anger it is— is not even my own to pick
up, that it is someone else’s duty to do that hard
work I have taken on all these years. These decades.
Except I fret no one else will. No one will be there.
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright May 3, 2024, all rights reserved
Posted in Katherine's Coffeehouse
