Smell the Onion

when the lunch that I barely managed calcifies on the counter

next to the leftover french toast that ages where it sits,

while the children throw things down the stairs

and at each other,

and I flash angrily at each compounded affront to order

and peace

and my authority,

when each effort to carry on until bedtime extracts more from the marrow

of my bones than I have left to give,

I despair of raising functional adults with minimal baggage,

and I know that I have failed–

the future stretches out blearily before me

full of too many lunches of hot dogs and macaroni

incessant television

cavities

chaos

and the living room floor eternally covered in couch cushions.

But then, barely audible in the recesses of my over-taxed mind I hear

“this is a season”

and it is

and I know, down in my weary bones that I am equal to this task of wrangling these three beautiful souls into civilized adulthood, and some day they will chuckle to their therapists and say “there was a lot of macaroni and cheese, and sometimes I thought she might actually pull her own hair out, but I always knew my mom loved me.”