She finds comfort in my calloused palms.
But, fails to see the lost child grasping for any hand to hold.
I lack object constancy, a cognitive skill that develops around the age of 2 or 3. People, relationships, and objects are discontinuous and unstable. The momentary step away from the swing-set means Mommy and Daddy are gone forever. They no longer exist.
By habit, when the boy is lost, he searches, but cannot find. He cries. Sometimes comes the mother. Sometimes the stranger.
So, when she leaves on a girls trip, she too disappears. I am 24 years-old going on 2, and my swing-set has gone idle. Helplessly, I seek solace in the stranger.
Because she is not constant, the replacement of her must be uninterrupted. Thankfully, the stranger is enduring. Their existence is stable, albeit their presence temporary. I trust that I can, and will, find a hand to hold.
I never expect them to stay anyways. They’re strangers. It feels less like abandonment.
Except, finding a hand to hold means hurt. Satiating my needs for her presence, the sex, our love, means heartbreak. And, replicating such with a stranger is a pure fallacy. Yet, I still fall victim to it, and the same thoughts, habits, and rash decisions it arouses.
But then again, you left me!
So next the next time you leave, you trace my disciplined hands, I hope you see that little boy at the playground, lost and just looking for a hand to hold.
Because he is sorry, he loves you.
He is comforting a lost little girl with his calloused palms, ensuring she never needs the stranger.