Eleanor is still in my arms, asleep.

I feel off-balance and a little ill. I roll her off my lap, onto the floor, and stand, massaging the feeling back into my tingling legs.

It didn’t work. I thought that through my sense and force of will I could send Eleanor to live with her mother and me—a different version of me—and she’d be able to grow up happy and whole.

“Veronica?” I whisper into the darkness and there’s no reply. Within the bowels of my intuition, there’s a sense that whatever door was open before was now shut and I am now more fully and utterly alone.

I’m left with this thought of “what now?”

When Eleanor was born, she was perfect. There wasn’t any sense of corruption or ruinousness about her. She was perfect and Veronica and I saw her potential, like any new parent does of their newborn, because within every child there’s a sense of hope that something remarkable might occur during their lifetime that came from their hand. But with that sense of potential comes a realization that with that potential there will be suffering and it’s every parent’s hope that the suffering that their child undergoes comes from the world and not their home. Even within the decision to bring a child into the world there’s a notion of acceptance that there will be suffering, because everyone knows the type of world they’re bringing children into: it’s rife with pain.

Veronica and I both knew—Veronica more deeply—that Eleanor would be born and at some point she would be introduced to this idea of suffering.

It’ll start small as Eleanor starts to experience moments of trouble. She would have the general illnesses that all the other kids have. At some point, most likely in middle school, there will be an awakening and a reckoning with her own failures and catastrophes. At some point, Eleanor will experience pain for the first time. It could start easily with small physical pains—a stubbed toe or a scratch—but eventually will experience something larger—a bike accident, a broken bone. Worse still she’ll encounter psychological pain; a pain of the spirit. She’ll be teased by other kids and told that she isn’t worthy of their attention or affections. Just like me it’ll grow inside her until she wonders if friendships are worth it and whether she should close herself off—protect herself—from the potentiality of pain. She’ll continue growing and maturing through high school and college. She’ll form and break off relationships, and then, at some point, in many years or a few or maybe tomorrow, she’s going to die and understand what true suffering is.

Veronica and I knew that Eleanor would experience each step of that journey, because that’s what being human boils down to. Even with that knowledge we still said yes to being there on the journey with her. We’d help shield her from any suffering the world would throw at her before she was ready for it and be there for her even after she was ready just so she would know that she wasn’t alone.

Veronica, I think through the awareness that came from her own suffering, made sure that Eleanor was slowly made aware that suffering existed. When she would fall, Veronica would provide some level of comfort, but then help pick Eleanor up, dust her off, and send her on her way. Being able to do that, to send your child out to experience suffering—however small—is the worst possible form of sacrifice for a parent.

I had friends growing up where their mother didn’t make those sacrifices. They were always there as a sheltering wing. As the friends grew you could see the potential catastrophe at work, building inside of them. I had other friends whose father’s couldn’t make the sacrifice, and they never really grew up; repeating similar stories over multiple occurrences about their glory days: lifting weights, playing ball, drinking with their pals. There was always some form of saving grace, because eventually, sometimes as late as college, there was a conscious awareness of the need for sacrifice and they pushed themselves out into the world to be broken and betrayed.

As I look down at Eleanor, asleep on the floor, I’m aware of the ramifications of my own recent failings as a parent. How do I know that as a parent I am doing enough? Knowing myself and my psyche, I know that there will always be a sense that I’m not doing as good of a job as I could and should. I don’t know how Eleanor will grow into the person she should be and with that comes the realization that I don’t know what type of person she could be. How can you discover the true self of someone that is still a child and direct them towards the path they should journey on? She’s still a child and at some point, Eleanor will grow out of her childlike mindset and gain that sense of consciousness that everyone has at a certain point. At the moment she steps outside of the cave and into the light and consciousness is dawning, that’s when she’ll realize that suffering is a key part of her existence. The biggest issue with this awareness of suffering is that what is typically accompanying it is a sense of awareness that you can cause suffering in other people.

I worry that by being as broken as I am that she will become a creature of suffering and a creature that causes suffering in others like I do.

I am not good enough for her and I can’t be. It’s not in my nature. My nature was built upon the mistakes I made and my parents made while raising me and the traumas their parents caused them and so on and so on. As I look down the rabbit hole, I could see my line of ancestors and all the guilt they held, passing down generation after generation.

I know that I am not perfect, but I don’t know how to stop the cycle of suffering and causing suffering while I am still present in Eleanor’s life.

The more I contemplate and analyze my actions tonight, I know that at the core of it, the decision to send Eleanor into the multiverse was the best possible outcome, whether it was a figment of my imagination or not. The intent was there: to provide for her the best possible outcome in the future. But it failed and I am left with this wrenching feeling of that failure and it leaves my chest heavy.

There is a little voice inside of me that tells me that the other bigger voice—the one that is telling me that my role in Eleanor’s life would leave her corrupt—isn’t telling the full truth. She will only become a creature of suffering if my will and her will are aligned towards that outcome. Likewise, I will only become more of a creature of suffering if my will and her will are aligned towards that outcome. We’re inexplicably linked—this tiny child and myself; the beauty and the beast.

Even with this sense of unity, I’m torn. There’s pieces of me that want to rally and prove that I can be a good parent, but I’ve always run from the fight or tried to outwit or undermine the perceived champion of the conflict. In this scenario, though, the perceived champion is us and to undermine means that we would lose and the odds don’t appear to be in our favor, at least with me in the picture.

I want Eleanor to grow up happy. I want that for myself, but I can’t see a path forward.

Years ago, when I was younger, there was a period of time where I thought I wasn’t good enough for the world and thought about killing myself. I forget a majority of the details, but I had overheard my parents talking to another parent at my school and gushing over how smart this other child was and how they wish I was into maths and sciences more. Looking back, I understand that was just how parents talk—they can’t help but compare and hope and dream—but my adolescent mind took those words to heart and I felt backed into a corner. Math and the sciences were too terrible to face and I couldn’t find any way around them. All I could think of for months was about how my parents wished I was someone else and I found myself in a fugue state, pushing away everything that made me who I was and embracing this other side of me that was chaotic, depressed, filled with anxiety and nihilism.

I found myself back in the dark underbelly of the underworld being harrowed by the beast. I saw myself as an inhabitant of that dreaded place and began to lose hope and despair.

Suicide wasn’t a notion I was familiar with. For me it was just the idea of ending that sense of pain that permeated every fiber of my being. One afternoon when I got home from school, I took my belt out of my dresser drawer and threaded the buckle through the hook of a hanger. Kneeling on the ground of my closet, I put the belt around my neck and buckled it at the point it felt tight enough. Still kneeling, I leaned into it, letting the belt dig into my throat. I could feel my eyes begin to bulge out of my skull. I could feel myself wanting to breathe, but I leaned in further until the hanger broke and I fell forward hitting my head on the floor.

After that effort failed, I raided our vitamin cabinet. I had heard that people could take too many pills and so I made a concoction of calcium, b-vitamins, biotin, and my parents multivitamins. I felt a little sick afterwards followed by a short spout of energy.

I told my parents that I wanted to die, but they dismissed it as a ploy for more attention.

Eventually, I saw that in order to escape the place I was in that sacrifice was needed. I had to let this part of me die and be reborn. When that new spirit came into being, I saw the error in the thought processes that framed the situation I was in and I began to build processes to keep the old self at bay. Processes that included cheating in math and the sciences all the way through my high school graduation in order to earn more praise from my parents.

When Veronica died, I saw a part of me die with her, but I still clung to that old self and her, in a sense. It was an unwillingness to move on that put Eleanor and myself into this situation. If I let go—if I truly let that version of myself die, I know that I would have to let Eleanor go as well.

I know, deep within my soul, that someone would be able to care for her better than I and will love her more than I could.

Even with me, Eleanor is still alone and for myself, even with Eleanor, I am truly alone.