"Life Is A Warfare And A Stranger's Sojourn"

~ Marcus Aurelius.

Life does seem to be a battle sometimes. A dark stranger usually holidays in your soul when you're feeling black. I have moments of blackness. Only swift enough though to freak the fuck out of me. I'm not a paranoid delusional, although I've had my fair share of mind altering essences in my adolescence and early adulthood. "One time in band camp I ate a mushroom and hehe I thought I was a mushroom and one time I ...." But not enough to completely alter my physiology or my psychology. I'm somewhat discerning.

IF is was IS my dark stranger. Or in Dexter terms a dark passenger. I won't go on the bandwagon about this, I acknowledge and understand that there are many beautiful women out there still struggling to kick the goal of motherhood. I am grateful I have Callum. No scratch that.... I am completely ecstatic that I have Callum. Delirious is an understatement. But this post isn't about that. This dark passenger comes swiftly in my thoughts and for an infinitesimal moment whispers in my ear and tells me - Callum doesn't exist.

I nearly shit myself. Or in my favourite endearment: I touch cloth.

The dark passenger manufactures hallucinations.

I'm walking to the bus stop, pushing the pram. But Callum is not in there. It's just a doll.
I walk past Callum's bedroom, it's just a storage room filled with hoarded redundant crap.
I'm not woken up by any cries of "mum" but the neighbours detestable barking dog.

Everyone is playing the game too. They humble me because I'm insane, right? That poor woman holding the doll, rocking it gently, kissing it's cheek. That poor woman who had a miscarriage and can't have children. See her walking down the street pushing a pram - poor dear. Stop those vexatious teenagers from poking her with a stick!

They all give me those patronising sympathetic smiles. They feed the deception.

The dark passenger has been around since my pregnancy and stalks me still. I'm building the courage to tell the motherfucker to neck itself. To fly the fuck off. To bury itself in the deepest caves on Earth. To habituate the mind of a dung beetle.

I laugh at it. I suppose I'm broadcasting that I. Am. Crazy.

But for a split second my world crashes and I nonsensically believe the bullshit. Then I hear the slappity slap of bare feet running down the corridor, poking his head through the door and in a sweet little voice he says "mum, kaka". Time for a nappy change.

Reality hits and I can breathe again (through a mask, especially when he's teething)

My Real-Life Doll

Bloggsters, do you have a dark passenger too?
How has IF shaped your life?