Safety Net. My first/perhaps only.

I like to think I've not asked for much, at least not muchly.
But it's likely that I have, in wanting the basics.

I have wanted wantedly, my mother to be present. My father to be capable. My... well you've heard this before.

I don't know if these things are a safety net. I mean, I am an American with American expectations: I want what I deserve, or I deserve what I want. Whichever.

I won't go into a tunnel, a hole, a dark place I must earn, work, churn my way through. I am implicated by who suffers where, I have an allowance of reality that reminds me: bad things happen, worse things even, in ways and in places I may never see. To people who may hurt more than me. To some who can't endure.

I imagine it's like what my daughter means when she says: "We share the sun, Mummah." Pain of expectation rises here and sets elsewhere. It's how things work, how the world tinkers and goes.

So, I recently recieved as close of a safety net as I have ever. A loved one, super-loved even, said to me: "Whatever you need from me in life, just ask. Maybe I can, maybe I can't. Don't ever be afraid to ask."

But (and there are many)...

I hate asking. Hate the open hole at the end of the question. Question mark as a bungie cord. As an opportunity for no. As an... well, place where I need to have faith, and hope and space for yes as well as no.

But, the net has been cast. And I think I can jump.

When and if I need to of course.
But it/he will likely be there.

Waitingly (perhaps). But there.