Showdown

Recently I was finishing up a post and my son, who wanted me to play pirate with him said, "Mommy, what are you doing?"
"I'm writing," I said.
Without blinking an eye he said, "But, Mommy, writing's not important."

I looked over at him. I remained calm.

Leave it to a four year old to get at the heart of my twenty-five year old internal struggle as if he's adding grapes to a grocery list. Not, "Mom, I think you should sit down for this. What I'm about to tell you may rock your world and render you emotionally and spiritually bereft, not to mention creatively neutered. Are you ready Mom? Are you sitting? Can I get you a sedative?" But no.

So I said, "Writing's important to me." I tried to sound authoritative when I said 'to me,' like I imagine I would sound if I were a judge.

He countered as if stating the obvious, "But it's not important." He stressed the word 'important' like a smartass D.A. addressing the jury. His jury.

I squared my shoulders, shifted in my chair and looked down directly into his cruel eyes. "Writing is important to me because I love to write," I said.

He looked blankly at the computer screen, unable to read, unable to write, unable to see my heart crushing in upon itself like a palm-sized ball of aluminum foil. I continued, "If you love to do something, then it's important to you. You love to build spaceships with Legos, and so that's important to you. I love to write, so that's important to me."

This time he paused. "Mommy, can we just play pirate?"

I sighed. Sure, kid.