i get a glimpse of my future and it bears an uncanny resemblance to a ruptured aneurysm at age 39

Well, internets, I didn't get my win. After seeming to rally overnight, Swimmy the goldfish passed from this world into the next shortly after 11 a.m. My sweet P shed some tears and wanted to keep him anyway, and it took some convincing to let us flush him. When we got Swimmy P told him he loved him so much, and he'd never let anything happen to him. Oh, I hate seeing him sad.

I had an epiphany recently, brought on by a combination of Miss A's bewilderment over a former friend ignoring her now, P's goldfish longing and subsequent grief, and Miss A's wild hope that the Tooth Fairy will spirit her away to Neverland. Their hopes make me heartsick with the fear (or knowledge) that they'll go unrealized, and the discomfort -- both emotional and physical -- is so great that I want to rip the dressing off the wound and have it over with. The Tooth Fairy? A lie! Your pet fish? A goner! Your friend? She doesn't think you're cool enough! Now let's move on, to more solid ground where your pain doesn't threaten to swallow me up at every turn.

So much of my early years of parenting have been based on empathizing with the children. Guessing their needs before they could speak, immersing myself in their dialect, helping them through stuff that doesn't matter to me, except that it matters so much to them. This level of emotional pain has, until now, signaled a need that I must meet. Even if I couldn't provide the item they wanted, I could come up with a reasonable substitute and ease their hurt. Feeling like this makes me anxious and my mind starts racing to find a solution.

It struck me about a week ago that the meaning of this awful feeling has shifted. This panic-inducing experience of riding the crests of their hopes and the troughs of their disappointments isn't a sign that I need to do or fix something. It's just a new state of being and I need to relax into it. My little ones are big enough now that I cannot fix their most painful problems. I'm probably not supposed to, either, because these small losses and struggles are theoretically making them stronger. But -- and it all comes down to this -- what about me?  These kids are sapping my strength with their insane fantasies about fairyland and becoming rock stars and keeping goldfish alive for more than a week.

At least I still have Helena, who just wants to be a clown when she grows up. That's my girl! As for the others, the realization that this is probably how I'll feel the rest of my life -- except even more so as they get older and their desires get more complicated -- makes me want to buy stock in pharmaceutical companies. Except such an action would require premeditation and forethought to do things like save money and figure out how to buy stock shares.