I walked around all day today with a one-hundred pound sack of guilt and sadness slung over my shoulder. Sami went to daycare all day today, and then after just an hour and a half together, I left him with a sitter so I could go to my meditation class.

Guilt is a funky emotion. It feels like pain and pressure in my chest. It weaves together with grief and this choking, bitter pain of separation.

Tonight, while I was sitting in the class, I cried and I slept and I think I might have followed my breath to the count of ten a couple of times.

I thought about how Sami doesn’t really ask about his daddy much anymore, and tried to breathe through the antiseptic sting in my nose.

I thought about how the other day, he just stood by the doorway and looked up at the collage with pictures of his father that I can’t bear to take off the wall. “Daddy,” he said, matter-of-factly, with no emotion behind it that I could detect.

“Mommy,” he said, pointing at the picture, and pointing at me. “Mommy.”

“Sami,” I said, pointing back to him, and he giggled.

Like it or not, I am his whole parental world right now. I feel like pieces of me are cut out when I give him up to other caregivers. I know there are separation and attachment issues galore that I need to work through. We both have separation anxiety, it seems. I drop him off at daycare and he cries fiercely until I am out of sight. I stay brave for him at day care and then I cry in the car once he is out of sight.

I’d give anything to be able to stay home with him full time until he is just a little bit older. I’d love little breaks here and there, don’t get me wrong, but even two full-time days are too much for me right now. I miss him so, so much when he is away.

This evening when I picked him up from day care, he climbed into my arms and he wouldn’t let me go. “Mama’s here,” he murmured to himself. “Let’s go bye-bye.” The same when the sitter came a little later. He stayed glued to me, clinging tightly and securely against my body like a little monkey, not moving a muscle. I didn’t want to let go, either. When I did, he looked up at me and grimaced in pain. I felt it, too. But the practice is so good for me. I only go every couple of weeks, and there is something about sitting with a sangha. I practice for him, I reason, so that I lose it just a fraction less, and remember my presence just a fraction more.

It is just four tiny little months until he is supposed to start pre-school full time. I don’t know if I will be ready by then. Even though the school he will be going to is awesome, and I am lucky to have a spot, I don’t feel good about spending so much time away.

It seems I will need to do some soul searching this summer. Is there a way to keep a roof over our heads (literally) and be with my child at the same time? It’s a question I keep asking and not getting much clarity about. I don’t know what the right action is here. My heart says, do whatever you can to stay together while he is still so little. My head says, You need to go back to work, missy. Cut the crap and get real. My heart and my head collide over and over on this one.

Tonight, I might cave and perhaps undo weeks of sleep training by crawling into bed with my little one. My sweet, sweet boy. My little friend, my 37-pound guru, my dear one.