@thewhittier6

It begins (again) as an alarm in my head. Unmistakable adrenaline. Fight or flight.

There's someone in my house.

I know this feeling of paranoia, this sense of entrapment, this jolt of something gone awry. Yet, I still feel my pulse quicken on instinct. Hand frozen over the coffee maker. My new Nespresso machine. Shaky hands. Mothering hands. My kids are cantankerous at the kitchen counter, smacking at an iPad. I can't remember if I took my blood pressure medication.

I let my eyes glaze over as I listen for the click of a loaded gun. The dramatic swoosh of a weapon. The morning has yet to clothe itself in lucidity.

The internal alarm goes off again, but this time it reads as a clickbaity headline: "'There's Someone in my House': Mom of Four Perishes in Harrowing Break-In"

It's too perfect, truly. Too textbook. Like a movie.

My tripod is all set up for today's morning routine vlog. I press record and walk away. Found footage style content is as good as any. Better even. My viewers like the raw 'unfiltered' version of life, which usually boils down to posting a toddler tantrum or two or me shedding a few overwhelmed tears in the pantry. "Hang in there, mama," a woman named Lacie or Alison with a Snapchat filter selfie for a profile picture would inevitably comment with an obnoxious amount of emojis.

However, it'd likely be a little too real for me to share uninhibited daydreams about my disappearance during a GRWM. Maladaptive daydreaming is the new hot term, right? Meme material. Mostly harmless. Now a way for me to lose myself haunt myself.

Maybe I could inspire a new doleful hashtag for all the mamas out there: #normalizewantingtoescapeyourentirelifeandidentity.

But, alas, that would swiftly oust me from the heart of my 'trad wife' brand. The barefoot and pregnant pastor's wife can't freely long for a re-do button. She can't break the spell, especially not when that fantasy of pure femininity is making one hell of a profit.

//

Now I'm peeking into the living room - gloriously furnished, scarcely used - scoping out the potential hideaway of an intruder biding his (or her) time.

Behind our leather couch, I catch a glimpse of what looks to me like a hooded skull. Someone crouched over. Like a robber in old cartoons.

I shrink back against the wall, thinking suddenly about my first boyfriend, Owen, who lent me his black, pilled, Axe-drenched hoodie. How I worshiped his premature gut and tongue-heavy kisses.

That was another life entirely - the life preceding my baptism by a youth pastor with sturdy tanned arms from a mission trip. The life before I married Theo and created four human beings. My littles. Yes, I needed to collect them swiftly and without commotion. Load up the car and hit the road. Make our getaway.

For weeks, I'd hyper-fixated on escaping with my kids in a vloggable way that would keep my creator income rolling and my image, rebranded but intact. There's an audience for everything online these days. Liberated, deconstructed pastor's wife is surely a niche that I could trailblaze.

But I knew well enough that the whole wider Flourish Church cult community wouldn't hold back on trying to destroy me, online and otherwise. My husband, backed by his sprawling influential family would commit vehemently to 'saving' the children from a life with a lost woman like me. I couldn't remove them from this reality any more than I could remove myself.

I've followed that plot line through in my mind many times over and it always spits me out into mornings like this one, where a more drastic vision is exacted. I have nowhere to go, after all. No siblings and no parents (besides my poor mother who's stuck in a nursing home and doesn't remember who I am).

One lone bird is screeching periodically outside, punctuating the thuds of my heart, either trying to jolt me out of my panic or accelerate it. My knees feel achy and wobbly like I'm facing labor again.

As an emetophobic woman, I must say I was horrified to learn about the nausea and vomiting sideshow of childbirth. Heaving like an animal. Too weak to stand. I somehow did it four times to give Theo a perfect spread of inheritors to his humble family fortune. Naomi. Colton. Marco. Maeve. Ages 8, 6, 5, and 2.

Drenched in sweat, I'm now dragging each of my darling terrors, still in their pajamas, down the front stoop and into the Jeep with my camera filming up my nose Blair Witch style.

I was always good at playing pretend, especially with the kids.

//

We're at a stop sign now. The Jeep is idling. I get out of the car to call the cops the neighbors. I've been prattling my concerns about a suspicious vehicle prowling the cul-de-sac for weeks now to 70-year-old Denise who lives two doors down. At this point, I'm just doing it for the plot and to keep my acting skills sharp. She's just as lonely as me and asks a lot of questions so sometimes I have to answer completely on the spot. I like the sound of our voices hopping back and forth, the seamless dialogue we create together.

As I talk, I stare at my face reflected in the car window. My mouth looks cartoonish and my nose is running. Allergy season. I'm still wearing my pink smiley-face slippers, and my nipples stick out underneath my shirt that reads "Mama" in an overwrought font. I reach down and feel my C-section scar.

My camera is propped by the tires of the Jeep. I reach down to retrieve it, sliding into a yogic squat. As I stare at the pavement, I'm overcome by another teenage memory. Hunched over in the middle of the night with my boyfriend - the same one who gave me the black hoodie - as he rolled joints on the basketball court concrete. That was the same night he pressed me to a tree and kissed me desperately. Arms pinned down, head swimming, I realized that I couldn't free myself from him no matter how hard I tried. His full weight and force were stifling and insurmountable. He played rugby.

With skinned knees and red eyes, I eventually made it home in the early hours of the morning - creeping in my window like an intruder and falling asleep on top of the purple covers. In the morning came rebirth. Rebirth in the form of memory edits. I deemed Owen's body the weight of God, rendering me immobile. I romanticized surrender. A death of the self. Nothing more than clay. The more submissive, the better. In the Potter's hand...

//

Back in the car, I'm fighting a head rush. Am I supposed to take my meds with food? Talking on the phone makes me tired now. Why is that?

The littles are starting to fuss. They're always much more unruly when there's a break in our routine. Spring break has altogether destroyed our meticulous fast-moving diurnal agenda. I begin talking out loud to steady myself. Performing. Scheming. Surviving.

"So, I haven't wanted to alarm Theo, but I haven't been feeling 100% lately. A lot of fatigue, brain fog, sinus pressure...and that's not being helped by the fact that I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet. You all know I can barely function without it, so coffee first, again, and then, I guess we'll just take it one step at a time from there. I've been meaning to make it to a walk-in clinic just to be safe - hopefully, I'm not coming down with anything." I let out a chuckle of jovial exasperation, a verbal shrug befitting of any overworked mother of four. You should see bath time in my house, it's pure anarchy! And don't get me started on bedtime. My oldest won't give up the iPad without a fit. Daddy always caves and lets her keep it well past 8:30.

After box-breathing with the air-conditioned hum of the Jeep for all of 30 seconds (I'll edit that short clip out), I head for downtown, serenaded by an ear-numbing chorus of bickering cries. We're all sleepy-eyed. Hungry. Disoriented. Maeve's short fingers flail and point from her car seat. I follow the direction of her starfish hands toward an unrenovated McDonald's and make a beeline for the drive-thru.

7 minutes later, we're all swimming in grease from hash browns and fries. I've cracked the windows for fresh air. My camera is propped on the dash capturing plenty of candid footage of me with my littles. Wiping ketchup and spit off their chins. Helping to open straws and unscrew milk jugs.

I'm in my element this way. Always am. The camera is on - something the kids hardly notice anymore. They're still too self-centered. As long as they get what they want, they could care less if they're in the frame. Such is the bliss of childhood.

One day, they'll surely thank me for all this footage offering a perpetual glimpse into the mindless joy of their early years. Surely, after I go I'm gone, they'll dig up old vlogs just to hear me speak. They'll study my creasing face and try to breach the chasm between parent and child. Perhaps they'll even begin to see all the things they were blind to as youngsters: making a meal out of their sandwich scraps, picking stickers off the dining room table, tending to my sliced finger in the kitchen with a blank expression.

I never got the chance to unmask my mother before she started to unravel from dementia. Every couple of months when I get the chance to drive down alone to see her in Knoxville, I can only bear an hour or so of searching her face while she regards me blankly. Her mind is closed to me.

One of Theo's aunts once told me that I should present her with one of those reborn dolls as a positive distraction. "That maternal instinct never goes away," she said with watery eyes, lightly touching my elbow.

At first, I'd considered it, hoping that by watching my mother find a moment of relief hushing and rocking a hyperrealistic silicone baby, she would somehow transfer some unequivocal unspoken truth to me about my life. That I'd understand how I got here and where to go from here. That I'd understand how to hold the weight of my reflection.

Despite the grief surrounding my mother's decline over the last 4 years, content creation continued to make me a good image of a mother. I mean, how else was I supposed to move through the endless deadening cycle of laundry and dishes, cooking, bathing, doctor appointments, little league games, home organization, and holidays, without monetizing the experience? Selling motherhood to myself and others with tactfully edited footage and paid partnerships.

For nearly 6 years now, I've lived by planning moments. It made my life palatable and, therefore, consumable. Every time there was a new thing to document - Christmas cookie baking, a pool day, a shopping trip, a home project - I tackled it camera-first. Methodical. Precise. I reaffirmed my existence the only way I knew how: by playing a part.

In this new online role, I've gotten my fair share of love and hate. My family brand, @thewhittier6, has grown exponentially on both YouTube and TikTok, especially after Marco was born. Every night in bed, I take stock of viewer stats and comments - answer any sappy do-gooder replies to make sure people come back, follow along, feel included.

"Beautiful family." "What a dream." "God Bless You!" the same torrent of compliments and well wishes pour in.

Of course, there will always be those who could see past my attempts at an honest life in motion - pre-packaged for all the world to see. I knew that. Some people are all too aware of the existence of a camera to begin with. This foreign, encroaching entity. They poke fun at the inevitable set-up for the content. Always propping up the camera inside my kitchen first before making my deliberate audience-worthy entrance, as if I were kicking off a play.

Scene One, Act 1: Jenn enters from garage door with Maeve on her hip, all cute and half-asleep. Her purse slips off her shoulder, and she stumbles. Sighs lightly.

Scene One, Act 2: Jenn hands Maeve a plate with French toast sticks. She throws them across the table with a whine. Without a second thought, Jenn picks them up and eats them, handing her daughter a cheese stick instead. The swap succeeds.

Scene Three, Act 3: Midday shopping interlude. Target. Voiceover pending.

Scene Three, Act 5: Thursday Bible study. Theo's one night home early from work. One hour passes. Jenn rewrites her devotionals from the morning, appearing studious. Close-up of a notebook full of half-plagiarized, regurgitated praise: May I always reside in your presence. May I always abide by your will. Take all my barriers. I want you uncontained. Theo's hand rests on her knee.

Scene Four, Act 1: Family dinner. The kids are split half and half between rowdy and sullen. Jenn contemplates aging and fine motor skills while cutting up fettuccini noodles into smaller and smaller pieces.

Scene 5: Act 2: Jenn sets up her slippers at the bedside - ready for the first shot of tomorrow's Friday morning vlog. After 10 slow breaths, she is no longer a wife nor a mother. Jenn Whittier takes a bow.

//

"Have you eaten?" Theo inquires, with the same level of interest as an overscheduled, condescending doctor. I've heard this tone before: Are you menstruating? Any chance that you might be pregnant? Still taking your medication?

"We ate this morning." It's now 1:47.

I'm sitting at the kitchen island. All the kids are upstairs. Theo is leaning against the counter by the fridge. Arms crossed. I've donned a midday slouch, staring at my feet like a child being scolded.

"Why exactly did you bug the neighbors again this morning, Jenn? Denise was all worked up. Alarmed, even"

"Because that same blue car keeps hanging about. They drive by the house constantly, all slow and stealthy like they're scoping out the place. I don't want to be here alone with the kids when they, whomever they may be, break in. Or try to."

We'd already been through this. Apparently, Theo had had an embarrassing follow-up conversation with the neighbors this morning. Denise's husband contacted him, concerned, shortly after I phoned her (somewhat delirious) next to my idling car. Theo must have quickly deflected his concern and painted me unwell. Paranoid. Manic.

"Was this...is this a stunt for like the channel, or?"

"No, Theo. Why in the world would-"

"I don't know," he cut me off. "As far I'm concerned, you've been over-stressed and run-down and that led to some early morning antics. A delusion."

"A delusion?" I return.

"We can hire help if you want. Plenty of folks at church could take the kids. Maybe you should go on that women's retreat. Clear your head."

"Maybe we should go on the couples retreat," I retorted under my breath. The last thing I needed was to be locked away with the rest of the housewives in rural Tennessee. Lined up in twin-sized beds like fourteen-year-olds at an awkward slumber party.

When Theo didn't reply, I bit my cheek and stared at his knees. I married him for his knees. Those perfect, sturdy contraptions. A showcase of muscle and bone. They were the only part of him I truly loved. He could stand forever on those knees. They weren't made for kneeling. But apparently, mine were. My strength could never be my own. It had to be outsourced from the sky and the stars. It had to be won through surrender to a wrathful immortal leader.

When I gave birth to my first child, Naomi, I remember the coo of women saying, "Praise Jesus," as I floated in and out of consciousness. I knew immediately that I could bleed out on that table, and they'd say the same thing. It was always the same thing. Empty-minded evangelical punditry. A silencing. An antidote to questioning.

The big cozy blanket of "Father God" works for a while, I'll admit as much. But over time, you begin to be smothered by it. And, soon enough, you're trapped. And the idea of eternity is oppressive. At my core, I wanted to be carried through life known and loved. A common wish. Harmless. But I also desperately wanted an end. The concept of heaven only succeeds in abstraction. Hazy, warm light. A familiar face or two. Floating?

I found God at 18 because I desperately wanted to move forward in my life - for no other reason than to bury my past. It was a hasty, short-sighted cover-up of my teenage shame. An ingratiating leap fueled by commercialized Bible verses touting love and joy. If I ever was subject to delusion, it was in believing that divine authority would sort me out - that servile meant inherently good. Worthy.

On our wedding night, Theo took my hands in his and said, "It's me and you forever," in methodical melancholy, like a stage actor. I smiled wanly, wanting to shed my skin. I began to disintegrate slowly year after year. Child after child.

At church, when I closed my eyes during opening prayer each week, I pictured a dark shadow walking down between the pews, an omen of death, ready to take me away. I couldn't tell if it was a welcome vision or a frightening one.

I suppose it was my past self in motion, rising up like smoke to settle in my lungs. Each nod to eternity from the pulpit only reinforced my maddening hunch: I could never escape myself. Creator/creation. It was all the same. People stuck in bodies. No way out. Religion just helped romanticize the entrapment. Deliverance never lasted until Monday.

//

In the evening, I run a bath and baptize myself. The kids' toys are still scattered on and around the tub. A purple rubber duck bounces off my forehead on the way up for air.

Theo and I ate silently at dinner one hour ago. Pork chops. Asparagus. Cherry Coke. I know he'll probably pray over me before bed. Don't let the sun set on your anger.

Last time I ran a bath, I got a bad nosebleed and watched the water turn orange. I cursed under my breath. Face hot and flushed. Amidst the sound of the draining water, I thought I heard a scuffle outside the bathroom door. The little kids were supposed to be napping. I could hear the distant melody of high-pitched voices from the TV room downstairs. Wrapped in a towel, my wet feet trailed outside and down the hall to find the source.

It was Maeve. My youngest. Limbs dangling out of the play crib she'd already grown out of.

I stood there with my chin bloody, hair dripping, ears ringing. Her chubby fingers gripped the edge as she swayed unthinkingly like an animal, eyes blank, absorbing my state of dishevelment. We locked gazes, and nothing passed between us. No flicker of recognition. An indescribable void hung between our two bodies.

What did she truly know of me? I thought. At what age will she truly see me for what I am?

At what age did I begin to really see my mother, for that matter? I don't remember. And now she doesn't know my face.

When does the robotic expectations of infancy - a tit, a calming hand, a recognizable voice - transform into inquiry? I suppose most of us put it off as long as possible, because to know our mothers, we must face the inevitable weight of heredity. Where did I come from? Who am I? More importantly, who are you?

The intensity of our mutual, silent observation lingers. Mother and daughter. A trail of wet footprints rests behind me. Turning to vapor. I've never felt more like a God. Unknowable and distant. Dismayed and deceiving. An intruder in my own home. I fight the urge to pick up my camera just to break the spell.