Barnmaven

Harder than it looks on film

I love how in the movies a character, usually portrayed by someone who looks a whole lot better than I do in blue jeans, will experience a transformative moment, immediately understand the whole point and the lesson in one fell swoop, and then BOOM!  Off she goes to live happily ever after.  More likely than not this is how she will cope with every new learning experience forever. 

OK, sometimes we'll see a character who takes the entire damn movie to learn the lesson, but what I never ever see is the character who learns it, forgets it, learns it some more, backslides, remembers, and continues to do this same tango forever ad nauseum.

Why is that?  Am I just doing it wrong?  Or are the people on the screen portraying something so patently un-doable that lamenting my inability to do the same is a pointless exercise?

Yesterday I wrote a completely tongue-in-cheek sarcasm-ridden paean to my ex.  No, it didn't go live.  Nor should it ever see the light of day.  But god DAMN it felt good to write it. 

It felt commensurately HORRIBLE to read it and understand how far I have failed to progress in my self-stated quest toward elightenment and compassion.

I continue to presume that I understand the reasons why people do things that affect me.  Good or bad, I assume intent.  Maybe sometimes I'm right, but how would I KNOW that?   Its not like I ask for confirmation or anything.  "Do you refuse to actually speak with me on the phone because you prefer parenting via text messages?"  And see, I'm still kicking around in the shallow puddles of hostility.

It still hurts, though.  I want to be better at this coparenting while divorced gig, and the truth is, the whole thing pretty much sucks ass right now.  My ex lately communicates solely via texts on the cell phone.   He still has yet to acknowledge the existence of SG.  On the rare occasion when he's had to be within the same vicinity as my husband, his main tactic is to simply avoid looking directly at him.  Is this because he hopes it will make him ACTUALLY disappear?  I have no idea.  And I assume intent. We speak on the phone and he speaks in monsyllabic monotone, and the writing on the wall screams "I DON'T WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU."

How do you parent your kids with someone who you've never been able to truly discuss problems with? 

I don't have the answers.  And I'm not really pleased with the way I'm reacting to things.  I don't feel I've grown very much as a person.  That bothers me.  I recognize so many times that I've ignored the high road, done and said things I take no pride in, wanted to continue to spread the pain around rather than let the healing begin.  I still seem to take an unreasonable amount of time wanting another person to be other than they are, which is a bloody useless effort.

If I had any balls at all, I'd calmly set some boundaries and leave him to respect them or not respect them.  If I gave some decent thought to what everyone's going through, I'd acknowledge that there might be a lot of reasons he's doing the things he does that have nothing to do with the motives I've so handily ascribed to him.  Maybe he's in pain.  Maybe his job is stressful.  Maybe he's having relationship problems.  Maybe the autism diagnosis is hard for him to wrap his head around.  Maybe a lot of things -- maybe none of them.  But the point I keep forgetting is that it isn't at all about WHAT HE IS THINKING.  It is a thousand percent about how I'm reacting. 

Maybe this is how the process of personal growth really goes.  Maybe I'm supposed to figure these things out one painful step at a time and everytime I think I have a grasp on something I'm supposed to then get complacent and lose sight of things. 

Maybe.  Or maybe I AM just doing it all wrong.

 

 

 

Small comfort

Comfort arrives in the most surprising ways.

You wonder, sometimes, when you sit there in the too-quiet, agonizing over your parenting decisions, your challenges, your failures, if the other parent whose parenting you can't see is somehow doing it better.  You wonder if maybe you are the problem parent, and when the teacher sends home an email that suggests that your kid behaves worse at school when he's with you, you feel defeated.  I'm not sure that fathers do this thing that mothers do, this thing where from the minute we are carrying them we look at other mothers and convince ourselves that they are doing the parenting gig better than we possibly could.

I secretly study the younger, hipper, cooler moms picking their kids up after school and I think they're more organized, more compassionate, more patient.  More attentive. 

Divorce complicates and fractures this sense of inadequacy into bigger and sharper splinters.  Are they happier when they're with me?   Is he the better parent?  Maybe they won't need me anymore.  Its illogical, its unproductive, its worse than useless, boo-hoo poor-me thinking, and yet its quietly there, whispering words to tear me down. 

I rationalize, temporize, self-console and give myself quiet pep talks.  I'm doing what I can, maybe not perfectly, some days a lot better than other days, and if the key indicator of my relationship with my children is that they love and trust me and share all their thoughts and fears with me, then I'm doing pretty all right.  But still.  You wonder.

And then, when I need it most, an equalizer.

It comes in the form of a morning drop off.  When they arrive later than expected, when one of them is not even dressed, not medicated, not at all ready to catch the bus that's arriving in twenty minutes.  And I've already left for work and my lovely husband gets to handle it.  And I realize I'm not the only one who does this, I'm not the only one who struggles.  Because I've done this to him, I have, and I hoped when I did it that he wasn't judging me...just as I'm not going to judge him now.  He had a bad day, and so I have some small comfort knowing that I'm not the only one.

 

Boundaries, compassion and coexisting

Play nice.

If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

Treat other people the way you want to be treated.

Over and over, all my life, I've heard these adages.  From my parents, my teachers, my mentors, my peers. 

Those phrases are often well-intentioned.  Some people live strictly within them, some ignore them completely.  Both avenues are fraught with peril.  Being overly concerned with the actions of others, particularly when those actions have no bearing on you personally or aren't flagrant violations of the rights of others is an easy way to have a miserable existence, constantly up in arms, consistently and loudly berating others.   It is horribly unhealthy to be able to function when others don't follow the rules you've laid down for them to live by. 

Every pendulum has a dewpoint on the opposite end of the swing, though.  The opposite of being an overly controlling douchecanoe is not rolling over and limply allowing others to trample freely over you. 

There are always going to be times in our lives when other people push our boundaries.  As I grow and learn, I try to distance myself from my initial reactions.  What was done or said?  How does it impact me or those I love?  Does it violate my moral code?  What would I gain if I said something?  What would I lose if I said nothing?  Without being able to guess the intent of the person who violated my boundary, how can I establish that boundary and still have compassion for the person who hurt me?

Any person who has  strong presence will inevitably rub some people the wrong way, and so I have done most of my life.  Part of my maturing process has been to examine my reaction to being considered a downright bitch by an alarming number of folks.  It hurts when people don't like me, but I have to consider that sometimes their reactions to me are a direct byproduct of my own actions.  And there's nothing terribly mature or growth-producing about being proud of being monikered The Wicked Witch of the West by your coworkers.  But there's also not a thing wrong with finding ways to be both strong and compassionate.

I can recognize that others may not be mindful of what they do or say, because they are human and like them, I am not always giving the right amount of attention to how my words or actions impact others.  But when those thoughtless comments or actions directly violate my personal boundaries and beliefs, there's not a thing wrong with me pointing out that what was done or said wasn't OK with me.  And I don't particularly care if you get your feelings hurt because I let you know you crossed a line.  If I've been clear without being mean, then your reaction is your own problem.

That doesn't make me a bitch.

That doesn't mean I don't like you.  It doesn't mean I don't think we can all exist together in a reasonable facsimile of pleasant harmony.

It just means I'd like you to be more considerate of how you interact with me and my family.

Understood?

Where I pull petals off a flower and ask: Should I?

In a way it feels a little Jerry-Springer-esque, having started a new relationship before the ink on the divorce papers had even been applied, much less dried.  There was no doubt in my mind that I was free to pursue a new relationship.  That I hadn't filed for divorce more than a year post-separation was a simple matter of procrastination on my part and had nothing to do with trying keep the door to a reconciliation wedged open. 

 

Falling in love with SG and then divorcing my ex caused some difficulty. 

Yes, it might be strange talking about my divorce the day before my wedding, but there is a point (sort of) to this, so bear with me.

Being in the middle of both a new relationship and a divorce whilst being a blogger is extremely problematic.   When it comes to our commitment as parents, my ex and I were, and are, on the same page.  We love them, we value our parenting time with them, and we are partners in raising them.  We will attend school conferences and IEP meetings together.  We will discuss doctors and medication.  We will talk about problems they are having.  Never has this been an issue, and I don't expect that it ever really will be.  We won't use them as weapons and we won't engage in sowing ugly thoughts about each other to them.  But when it came to everything else, all bets were off.  Things I thought we had agreed to about financial terms and division of belongings went straight out the door.  I read through some of the paperwork in outright shock.  And I realized very quickly that anything I said here - or anywhere else - would be used against me.   And it was. 

Even though I believe at some level we still have concern about each other's welfare and we each hope that the other is happy (at least I assume that's how he feels -- its entirely possible he just wishes I would get a flaming and fatal case of hemhorroids/herpes/syphilis), we lack the level of trust required to have a friendship.  We are not friends.  We are partners in parenting our children.

And so the crux of this post:

When SG and I became serious enough for me to decide it was time for him to meet my children, I let my ex know ahead of time that I was seeing someone and I was planning on introducing him to the kids.  He specifically asked me to tell him what day they would meet him so that he could be prepared to support them.  He also thought it was too soon for them to know that I had a boyfriend, and so we had to agree to disagree.  I knew that this relationship was a long term bet and the longer we tried to keep it secret, the more we risked my children finding out in a way that maybe we wouldn't be happy about.

I had some assumptions about post-divorce relationships.  I assumed I should inform my ex if I was introducing someone to our children -- I did.  I also assumed that he would do the same if he was introducing someone to our kids.  He did no such thing.  My children were spending weekends hundreds of miles away at his girlfriend's house - a girlfriend I had no idea existed. 

Then there's the concept of meeting your ex's new boy- or girl-friend.  In the almost eight months since I told my ex about my relationship he has consistently refused to meet SG.  He has also consistently refused my requests to be introduced to his girlfriend.

While I can't force him to do either thing, I disagree strongly with him on both counts.  I'm a parent who cares deeply about the welfare of my children.  Therefore I believe it is more than worth my time to meet and get to know a little bit about any adult who will have a supervisory role in their lives.  I assume - apparently mistakenly - that any parent would feel the same way. 

And so.

Once we started telling people about getting married this week, I have been asked over and over, "What does your ex think?"  And my answer? 

I haven't told him.

I haven't told him for several reasons.  Do I think it matters to him?  Do I think he wants to know?  

No.  His complete lack of interest in meeting SG and his complete refusal to share any information about the woman whose house my children are sleeping in every other weekend naturally inform this conclusion.  I'm not trying to be spiteful or to "get back" at him.  I'm simply honoring the structure of complete silence and non-acknowledgement that he has shown me he wishes to have.

But do I owe it to him?

The thing is, I'm not sure I'm taking the right stance.  Does he deserve to know, even if I don't think he deserves to be told?  Does he deserve to know even if he not once has extended the same courtesy of information to me?  Is it better for my kids for him to know?  Worse? 

I suspect he already knows, and he hasn't said a word about it.  Maybe that's all the answer I need.

I wish things were different.

So I sit here, plucking proverbial petals off of a daisy, and I ponder.  Should I?  Should I not?

 

The End. Period.

It may surprise some of you (especially those of you who are friends on Facebook) to know that technically I am not yet divorced.  My ex moved out well over two years ago, but we didn't actually begin divorce proceedings until August of this year.  I don't know why we waited so long, but when I look back at the patterns in my life I note a definite tendency to postpone the inevitable, so I guess I'm just being true to form.   I will rip off a bandaid, jump into cold water, endure the artist's needle, but I will not lend myself readily to painful emotional change. 

The not-quite-yet-divorced status should, if all goes as expected, change tomorrow.  The final paperwork has been signed by my ex, his attorney, my attorney, and myself.  The hearing is scheduled for 8:30 AM (which really means all the lawyers will be in court at 8:30 AM, there will be check-ins for those doing status conferences and eventually the lawyers who have motions to be signed will line up for their turn, then the status conferences will take place and THEN motions that need to be heard will be considered and hopefully they get done sometime before armageddon.  I suspect this is why attorneys charge so much money, its recompense for the stab-yourself-in-the-eye boredom they go through in court every week). 

The final death throes of the marriage took place over a number of years for a number of reasons.  Tomorrow will be the final, gasping breath of the brontosaurus shuddering on the carpet of the rainforest floor.

 

I don't know if I ever really believed that marriage was forever.  I know that I hoped it was.  I don't think there are many people that enter into a relationship commitment planning for its eventual demise, though we all have to realize that its a possibility. 

I am looking forward to settling into a different phase of my relationship with my ex.  I think that now  that we are no longer debating over exactly how to split hairs and then assign ownerhip to halves of hairs that the bulk of the discomfort will be over.  Worrying about what would happen and who would get what if we didn't agree was a soul-consuming experience.  As much as I am trying to learn to lean back and worry more about the ride than the destination, I'm still human and still reacting to my fear more than I would like.  I've struggled with anger and hurt and jealousy.  I've had to learn how to walk away without voicing upsets or concerns that aren't capable of being resolved.  I've learned to let my feelings be felt with the explicit understanding that there isn't a happy-ever-after, there's no reward or prize or mountain summit, just a continuation of life that will undoubtedly serve up fresh suffering after some time passes. 

Falling in love and beginning a new relationship didn't really alleviate those feelings.  It just allowed me to ignore them for longer periods of time.  Ultimately, though, I've got to acknowledge them and allow them to work their way through.  If I don't, they'll just keep causing me pain and there's no reason at all to let that linger longer than it needs to. 

After tomorrow, my ex and I will no longer be husband and wife.  We'll be coparents.  We'll be once-lovers.  People who walked a path together, side by side for a time, and who will continue to parallel one another to a small extent because of our mutual ties to our progeny. 

As our children become adults, I hope that they will be able to comprehend that relationships are complicated and fragile.  I hope that they can understand - and more importantly believe  - that a divorce was never something we envisioned for our family until we actually reached the point where it happened. 

I hope they will learn that when you're an adult living in a world you are coping with your past and your present in ways that often do not make sense.  That unless you give your relationship the time and energy - and compassion - that it requires, it will not thrive.   That once you stop communicating you begin sliding down a hill that only grows steeper the farther down it you travel.

I hope that they will be able to recognize that in the end we both made some hard choices in order to preserve our sanity, healthy, and dignity, and more than anything, I hope that they will forgive us for the impact those choices had on them.

I hope very much that they will be able to see their parent's divorce not as an altogether negative experience.    Divorce is painful, but at the same time, my failed marriage gave me a gift.  Through it I found impetus for growth and change, seeking new ways of interacting with others, with myself, with the world I inhabit.   

The impermanence of things in life offer us gifts.  Tomorrow marks the end of one thing, but offers a new threshold to cross.  

 

A light so bright it hurts my eyes

In the noise and chaos of dealing with too many balls in the air, I'm not overburdened with opportunities to think.  Between the kids, work and animals, usually any chance that I might slow down and string two coherent thoughts together about how I feel and where am I going in life are interrupted because a ball or two is about to go SPLAT!  Quick, catch the ball!  What was I thinking about?  I forgot. 

Suddenly Sunday night arrives and the kids are off to their dad's.  I'll see them after school four out of the next five days, which helps, but its evening, and then its morning, and holy crap, its dark out.  Fall arrived and I was so busy avoiding thinking about it that it I almost didn't notice it happening.  Lets just say now would not be a good time to run out of Wellbutrin. 

I have reason to believe that this winter will be better than last winter, which was better than the winter before.  That two-year-old winter, just post-separation, was fucking brutal.  The kids were fighting our family's circumstances with every fiber of their beings, I was facing nights where my kids were not with me and I had not yet done the work I needed to do to accept that pain as a part of my life.  It was dark, I was alone, and even though I was finally free of living within an angry and shattered marriage, I was not used to being alone.  I made it through, by the skin of my teeth it seemed sometimes, and by the time the next winter came around, I was doing better.  I was making progess in my personal psychological and spiritual practice.  I was finally comfortable with being alone, with periods of quiet contemplation.  I had things to do and friends to enjoy when I needed some time around other people.  I met SG, and for the most part, the rest of the winter seemed effortless.  I was happy, mostly.  The depression was there, of course, it always is, but it crouched inside its little mouse-hole, barely poking its nose out to sniff the air.  Occasionally it would skitter across the floor, only to be vaporized into black smoke by the shining bright light of my happiness.

This year things are somewhat different.  I'm with someone, and yet I'm alone.  It's hard, its a struggle, and let me tell you that every minor relationship issue feels greatly exacerbated when you can't see the other person's face when you're hashing things out.  So its both OK and not OK at the same time - and right there I am reminded of the twofold nature that I try so hard to embrace.  Life includes both joy and pain, and so this is just a natural part of being human. 

The other thing that changed is that my ex and I changed our parenting schedule.  We went to every other week, a situation I wasn't entirely happy with but agreed to because it was pitched so reasonably.  I have a friend that's a judge.  He says most parenting plans are like this and they don't like complicated parenting plans when you go to court.  And really, it makes more sense to limit that number of transitions they have to deal with, especially with our mixed bag of mental health issues.  It took a while, though, before I realized the real reason for it.  (When I figured out that our parenting schedule matches his girlfriend's parenting schedule and they are both surprise! kid-free on the same weeks, I had to draw a little +1 in his column in the imaginary scorecard I keep in my head.  Touche.  Nicely played.  Asshole.)  So before, the last the longest my kids slept somewhere other than my house was two nights in a row.  Its not all that bad, considering.  On the weeks they are with their dad I still pick them up after school until he gets off work.  I still get to be involved in dinner and homework and all the chaos and noise four evenings on the off week.  It helps tremendously.

Sunday afternoons are special.  I savor those last few hours with them, even if we're doing mundane things.  Yesterday we went up to Michelle's and spent horse time.  The drive is a little over a half hour. 

As we drove home, the light was beginning to thin.  My daughter laid her head on my shoulder, and grabbed my free arm to wrap it around my shoulders.  I hugged her, ruffled her hair, touched her soft cheek with my fingers. 

There are moments in time when loving my kids is both the sweetest and most painful thing imaginable.  I am awestruck once again by how incredibly fortunate I am to have these mysterious and quicksilver beings in my life.  I love them completely and without limit, and I know that our time is precious because it will too soon be less available.  They are with me for but a brief span of their lives, and they will drift further and further away from me as they learn how to be independent people.  They will still be mine, in my heart of hearts, but more than that, they are their own.  So I hold my daughter's hand in the car for as long as she will let me, squeezing it gently, savoring the sensation of her fingers entwined and our palms - hers soft and warm, mine calloused and hard - pressing together.

These are the moments I pull from my memory banks to hang on to when the night is dark.  They are the bright light that chases away the shadow. 

This winter will be better.

My dragon has polka dot wings

The mother of my first husband was the embodiment of the term "crafter."  She could make a basket out of leftover yard clippings, a doll out of cardboard toilet rolls, and cook a five-course meal from a refrigerator with nothing more in it than old butter and a couple of moldy apples.  Everytime she visited she wanted to go to the craft store.  From those excursions, I developed a serious case of craft-store guilt.  I couldn't go into a craft store without feeling like I should be doing something with the things they sold there.  But I could never settle on just one craft.  I toyed with jewelry-making a few times, I had this great idea a couple of years ago to start making things with wine corks.  I've tried scrapbooking, knitting, origami, rug-making, macrame, crocheting and painting wooden knick-knacks.  Not a damn thing has stuck. 

I don't really suck at crafts, I just never finish them.  Or I do one or two projects, they turn out really nice, but my interest in them is over. 

My pregnancies were mostly unremarkable, with the possible exception of the size of my gargantuan butt, but they were a time that will always be unforgettable and special to me.  After I knew I was having first my daughter, and then my son, my craftiness revived itself for a brief time.  I hand-made both of their birth announcements with heavy card-stock, stamps, ribbon, knick-knacks and a glue gun.  After each birth, during my maternity leave, I made a shadow box for them.  In it I put their hospital picture and their birth announcement, their baby booties and caps, and some blue or pink baby things from the scrapbooking section of the craft store.  I loved making them.  Loved making them for my children to have.

My children will leave me with far more physical mementos of their presence in my life than I will ever leave with them.  My office is covered with drawings, pictures, school craft projects, magnets, hand-made frames.  Colored pieces of paper cut into the shape of hearts and tied together with yarn.  Paintings and crayon drawings.  A beautiful picture of a dragon and a story to go with it from a second grade art project.

 

I have one wall at home that I use as an art gallery.  I bought some clear acrylic frames, and every couple of months or so I pick out the most colorful and interesting drawings or art projects and I place them inside the frame and put them up on the wall.  The old drawings go into a steam trunk that used to belong to my grandfather.  Its the same trunk where my own mother kept the best of my drawings from preschool through high school graduation.  Someday my children will go through this trunk and relive their childhood.   They will, if they want to, get to have some of those pictures and report cards and craft projects to show their own children.  But there will always be a box of their things with me, for as long as I breathe.  A box where I can look through my treasures, read their words, see their smiling faces.  At 10 and 7 they have already given me a lifetime of memories.

My ex finally collected his things from my home this week.  I had forgotten that the list of things we agreed on splitting included those shadow boxes.  It bothered me at the time that he wanted one of them, but so much else was going on, I was tired and worn out from the stress and conflict and I forgot to address it.  So the movers were taking the piano and the last of his things from my garage, and he asked about the box.  I didn't know what to say.  I went and got one of them.  I gave it to him.  Tried not to cry in front of him.

I was finally able  to put into words what I couldn't say then. 

That shadow box was never meant for you or for I to keep.  I didn't put my heart into making them only to keep them for myself.  Please put C's box in a safe place so that someday when he grows up he will have it. 

To remember that he once was very small and that his mama loved him very much.

Moving Furniture

It feels like I'm getting ready for a garage sale.

More than two years after my ex and I split, we finally reached a settlement.  Which means the list of things that we agreed on would stay with me and go with him - the things he didn't take when he moved and are still occupying space or even serving a purpose in my house - now need to be ready for him to come and collect.  Everything's going into the garage, and sometime in the next 30-odd days I will be able once again to use my garage for its intended purpose.  

I had already started getting things ready to go, but now there's an actual deadline and I've only got an extra pair of hands for another week, as SG's next contract (which was supposed to start in October) got moved up and he has to leave now.  Yesterday was dresser day, which meant moving everything out of the bedroom dresser onto the bed, and everything out of the dresser in my daughter's room onto her bed, hauling the dresser from my room into the garage, moving the dresser from her room into mine and moving the dresser from the spare bedroom into her room and then putting everything back into drawers.

It was an opportunity to go through both her clothes and mine and put some things aside for donation.  The best part, though, was throwing away almost everything that's fallen behind my dresser over the last four years, because frankly, if its been down there for that long and I didn't need it badly enough to dig it out or notice it was gone, I didn't really need it in the first place.

I'm making the most of the grill while I still have it, and when the piano goes I will feel truly bereft, but the fact remains that these are just things and nothing more.  Things can be replaced.  Material things are not always necessary for life.  Other than my children, though, the household goods are the final tangible reminder that this was once a marriage.

I've waited so long for the finality of this that it doesn't even seem like its happening.  We've gone through so many iterations of getting along, not getting along, tolerating one another, being angry, being sad, being fine and being not OK.   Even though we both moved on, the weight of the final agreement just hung there between us like an enormous carryall weighted down with rocks.  I wasn't sure it would ever come to rest safely on the ground, but it has and now we can go forward with what I hope is the hardest part behind us.

Divorce is painful.  Yes, hello, UNDERSTATEMENT.  Divorce with kids even when we have tried to be amicable has been like having skin peeled off.   In a perfect world we would never be angry with one another, we would never say anything to the other person that we later regretted, we would never be constantly conscious that until the decree is done anything we say or do might be used against us.  Oh, I have lived the reality of the imperfect world.  I have lived it gloriously. 

It has always been important to me to do the right thing for my children and for myself, and yes, even my ex, but I'm only human.  I've written things here in frustration and anger that in retrospect might not have been the best idea at the time.  I've been upset about something and not been successful at hiding it from my children. There've been times when I started a conversation when it would have been better to wait and ended up losing my temper and saying things that were not helpful or kind.

In the end, I've learned a few things. 

I've learned that it is possible to set feelings and issues aside and speak amicably about matters of importance regarding your children.

I've learned that nothing really needs to be solved right this minute.

I've learned that your children hear and see much more than you think they do.

I've learned that what you think your children are feeling and thinking about your divorce doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what they are really going through.

I've learned that other people don't see you the way you see yourself.

I've learned that even if you think you can't afford it, even if you think you can do this without one, even if you think it makes you look like the bad guy, get a lawyer.  People say things they don't mean all the time.  People agree to things they have no intention of honoring.  Don't get blindsided.  Get someone who will let you know when you're making a bad decision, get someone who will stand up for you and who knows what your rights are.  Get someone who is used to doing this for a living.  I've seen some people who are extremely smart and capable get tripped up in the divorce process because there are inner workings of the court system that they, as a non-lawyer,had NO idea existed.  Those are the things that will end up costing you money or dignity or worse.

I've learned that I can live on less that I thought I could and that things I used to think were important aren't necessary at all. 

I've learned to choose more wisely.

I've learned to be more open and honest in my relationships with others, particularly with my partner.  Silence kills relationships.  So does being mean.  Say what you need to say, but remember that the person on the receiving end of your words has feelings too.

I've learned that just because I failed once at marriage doesn't mean I'm not capable of having a successful relationship. 

I've been reminded that I am blessed with family and friends who are amazing and loving and supportive.  I have so much gratitude for them and for all they have done to walk with me on this bumpy path.

The ending of one part of your life opens possibilities you didn't even know existed.  Don't be afraid to go through the painful part; there will be something for you on the other side that will make it all worth it.

Outcomes not expected

After we first separated, my ex and I had a very complicated parenting schedule.  At the time I think it served both of our needs to be able to see our kids on an almost daily basis, and we felt it was good for them to have time with the other parent as frequently as possible.  A few months ago, he suggested we go to an every-other-week schedule.  I wasn't really sure I wanted to make that switch, but I also wasn't certain if I was just being selfish or if the way we were already doing it really was better.   I agreed to give it a try, and after we agreed together on holidays and so forth, we made the switch.

I have to admit, I think this is better.  Right now it works well for me, simply because I am picking them up and taking them to childcare near where I work three days out of the week, every Friday they spend the whole day with their dad and every Wednesday with me, regardless of whose week it is, due to work schedules.  I think its an easier adjustment for them to transition from the rules and the rhythm of one household to another one time a week rather than every day.  I think its giving them more stability in the time they spend with each of us, and a way to really enjoy their time with each parent. 

The one thing I really notice, though, is that every other Sunday, when they have spent a week with their dad and are making the transition between parents, is HARD.  In an I-lost-count-of-how-many-timeouts-they-had kind of way. 

"They're really tuned up," SG noted in that bemused tone of voice he adopts when he's coping with chaos.  "Yeah, I suppose that's one way of putting it," I replied. 

I think its natural for children of two households to have some difficulty transitioning, particularly if there are differences in parenting styles (there are) and in the structure of the households in question.  My ex and I have an informal understanding that we will not tell each other how to parent.  If my children complain that something I have forbidden them to do/play with/eat is A-OK when they're at Daddy's, I simply say "The rules at Dad's house aren't the same as the rules at mine."  There are other things I will allow that my ex won't, but I don't think either one of us is interested in having a tug-of-war over whose way of parenting is "right."  There are so many instances where it isn't a question of right or wrong, we're just Different.  And so I try to temper my reaction to the fighting and the hyperactivity and accept that I have very limited control over how hard it is for them to make the change in households.

Going into the divorce, there were things I expected, and my expectations were met.  I expected it would be painful, I expected it would be stress-ridden and emotional.  I expected my children to have a great deal of difficulty traversing the new road map of our lives.  I expected anger and bitterness and being so lonely sometimes it physically hurt.  I also expected there to be some positives, those things the absence of which is why I wanted the marriage to end in the first place.  And those were there, and to experience my home as a place where there was more peace and serenity than not was a revelation.  On top of those positives, though, were a few unexpected gifts.

Even with the injection of the noise and the chaos on these every-other-Sunday transfers, it is a relief to have them under my roof, to go to sleep at night knowing they are just a few feet away, to wake in the morning knowing I'll soon be rousting them out of their beds.  Their childhood years are finite, and every week they are not with me I know I'm missing something precious.  Something that has slipped through my fingers without me even being aware that it existed.  The ability to reach out and physically touch my children is something I no longer take for granted. 

Every other week, I learn to be a person who has children but who does not have them with her.  I learn to find that part of myself that doesn't exist simply to be Mother and I nurture her.  I go on dates with SG and we enjoy the freedom of being grownups without curfews.  I was so used to worrying about whether my kids were being good for the sitter or going to bed on time or trying to keep tabs on them if I brought them to a social engagement.  Its a different world to attend a party or have dinner in a restaurant when you aren't constantly doing a mental check on how the kids are doing and if you need to throttle down some energy or head a fight off at the pass.  Agonizing over the fact that my children are with their other parent isn't going to make the time between pass any faster.  I have learned to just accept it and find pleasure in the positives.

There are times, as always, I roll with the punches and life is simply about coping with too many things that are hard.  But more and more of late, there are days when life has much more richness and joy than anxiety and turbulence. 

Lost in the spin

In case you can't tell from my last couple of blog posts, I'm having a hard time right now emotionally.  This is stressful, this digging into the final death throes of a marriage that's been dying for a long time.  The worry over what will or won't happen, the not knowing how things will shake out in the final dispensation of our lives together, it gives me over to the brittle, acid edge of panic.  And of course life doesn't stop just so I can have anxiety, so it wraps its tendrils around everything - work, parenting, tending animals and working horses - until all things seem fraught with emotion I'm not dealing with well. 

Thanks to my particular versions of "stuff that's wrong with me," anxiety is a long-term companion.  If anxiety were a person we'd have had a common-law marriage years ago.  As it is, you would think that I would be used to the physical and emotional repercussions of our partnership, but somehow I never am.  I'll start to obsess about one thing, anxiety sets in, and as the dark stain of adrenaline spreads, I'll start applying the fear to things that don't even belong to it.

Maybe someone will cross the line on my way to work today and I'll die in a fiery wreck.

Something will happen to one of the kids, something horrible.

My house will burn down.

Something will happen to one of the cats or one of the dogs, and God knows Juliet's already gone through two of her nine lives what with the whatever thing that bit her and she almost bled to death and the stuff that looks like she got rolled by a car...or one of the horses will get sick or one of the chickens will get eaten.

SG will figure out how really super fucked up I am and run for the hills

I'll lose my job

My car will break down

And so on.

Its like dancing handcuffed to someone who won't let you sit down and breathe.  And I keep dancing because if I don't, if the wheel stops, if I take a minute to breathe, I'll fall apart.  So I move forward and sideways and around in circles and I keep going because the anxiety, there's no victory over her, just coping and getting through it.  The only way through it is, frankly, through.   Medicating is not an option, the kind of medication I'd need to cut through this thick skein of feelings would drop a horse, and I just can't do that, not what with the 45-mile commute and the parenting and the things needing doing.  Can't.  So I cope.

The light at the tunnel is that this prom date with my evil muse is only temporary.  Once the material things that are whipping her into a frenzy are done with, she'll sulk off for greener, albeit temporary, pastures, and I"ll enjoy a much needed vacation from her attentions.

Much.  Needed.