Tag: co-parenting

Releasing the weight of expectation

After a helluva a month, I turned a corner about two weeks ago.

I spent that morning with my anxious child’s therapist and my ex, working out how best to support her through this troubling period of constant panic attacks. (Answer: quiet compassion and tough love.) Then I was faced with an unpleasant email from my other kid’s teacher about how homework isn’t getting done (RAGE!). My employee was having cancer surgery and my other employee was sorting out a major sensory issue. Work was generally sucking and I was completely overwhelmed.

Then they screwed up my lunch order and the new order never came after waiting an hour, and so I tried to call into my 1PM meeting because I wasn’t going to make it there in time, but couldn’t get on because technology isn’t perfect and… WHOOSH. I was desperate and completely saturated with the weight of it all. Walking towards my office building, I cried, defeated. I looked up at a tree and prayed to Gord for something to change because I couldn’t take much more. It was extremely windy, and I know to be careful of what you wish for, because sometimes the Universe can’t be specific when you’re not, so I whispered, “But don’t like, drop a giant tree branch on my head or anything.”

I’m not entirely clear as to what changed in that moment. If a vessel cannot carry anymore, it has to let go or it will sink. So the vessel called Maria somehow let go. I decided in that moment that everything would somehow work out. A kind young colleague brought my revised lunch order to my desk and then sent memes to cheer me up. I successfully steered the panicky kid away from her fears via text. I went home and coached the homework kid until he had a major breakthrough. The universe just somehow tipped a quarter degree in my direction. I felt like myself for the first time in six weeks. Fun Maria is back, I thought.

All this recent hardship has made me really miss Theo and wonder if we could get back together. There are nights where I rush in and start to make dinner before even taking my coat off. The therapist suggested texting the kids on my way, telling them to put on the kettle, and then sitting down in the living room for a cup of tea before I start making dinner. I must remember to do that.

Then there’s the stuff that happens while I’m making dinner. One kid needs emotional support, the other needs homework support. Ah fuck, I burned the garlic. Wouldn’t everything just be better with another adult human next to me, sharing resources, sharing the load? What I constantly forget is that Theo is like adding a third child to the mix; a petulant teenager who wants his independence but can’t do the work to secure it. Why do I always forget this? Why do I always forget that I wanted it to work so badly, that I tried everything from micromanaging his part of the to-do list, to taking most of his responsibilities off his plate to just completely accepting him as he is and ALL OF IT added up to an unequal distribution of labour and emotional labour that left me completely in debt to myself.

And yet, when I feel completely bankrupt emotionally and energy-wise, I think, geez, it might just be nice to have him here to put the dishes away after dinner. So what if he NEVER wiped down the counters? Was that the deal breaker? I long for a hug, to have someone hold me, or to lie with my head on the chest of a man while he strokes my hair and kisses my forehead. Surely that must be worth it? In my loneliness and despair, I forget that I was lonely in my marriage as well.

“He did not love you the way you needed to be loved,” comes the voice, the story that I repeat in my head. The narrative must change, this I know. But to change it to, “He loved you the best he could and it wasn’t enough for you,” is a different kind of pain. Was the alternative to let go of the little things? Was it to accept his resentment when Fun Maria was nowhere to be found, her mind a giant pile of to-dos and post-its?

Was it to ignore that I was a growing feminist married to someone who couldn’t accept his misogyny or acknowledge his male entitlement or his privilege? How was I to continue to exist like that? I’d left Plato’s cave and seen the truth. How could I stay and watch the pantomime of shadows in the dark and pretend it was OK?

Leaving was painful, continues to be painful, but it doesn’t mean it was wrong. Sometimes I forget that it hasn’t even been two years yet.

Theo and I have had lots of heart to hearts of late, because we’ve been triaging our treasured anxious child. I think he wishes things with Mr. Saturday Night were better, that I had someone to cherish me. I want that for me too. It’s painful when he sees me spending time with someone who does not want to do the work to be with me. He knows, because he was that person. Or rather, to quote Theo himself, he did not “have the capacity” to love me the way I wanted to be loved. Neither does Mr. SN.

He tells me about his lady. I know a bit about her, because I’m a master digital sleuth. I know that Lars and Zofia introduced them. I know she has no children, but a great career and a thousand-watt smile. I think she’s smart and has the bandwidth to make him her second full-time project. They go paddleboarding together. She’s nurturing, by the sounds of it. It’s not a wild, passionate love like he and I had, but it’s a comforting stew on a slow simmer. It hurts, but I’m happy for him. She would be good for the team.

It is bittersweet, the tender way we are saying goodbye, in fits and spurts. We will need each other for a long time and it’s better to be nice to each other and to honour our 20 years of loving each other this way.

On the weekend he came over to sort the last bits of our car that is no longer, winter tires and storage racks hiding under the deck. He was going to help me build a tool shed, but we ran out of time and he made us all a chicken soup instead. The feelings of wanting him to stay were quite strong. We shine in fall when he’s not complaining about the heat and I’m not complaining about the cold. There is harmony in a season where things are ending, when the trees let go in the most beautiful way. We had dinner and so many laughs, and so many times I had to resist reaching out for him. I wanted it to be just “us” in that moment.

He went upstairs to get one kid’s bath started and his phone began to ring on the kitchen counter. I glanced over and her name was there. Our kid grabbed his phone to take it to him, “Dad! It’s your girlfriend!” We laughed awkwardly.

And then I cried, a super ugly cry. I’m a fool, I thought. I’m a fool to keep thinking that he’s ever coming back. I was ashamed. I’ve put everyone through so much and yet I would take him back if he asked in the right way.

I sought emergency counsel from my text chat with the Mommy Mafia and the plain truth came from no-nonsense Brenda. While her abrupt way of telling me what I need to hear often stings, I knew she was right. “No more playing house,” I texted Theo, “I can’t anymore. I keep hurting myself. Please let’s separate for once and for all so I can close this and move on.”

He apologized for lingering, he expressed concern that this might mean he sees the kids less.

“If it means anything, I’m TRYING to move on,” he replied, “I don’t know that I’m doing a very good job.”

But then I had a puff or two after he left and the kids were asleep (it’s legal today – woot!), and fell into a delicious sleep. There was a man in my dream, with dark hair and glasses. He was flirting with me, putting his arms around me and we were falling for each other in the dream. And the thing was that there was no fear in this dream, the falling was a feeling of butterflies but there was no ambiguity about the feelings of this man. I woke up feeling like he’s still out there, whomever he is, and remembering that I have no clue where he will come from, or when this might happen, but there is something yummy in trusting that it could happen when I least expect it.

“You are not responsible for my feelings,” I apologized to Theo. He sat on my steps while I did my hair. “But I need boundaries. I can’t count on you to do stuff for me, and you shouldn’t feel you have to. She may be cool now, but she’s not going to like it.

We are not getting back together, ever. It would make no sense. We tried that, for years, and we don’t work. I need to stop entertaining the thought.” Not speaking out loud is not my strong suit, you might have guessed.

“What if I do stuff for you when you’re not here,” Theo offered. He can’t seem to let go either, and truthfully, the well-being of the mother of his children is in his best interest.

It’s a weird fucking So You Think You Can Dance routine where we tear ourselves apart and run to the other side of the stage where we take turns freestyling, then freak out and run back to each other until one of us turns away. But the song is ending now and we need to decide what pose we are gonna finish this on, when they turn the spotlight off.

I love him. I will always love him. But he is no longer mine. And it’s time to truly let go.

dead_things_leafquote

“I can tell you’ve changed,” Theo said with a smile as he got up to leave one night.

“Thank you. How do you mean?”

“You seem… lighter,” he offered, shutting my front door behind him. I took it in, sitting under the glow of a new lamp I’d bought, another totem to mark how I was moving on and bringing in more light.

I’m no longer carrying you, the voice in my head reminded me.

WHOOSH… freedom.

 

Bridge of Sighs

Welcome to my pity party!

Take your coat off, grab a drink, get comfortable!

The emotional labour of September always catches me by surprise and this year it seems more exaggerated than ever. My ex started production on a show he works on, putting in unconventional hours and making our co-parenting schedule difficult to manage. Guess who does the managing? Guess who sends out the weekly “operations” email to try and wrangle it all? Guess who suddenly has one fewer night a week to herself now?

I actually don’t mind having only one weeknight off (which I dedicate to writing). It’s getting darker earlier, so my desire to meet new adult humans (and even friends) is starting to dwindle. But more importantly, my beautiful, unique, quirky-brained children need consistency, and homework struggles is where I shine. What I didn’t expect, or remember to expect, is that with those homework struggles come an emotional whirlpool, one that has proven extra difficult to swim out of this year. Calls and texts all day long, because they need mom’s help navigating the world, because their own overwhelm needs to go somewhere, and because they don’t quite know how to manage their own tasks and time just yet. Nightly heart-to-hearts, hugs, tear-wiping, reassurance. I’m weighted down by carrying everyone’s feelings, by suddenly making therapy appointments and reaching out to professionals to see if they can help.

But it’s all work, isn’t it? Scheduling, corresponding, remembering to pay, remembering to submit invoices to insurance, checking in? Holding your children while they cry, being grateful that they still run to your arms for solace, while simultaneously worrying that you are somehow enabling anxious behaviour or learned helplessness. If my sister and I freaked out as kids, my mom would dismiss us, tell us we are being “silly” and send us back to our rooms to get homework done. There was no “talking about feelings,” instead, there was a heavy dose of guilt and disappointment. I’m probably only doing marginally better in that department. There’s only so much you can take on before you yell at them to snap out of it and send them back to their rooms to get homework done.

Do dads just get out of it? Do the kids not go to them with their feelings because their fathers have taught them that this is not in their skill set to deal with in a cosy, compassionate way? I know I’m HUGELY generalizing here, but in every family that I know, it’s the mom who carries this all.  It’s the mom who gets the panicked texts from the school bathroom, the mom who helps come up with the strategies, the mom who books the appointments. And eventually, your own mental health slips under the weight of it all and you are snippy, bitchy, teary mess (and sometimes referred to as crazy). Sigh. I’m so tired. Do households with two moms have the same dynamic or do they get double the capability?

Since splitting up, Theo has taken more on. It’s like he’s determined to prove to me that he is capable, and as such, I’m remembering to hold him capable and let him own it when he screws up, just as I do when I’m the fuck up. We’ve divided the labour between Physical (him) and Emotional/Mental (me). Physical is everything from making sure they are getting enough exercise, to booking dentist appointments. Emotional/Mental is feelings work, social work, homework, raising adults. I still wrangle most of it, but he’s getting better at it, even being proactive on occasion.

I see now that for a relationship to work and last, the two people in it must commit to their roles as well as to each other. “There are two types of people. Are you a flower or a gardener,” my QUEEN, Allison Janney, asks while playing Tonya Harding’s mother LaVona Golden in the film, I, Tonya. Is there something to that? Perhaps it’s more that one person is the Planner and the other is the Entertainer. But both have to see their roles as valuable, and the Entertainer has to support the Planner, to keep him or her up by making them feel loved, appreciated, valued. The Entertainer also has to remember to make space for the Planner to have fun by taking on some tasks, because wearing out the Planner is in no one’s best interest. But what I see time and time again is that the Entertainer takes all the fun and the Planner gets exhausted and is accused of not being any fun any more. Just me?

For the garden to thrive, the gardener must get energy from the fruits of her labour. The flower must bloom, attract visitors, put on a show for the gardener. Janney’s LaVona says, “I’m a gardener who wants to be a flower—how fucked up am I?” And maybe that’s my issue. I want to be adored, I want to blossom and bring joy through my mere existence, but I’m so capable at taking on the tasks of gardening that when the gardener doesn’t work fast enough or do things JUST the way I would like, I just march out of the dirt, shove aside my petals and pick up a hoe. And then I resent the fuck out of the other person. Sigh.

On Sunday we had a photoshoot, just the three of us. A friend is trying to get her photography business off the ground and asked if we would sit for her. I want to embrace the new family within the larger family, the Three Musketeers against the world, and having photos of just the three of us seemed like a great way to frame that for myself (pardon the pun).

I was feeling good that day, strong. Hair and makeup were looking good, kids were happy, we managed to get out to the suburbs in the car I rented like a grown-ass woman. I was feeling ready to start looking for a REAL relationship, one that involves EQUAL ENTHUSIASM (more on Mr. Saturday Night later in this post). I posted on Instagram, asking friends to start introducing me to a “healthy, kind-hearted, financially independent male who can handle a feminine, feminist mama who owns all her own shit (bull and other).” It’s time! Setting my intention! Putting it out to the universe! Bring me a Good Man. A Grown-Ass Man! One who dates WITH HIS WHOLE ASS!

But then this week shit the bed and I am suddenly faced with the realization that WE, the Three Musketeers, are a LOT to take on. That even their own father couldn’t handle staying with the person I am in tough times, which sometimes feels like all the time, and I was faced again with negative thoughts around being difficult, being unlovable. Who will I ever find that could love all of this? Who is going to be man enough to stand by me and prop me up and give me the love and encouragement to keep going? Who will love me on bad days? Who will also love my quirky kids on their bad days? It seems like an impossibly tall order. Sigh.

Mr. Saturday Night has not texted me since Friday, and even Friday’s exchange was initiated by me (as were Wednesday’s and Thursday’s exchanges). I woke up today and said to myself, “I cannot spend energy on someone who can go FIVE DAYS without asking me a question!” I mean, clearly he’s just not that into me. Sure, people get busy, but in busy times, we prioritize, and his actions say to me that I’m not a priority.

But let’s also be honest. If he messages me Thursday to ask about my weekend plans, I’m going to respond and likely find the time. Because it’s finally here: I’m lonely for romantic love. I sleep alone every night unless my daughter crawls in next to me. I miss being spooned and cuddled. I miss being someone’s sun and moon. There’s a longing, an ache, to give and receive. Last week, I came home early on one of Theo’s nights and snuck into my bedroom so as not to disturb them, crawled into bed in my clothing and wept. (Admittedly, I had my period and it felt like my ovaries were trying to cut my uterus out with a butter knife.)

Theo put the kids to bed and realized that I’d crept in. He texted me from a floor above to ask if he could come down to my bedroom. I said yes. He immediately saw that I was sad and asked if I was OK.

“I’m homesick,” I bawled, echoing the complaints of our younger child this past month. I miss being us. Somehow, now, on the other side of it, even though he’s often an inconsiderate asshole, some days it feels like maybe all of the bullshit of being married to each other was so precious and valuable and WORTH IT. Because this current state, while often fun and free and easy, it isn’t dramatically better. And then, whoosh, the wound opens and gapes and sputters and spurts. “He didn’t love you like that,” it hisses, “He didn’t want to stay.”

I know he’s out there, Mr. Real Thing, because I feel it. Deeply. I know this sounds hokey, but sometimes I connect with his energy. Sometimes I acknowledge his presence in the universe. I whisper to the wind, “I see you. I know you’re here.” I imagine what it feels like to love him and be loved by him. I thought I didn’t believe in The One anymore, but maybe it’s like trying to shake my Christian upbringing: My rational brain thinks religion is bullshit, but my heart likes believing in the idea of God. Of course there is probably more than just ONE, so maybe this faith is in knowing The Next One is out there (and feels closer than I think on tough days).

I don’t want to be a person who doesn’t believe in magic or miracles. That would be counter to who I am. And I’ve worked so hard to love myself, exactly as I am. It’s still a struggle sometimes, to accept myself and not see negatives, flaws or faults, but to realize that it’s all part of this beautiful quilt that is me, Maria. I hope, even though your stories are different than mine, that there are bits in here that speak to you exactly where you’re at right now. And if so, all I ask is that you send me a thought, a hope, some energy or a prayer—bonus points if you know a man that fits the above description and could love a flibbertigibbet like me.

Be kind to yourselves. September is a cruel month.

20 years

April 10, 1998 was a Friday. I put on these tight low-rise baby blue printed jeans I had with a slight flare below the knee. I put on my shiny white low-cut tee. I coiffed my bob and put on some Spice Girls-style platform shoes. I wore Cool Water perfume.

I had convinced my inner circle to go with me to the birthday party of this guy I was friends with in college. We were graduating from our program and loads of my school friends would be there. And it was becoming apparent that I had a total mega-crush on the birthday boy.

He was shy and awkward, but possibly the funniest man I’d ever met. His energy was infectious and when we talked about the music and movies we liked, we had so much in common that I wondered how we could have existed our whole lives liking the same things and not have known each other. One day, I got to my locker to find a VHS copy of Stand By Me in it. We had gone for tea and had an intense conversation about how much we both loved that movie. “Barforama! Hahaha!” The romantic gesture made my stomach flipity-flop as I scanned the halls to catch a glimpse of him so I could thank him.

He was slightly dorky, but muscular and bright, and if I’m being honest, beneath his plaid shirts and baggy jeans I saw the potential for someone great. He just needed a bit of work is all, like he was a pre-war cottage with great bones in an up and coming neighbourhood. Little did I know he was a money pit with archaic zoning laws.

The girl everyone thought he had a crush on was there too. She was wearing a crop top that said EVERLAST, the iron-on letters struggling against her robust rack. I thought for sure he was going to go off with the reigning queen of our program, but instead he sat with me, drinking beers while I downed Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

“So, you’re drunk enough, why don’t you go ask Melissa to dance,” I teased.

“Because… I don’t like her that way… I… I like someone else.”

I’m a bastard and prodded until he spit it out. “I like YOU, OK?!” Then we danced, I can’t remember the song but I’m sure there’s a journal in my possession that has it documented. I put the journals in a box with the wedding photo album. They are decaying in my parents’ garage, because I can’t fucking look at them without crying. They are the history books of this great nation that rose to power and then had its borders attacked. They are the Museum of Czechoslovakia and what was once one country is now two. The artifacts cannot reside in the Czech Republic or Slovakia, so they live in no man’s land.

When we danced he asked me to go out with him the next day, but I had plans to see Radiohead the next day, so I asked for a rain check (priorities!). “I’d kiss you,” he slurred, “But I’m too drunk and I don’t want it to be like this.” It wasn’t our first date, but we always marked our togetherness as April 10, his birthday, because we were inseparable from then on. Until we weren’t.

I didn’t mean to ask to take Theo to dinner tonight. I was actually just trying to get him to make his own plans with the kids and his family, but no one in his family has the sensitivity to think that there son or brother might be alone on his birthday and maybe they should do something for him. I knew that he would not ask his friends to do something. People learn from us. And he has spent a lifetime teaching everyone that he is OK on his own. He’s the subject of Simon and Garfunkel’s “I am a Rock.”

Except he’s not. I asked him to do the Myers Briggs and he got an E for Extrovert, which surprised me. He pushes everyone away, but like anyone, he wants to be acknowledged and appreciated. So instead of going to see Tinder Nightmares like I REALLY wanted to, I found myself spending $200 and sitting at a table with our kids, the birthday boy and his parents. I even thought to invite Lars (of the peaches) and Zofia to join us.

I got the kids to pick out thoughtful gifts weeks ago. The girl one spent a sick day making a card and decorating wrapping paper that she made herself. I wrote, “Thanks for all you do for me and the kids,” in a card and when he read it this morning he smiled. Somehow the words resonated, which made me sad for all the depressive years when my appreciation could not get through to him.

I know that regardless of how many times I honour him on special days, the sentiment will not be reciprocated. Last year on my birthday, he showed up empty-handed, kids empty-handed, my first birthday with no one. He said, “I wanted to get you something, but I was waiting to get paid.” That’s OK, I said, like I say every year because I expect nothing and yet part of me hopes this is the year he does SOMETHING, a card even. “Yeah, I really wanted to get you a composter.”

Ummmm… why? So every time I take out the garbage, I think of you? How did we get from “Stand By Me in your locker” to “composter”?

When we renovated our first bathroom, back when we were one child in and still so very much in love, we found an antique clawfoot tub. When we flipped it over to paint it, the date embossed on the bottom was April 10, 1940. I’m sure relationships started and ended on that date too. I wonder sometimes about whether couples were happier then, whether expecting less from life was a good thing.

But I’ve only got this life to go on, and I know that we are both happier and more sane. I know that once he got rid of the wife he believed was making him miserable and the job he believed was making him miserable, he could see how much of all this depression was actually on him to own and take care of. He’s starting to do the work and that’s the only gift he can really give me at this point.

My Facebook memories today were mostly painful reminders of me posting birthday greetings to Theo year after year, joking about his disdain for Facebook and praising him as a father, a partner and my best friend. Was I faking it? Did I mean it? Was it real? I’ll never really know.

I spent the dinner feeling like I was in the Twilight Zone. Like everything about it was so familiar. No one in the damn restaurant would imagine we weren’t a couple in a real family doing really family things. We looked so NORMAL and I couldn’t help but think, “What was wrong with this?” I kept looking at my phone for zings from boys, but there was nothing and the kids could sense my discomfort and chastised me for looking at my phone during dinner. So I sat with it, the discomfort, the farce, the “for the good of the children.” I took an Instastory of my prosecco glass and toasted to my character and the high road. My kids were happy. Their dad was happy. And my happiness ebbs and flows, but it’s here goddamit, and I can finally breathe.

To give you a sense of how long a 20-year relationship is or feels like, have a look at this list of other things that will turn 20 in 2018.

Random thoughts from earlier this week that needed an edit

**Giving this another path because stream of consciousness dictating into your phone is not quite the technology it needs to be yet.

I have a Theo reunion fantasy playing in my head as of late. It might be because I’m ready to start dating again. Well, I’m not ready, but it feels like maybe I should give it a shot. Of course this coincides with Theo and I getting along better than we have in over a decade. Suddenly he is the thoughtful, appreciative, giving human being that I fell in love with. And I know it’s a trap. I know in my heart of hearts that this can only exist because we are not together. And that is so fucking sad. Because at our best we were magic. We were the mystical wonders who made two incredible human beings out of love.

So here is how my fantasy goes. He asks me out, simple. He takes me somewhere awesome, maybe our usual spot, a dark little bourbon bar that has great food. He does something chivalrous— a romantic, sweeping gesture like he did when we were first together. He’s assertive with the kids when they ask where we’re going. “I’m taking your mother out to show her that I appreciate all that she does.”

After dinner he walks me home and he tells me he can’t live without me. He takes me up to the top step, right by the door that opens into the house we bought together so many years ago. And then with me on the top step, with him down a step to even out our height difference, he tilts my chin towards his face and suddenly he kisses me in the way that only he knows how.

Suddenly I’m engulfed by the mouth I know intimately and by heart. This goes on for sometime. Weeks go by. We go to our social worker to get her blessing and surprisingly she gives it to us. He moves back in. We make plans to get a bigger place because suddenly he doesn’t fit here anymore. And this house is full of sad memories that the happy ones don’t quite erase. He makes me coffee every morning, like he does now, except he brings it down to my bed each day with a kiss and the look of tenderness.

Edited to add: Looking at this description again, I realize that none of it is about sex. If I read it back to myself, it’s about being noticed and appreciated just as I am. It’s about connection and value. And frankly, now that I will be exposed to more sexual adventures, I’m realizing that it’s not a priority for me. That, for me, good sex is a byproduct of connection and intimacy. It’s important but it’s not the tentpole. It’s just indicative of the health of a relationship.

We do nice things for each other now, and these days we actually notice them. So getting back together feels so natural in that way. But I have to remember that the reason there is no resentment is because we don’t live together. And yet when I look at him some days, and overwhelming desire to hold him in my arms and kiss his face takes over. And I’m so scared to say it out loud. Because we tried that for so many years and it only ended in heartbreak. And I can’t possibly imagine myself doing that again.

Today I realized I’m not crying as much as I was a year ago, and that was profound. I posted an Instagram story to commemorate that moment with that realization. I’m happy here, now. I feel it, and Theo’s happier too. Neither of us seems to be enjoying dating. Above all else he really misses his time with the kids. And I struggle when events happen with three of us that the fourth person can’t participate in because of the separation. In some ways it would be so easy to go back to how we were. Except, it wouldn’t. I know this and yet the fantasy lingers. I wonder if it’s the same for the kids.

My daughter is at that age where she’s getting pre-pubescent hormonal nightmares (she’ll be 11 this summer). She came down to my basement bedroom in a tizzy last night around 10:30. I told her to crawl into my bed, as there’s space to do that now that her dad is living in an apartment a 10-minute drive away.

“I’m feeling really scared right now,” she said in a small voice. I told her that I knew the feeling, that she is so much braver than I was at her age, that I had been afraid of a lot of things, growing up with post-genocidal anxiety that was handed from my grandmother to my mother and down to me. “I used to be scared of bees, animals, of my own shadow!”

“What are you afraid of now?”

“Well I’m always the most worried that something terrible could happen to you or your brother. The second thing I was always most worried about was that your dad and I wouldn’t be together. (Pause.) But that happened… and I survived.”

“You know what? You’re stronger since dad left.”

“How so?”

“Well you used to rely on dad to do lots of things for you. Because he was your man. He was THE man in house. But now, YOU’RE the man. You’re the man-woman.”

Whoa-man. Heart-swell. Kids say the darndest things.

My saviours

“How long has it been?” Our firecracker of a tween-age girl looked at us over Family Day dinner. “Since what?” I asked coyly, hoping she wasn’t asking what she was asking.

“You know, since the breakup?”

Their dad and I looked at each other. God she’s astute. Neither of us had acknowledged this fucked up anniversary. We broke up at the end of November, but it was February before he moved out. We both mumbled something like, “A year and a bit.”

“What month? What day?”

February 4th.

I quickly pivoted to talk of Family Day weekend the previous year, when we were painting their rooms, building IKEA furniture, getting ready for THEIR separation from each other after nearly a decade of sleeping in the same room.

But on February 4th, 2017, we were doing something entirely different.

On the morning of Feb 3rd, 2017, my daughter said, “I don’t want today to be over,” and started weeping. She had realized it was our last night as a family of four. I’d dealt with my own pain the previous night by going out dancing with a super fun colleague and her merry band of Polish friends and gotten stupid drunk, slam dancing to Lida Pimiento in a gallery. It was all so awful (the husband leaving, not the dancing) that I only have hazy details sketched out in my memory bank.

Dealing with my child’s emotional pain while nursing a massive hangover was not my finest moment. But that morning I was focused on letting them know we just had to get through it. The social worker had advised against letting them stay home, because that could create an ongoing issue, so I gently coached us out the door.

When I called home after school, it was clear that my kids were not in a good way. My son, who is not generally overly emotional, was a teary mess. I realized that I would circumvent the pressure of the last night all together by overriding it. I rushed home to get them and called my sister on the way. Sushi and sleepover, STAT! My sister is a successful adult human, but also an incredibly childish plaything for my kids, and going to her posh condo would be just the thing to distract us all.

She had a big glass of wine waiting for me and video games for the kids. Somehow it was fun, even though their dad was back home, packing for his move the next day. After dinner, I got the kids ready for bed and then I gently made my way out of Neverland and back to the house we all shared together. Why? Why did I go back to the marital home? I’ll never really know.

The boxes I’d procured for him to pack were sitting empty in the front room. He had done nothing and was sitting in the dining room, watching YouTube on his laptop. My memory tells me that I avoided making a snide remark to cover my anxiety over his lack of packing, but I can’t confidently say that this is true. I know I eventually went upstairs to our bedroom to pack up my own things from the dresser that he would be taking with him to his new apartment.

We must have slept in the same bed that night, but again, I have no memory of it. Did I weep on his bare chest, like I had so many nights leading up to that one? Who knows? That glass Inside Out memory ball is buried in that land where Bing Bong goes to die.

The next morning, we said our goodbyes, Theo and I. I don’t remember that final goodbye either. I could only begin to imagine what it’s like to leave the home your children grew up in and would continue to grow up in, just without you. But he wanted this, I kept reminding myself. He didn’t have the courage to just leave, of course. For years he just made himself absent by whatever means necessary. Now we were just making it official.

I had a fun day planned. I wanted anything but for my kids to have a memory of their dad leaving. I headed back to my sister’s and she took us for a super fancy brunch in a super fancy hotel. My mom called us at some point, to discuss how she’d been a mega bitch to Theo when he came by to get our old furniture out of the basement. She spoke in our native language so the kids wouldn’t understand. My sis and I giggled, knowing mom had my back.

Then the boy child went to a birthday party, while the girl one and I went to the nail salon with a bunch of her friends and their moms. The village I had carefully built over the years rallied together to support us. After manis and pedis, we retrieved the boy one and went to see Hidden Figures with a single mom friend and her daughter, who was my son’s classmate. We were completely distracted and when we exited the theatre, it was suddenly dark out. It had been a bright, crisp February day and to be hit with the dark was a reminder that we had gotten through the worst of it.

“Let’s call your dad,” I said quietly, “He probably hasn’t eaten all day. Let’s see if he wants us to take him to dinner.”

When we got to his new neighbourhood, the girl one didn’t want to get out of the car. “It’s so WEIRD!” she kept saying. And yeah, she was right. Theo was hurt, I know it, but he eventually coaxed her out. We had Thai, and as we sat around the table we raised our glasses. “To us!” we toasted. The 20-something girls at the table next to us made gagging sounds and rolled their eyes.

I was surprised by how angry this made me. I wanted to go over to them, in all their young, hopeful glory, and say, “THIS IS NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE! This family has been through the wars! We have survived the near death of that sweet girl over there, but our marriage didn’t survive the post-traumatic stress after her disease and surgery, and maybe it was long broken before that, but GODDAMMIT we are here today of all days and eating Pad Thai and Cashew Chicken and it’s a FUCKING MIRACLE!”

Instead I swallowed a spring roll and turned to the girl one. “How about after dinner we go see Dad’s place?” And that’s what we did. Except when we got to the corner, I made an excuse about having to buy cat food and took the boy one to the store with me while the girl one skipped down towards the beach where Dad now lived.

“We’re going to buy him some groceries. Just enough so that he has breakfast tomorrow.” Was it generosity? Was it needing to be the smug person on the high road/horse? Old habits die hard, and I always took care of Theo. It’s what my mom raised me to do. So we showed up, the boy one and me, with a bag full of a lesson. It was the kindest way I could imagine beginning this new life.

“This is so WEIRD!” the girl one exclaimed again. It was SUPER WEIRD. Seeing our stuff in a new home, breaking up a life woven together. If you want to destroy my sweater, pull this thread as I walk away.

He came back to the house, I forget why. The shock of bare spots on walls where his concert posters had been removed. The absolute gut-wrenching blow as I walked into our bedroom to nothing but dust bunnies. I’d told him to take the bed, the mattress, the sheets. I didn’t want his energy on anything. I dragged the old futon mattress up from the main floor and plopped it down. When the kids saw this, they asked for their mattresses to be pulled in too. They flanked me, in a makeshift camp, little refugees ready to make a new life, but needing the safety of the maternal womb for the transition.

They saved me. For two weeks I destroyed my back on that floor, but they saved me. I was forced to go to bed early, forced to not cry myself to sleep, forced to accept that I was surrounded by a great love that had been born of the very person who broke my heart.

Exhale.

They are the bright spot in my day. They are the reason Theo and I are still friends. They are my reason for everything (except maybe this writing here, which I’m not sure is sustainable). They are the reason I only moderately fell apart in this last year. They are why I keep going. They saved me then and they continue to save me, one day at a time. I hope I am able to give them even a fraction of what they give me.

I’m not ready to date with my heart just yet, but spending time with Ali, I realize that how my future partner will gel with my kids is critical in my decision-making. For now, Ali is just for me and I don’t know that this will change ever. Ali… sigh… that’s a tale for another post.