enough, again

I enjoy my lawyer. She is catholic, has two kids the same age as mine, doesn't mind if I swear, and is simply brimming with common sense. She gave me a hard talk two days ago about letting go, about recognizing when plans change radically, about making choices in an unfair situation that aren't based on emotion but on a recognition of reality. Also, she is big on cost-benefit analyses.

So I need to take a few of these early morning writing sessions to think. Everybody already knows that being left out of the blue for another (younger, I can't let that one go) woman when you have two young kids, one of whom is frequently sick, and when you've worked all your life, but never at a full-time job with benefits, is going to be hard. Everybody already knows it's unfair. Everybody already knows that you're really sad, and now that the first month has passed, veering more toward really angry. Everybody already knows this story because it's happened to them, or their mother, or their best friend from college. It's not new or unique or even particularly awful, relatively speaking, although it feels that way to me most of the time.

But there are things that not everybody may know, such as the fact that we have a new kitten! And while kittens are always hilarious, ours is extra hilarious (probably because we are in sore need of extra hilarity around here). Yesterday Cleo ran to the window and began barking in her Big Dog voice at a little weiner dog walking by with its owner outside. Tinkerbell the 4-lb kitten shot from the living room to peer out the window beside Cleo, just in case she needed back-up.

Oh, the amusing ferocity!

And have I mentioned that when she stands to look out the window she stands just like a little meerkat? She crosses her front paws in front of her chest, like a girl at her first dance, wearing a dress without pockets and unsure of where to put her hands and still look lady-like. Then she swivels her head back and forth with a serious expression, because that is the great thing about cats. They always look serious, no matter what. It's why we project so much dry humor on them, I guess.

It's probably also why Annika keeps trying to dress her up, because Cleo just looks pitiful when Annika dresses her up. It's hard to imagine a princess with sad sad eyes and droopy ears, but our kitten makes for fine angry royalty.

Frankie was excited about getting a kitten because she was too little to participate in the naming of Cleo, so the puppy-naming was all Annika's choice. Cleo was part of a stray litter of puppies, and so she didn't even have a name (besides maybe The Black One) when we got her, but the kitten had been kept at the Humane Society for two months before we adopted her, so they had given her a name already. Frankie knew that she could change the name, especially given that cats are not especially attached to such nonsense things as "names," but the kitten the girls chose was named "Tinkerbell" at the shelter, and Frankie decided that that was actually her perfect name.

I'm not sure if Frankie only took this route so that she could later argue that she hasn't technically gotten to name a pet yet, and so she is still owed that right in the grand cosmic accounting of fairness that is continually updated by my two children.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what she did now that I think about it. I'm constantly suspecting that Frankie is smarter than I am, but don't tell her because she suspects it, too.

So, yes, we have a kitten and she is adorable, and now everybody knows, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What I don't know at this point, and maybe nobody else knows, either, is why this has happened. I mean, yes, there's the story and all, with its awfulness and betrayal, yada yada yada. But there has to be more to it than that; there has to be something I did or didn't do and that I am having trouble facing. And I'm not sure at this point if it is even worth facing or not. That would have been the hard work of marriage counseling or therapy, but now I have the hard work of divorcing without too much anger because we have kids, and recriminations are not helpful in that case.

Tonight I sat with Frankie and we started to read "Mom's House, Dad's House: for Kids" together. We didn't get farther than the first pages, where there was a pencil-drawing of a house being split apart with a dark rain cloud hovering over it. Of course there was a path leading to two houses with the sun peeking through, and then to another two houses with the sun shining fully down.

I was expecting logical Frankie to say, "Wait, you mean we're going to have four houses now?" But instead she teared up a little and said, "I don't like the pictures in this book."

So we put the book away and I said, "OK. Let's talk, pumpkin." And I promised her that she could ask me anything, and that I would not cry because I was feeling better and stronger now, but that it was OK for her to cry because being sad is a part of life. I told her that maybe I would cry again some other time, but that would be OK, too, because stuff that is hard just makes you feel like crying, but you keep going and then you're through the other side.

Then we talked. And I realized how much it meant to her that her daddy had come tonight to her holiday program, to watch her be a Sugar Plum Fairy. And I had to admit that some day she will realize what a big deal it is that he agrees to wear shorts and a polo shirt in order to be an official at her swim meets.

So I told her that this was not all her daddy's fault. That it was true that it was a big surprise to me, and that I didn't know that daddy was unhappy with me, but that I did some stuff wrong, too. Being Frankie, she asked for specifics. Of course she did.

It was not my favorite conversation in the world, but Frankie went to sleep more easily tonight. Cost-benefit analysis: Win (my lawyer really is a smart woman).  And it makes sense: no kid wants a Bad Guy for a dad, or a Poor Victim for a mom.

Enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been going back through my entries, trying to figure out what happened and when. I don't think I'll find it there, but I've been reminding myself of some things I had forgotten that I knew. Like that I once knew how to grab moments, and magnify and expand them until they were more than just a moment, until they stood for a decision about everything that was to follow. Even if you forget that decision, and have to keep making it over and over again.

Enough.

 

Comments

[liz]

You write so beautifully.

[Moreena]

Thanks, Liz.
I'm not sure how helpful it is that I'm trying to figure things out by reading what I've written. It seems a little weird, but then again trying to recall conversations or things I did just by pulling them from my memory isn't exactly a sure-fire strategy, either.

I read that entry I linked, that I wrote back when Annika was sick and waiting for yet another transplant, and I think that I was trying to say something about valuing what is, rather than what you are hoping for. I think it was also about holding on to optimism, and recognizing that you can be happy even during a generally sad time.

But then I also read the title and think, "What, exactly, was enough?" It could also be read as a woman declaring emotional independence, which is not exactly a bad thing. But it's a fine line when you're in a marriage. A little neediness is not a bad thing, either.

It's weird to analyze myself like I'm a character. It's weird to think that I thought I was writing one thing, but maybe there was something else there that I didn't recognize at the time.

OK, yes, it's weird and navel-gazey.

[Mike]

WIGD (my new abbreviation for "When I Got Divorced", the phrase I seem to start all my comments with), my friends would respond to my "what did I do wrong" navel gazing with the list of all the things that she did wrong. My response was that I couldn't control her behavior, but that I could control my own, and I needed to know what mistakes I made so I could avoid them next time.

My dad, of course, had the killer reply: "Yep. You'll make all new ones that you never saw coming." Love my dad.

[Sharon]

I'm in the middle of making the same decision that I've made countless times before. Or not. And then what?

Patti Griffin is one of my all-time favorites. Found "Burgundy Shoes" on the CD I bought not long ago. Now I will think of you and your girls when I hear that song ~

[Kyla]

We all make mistakes, every day. Somehow, I can't imagine that whatever mistakes you made compare to the huge one he made at the end. So I wouldn't spend too much time trying to figure it all out...though I imagine it is hard to stifle that impulse to find some fixable answer for why this happened.

You are a beautiful writer.

[Ugg boots online]

The link to www.lovejapan.org.uk on your homepage seems to be broken.

[kathy a.]

oh, yes -- this is exactly the time to be spammed.

[Andrea]

I went through the same thing, for years, trying endlessly to figure out what I did that "made" my ex behave the way he did. In the end, I decided that I hadn't done a damned thing. He's an independent person, he made the choices he made independently of me and my behaviour, and nothing I could have done differently would have significantly altered those choices. Blaming myself, or looking for ways to 'take responsibility,' was a way of mitigating the sheer terror of thinking that maybe I had no control over whether or not that might happen to me again (and again). I needed to have control; therefore I needed to be *responsible.* Even when I wasn't.

Some of what I learned during that period turned out to be useful. A lot of it wasn't. One of the ways I know how much progress I've made is that I can look back and say, "Yep, that happened. I got utterly taken. I might be utterly taken again." I wanted there to be "more to it than that." Ultimately, there wasn't. He was who he was, who he'd always been, and he continued being that person. I just hadn't seen him clearly.

There's a lot more that I'd like to say that I don't think would necessarily be best put here, but know that I am thinking of you. And your kids are lucky to have you as a mom. With the thought you are putting into your decisions and the determination you have to consider their best interests first, I know they will come out of this thriving and happy.

[Mike]

I got married right out of school, and divorced at 30. A casual friend asked me at a party, "So did you learn anything?"

I laughed and said, "Yeah. Don't get engaged to 19 year olds. They don't know who they are yet." His body language completely changed, and he excused himself not long after. I found out later that he had just gotten engaged. To a 19 year old.

They were married just over a year.

[Diane Dawson]

Yeah. That one big mistake at the end transcends all others. Had a friend who cheated on his wife. Quite spectacularly. She was the bread winner and he went on a spending spree with his new beloved.

Anywaaayyy.... when he started (trying) to defend himself he'd say, "You have know idea what it was like to be married to X. There were other problems before."

Um. Sure. But the one you caused at the end? Transcends all others.

Now that I think of it... 2 couples I know. Huh. And kids involved in both.