At some point

It's been a year.  A whole stinkin' stupid year.  Fabulous things happened.  Maddening, devastating things happened.

My brain takes breaks from trying to "figure it out" more often lately than it used to.  Still, in the time that has passed, I have taken on and considered all the aspects and sides of my scenario.  I've sat myself right down in his and her ripe, nasty, selfish tennis shoes, looked out onto this shit storm and found traces of empathy.  It's hard to see at first, and it only shows up when a certain light hits it- and then don't look away, or you'll lose it.  Inevitably the inner examination arrives at our children and empathy becomes a foreign language.

I lay on my bed last night, the perfect pillow combo under my dome and a cat curled up at my shoulder- in short I was peaceful.  In the other room one of the kids turned over and I heard the bed knock the wall.  That's all it took, well, all it takes.  The thought of my perfect child ignited a downward spiral: I think, "I could never, ever willingly leave my children."  It would take a police effort to keep me away five days a week.  I can't be empathetic when he calls midweek because he "misses them".  No shit you miss them.  They are fantastically funny and brilliant, they love deeply and completely, they are a beautious blending of two glorious people.  Of freaking course you miss them.  But he chose this.  Even after all the conversations of the implications (and those prophecies coming true), he chose it.

It just freaking blows MY MIND.  And still, here I am, loving the crap out of him.  It's something that has been ingrained into my being for thirteen years.  I have no plans to stop.  I don't want to participate in the stereotypical, adverse, "my stupid ex" conversations.  I want to share a big house with our kids and live in separate wings.  I never want to shuffle them about.  I want us to recreate what this shittiness usually looks like and turn it into something less awful.  Why not?  Well, my bitterness and self-loathing and resentments and suffocating layers of failure are a road block.  I can go days ignoring it and speaking new truths about myself.  Every fourth day or so I get swept up in heavy storms that batter and beat at my heart.

I have this weird weekend life now.  It is so far away from my life.  It's foreign.  Yes, it involves a boy.  The arrangement is largely fun and takes me away from the Mom person I know myself as and throws me into a world where we can go anywhere and do anything, even if the sun has already gone down.  If I don't think about it too much it is fun.  I'm sure you've guessed that I am not very successful at quieting my brain chatter.  The result is always, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!".  It usually hits me after I find myself looking at myself, like hovering just outside of me I get this wide view.  It's jarring and so completely off track from the vision I'd had for my life that I break. I feel my insides curling in, my nose tingles and my eyes get hot and blurry.  I feel like a sandbag was dropped on my head and shoulders.  Every little thing screams, "This is not right.  You are in the wrong place.  Just get up and leave.  Go home.  Repair your family."  As if that's even a possibility.  It's difficult for me to admit out loud that I want him back.  Being together is easy, we fit well and comfortably together.  The awkward and difficult personality differences are known and navigable.  I can count on us being in alignment with nearly everything.

Ha- I just looked up and read the little sign I printed for my desk:
"At some point you just have to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening."