Tag: grief

Humanity

Boating, messing about with boats…

Lovelovemotherexpletive

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I like to mess around with the algorithms a little bit. like, a post wherein boating is discussed ad nauseam and yet boating is not the topic whatsoever. Do you think it possible that I could draw masses of boating enthusiasts here without a single fact or thought process about boats? sailors maybe, but not the actual fiber-glass boat or dingy of my dreams. . . we’re rowers here, not motorheads… or they are, at least, my in-law family.  i love them to bits and pieces, fully and whole heartedly.

and it can twinge, sometimes, that they are separated from me by my ex. i don’t mean that he bars us from seeing one another or anything like that… its their love for him that is unwavering and my loss of love for him that is the bar. the separation.

moments of awkward, information passed accidentally, stories told of places i can no longer go.

sigh. bridges, unburnt but barred by time and experience.

and i would love to be gossiping to my mother in law about all my men.  she would love to hear facts about them… and i’d love for her to meet them, when i meet a good and fascinating one.  and, with the right attitude, they are all fascinating.

because people just ARE.

 

as fascinating as boat enthusiasts, i swear.

*cracking up. . .

Divorce, Humanity

Advice For Women after Divorce

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Seriously.  There needs to be more free and unrelated to me advice systems out there.  I mean, go google it. No, don’t.. I’m just kidding.  Its a mess.

Get a life. Get a lawyer, again. Get your nails done. God will forgive you.  Self-care, damnit. Ladies night. kids are resilient. Worry.  Drink. Be true and Authentic.  Don’t say anything to anyone, you might damage the kids. Screw him. Preserve the ideal for the kids. Don’t cry in front of them.  Cry in front of them. Don’t drink, but if you do, don’t tell anyone.  Get a lawyer, again. Don’t feel intimate with them anymore, don’t pretend you knew each other, ever.

sigh.  damn. there’s a lot.  I can’t ‘keyword optimize’ because i hate that shit. i can barely capitalize. there is so much, and every single couple who divorces, and woman who is part of that, is unique. so a bath every day for the first four months worked for me, but won’t work for you.  yes, yes, this is my bath.

tiles window bathroom marble
Photo by William LeMond on Pexels.com

No, no its not.

Numbing is great, like , fucking great.  but doesn’t actually help with grief, or devastation. its still there, lurking. the only way through it is THROUGH it.  if you put it off, its just waiting for you. might as well hit it with a bat again and again… get the mugger out of the freaking equation.

so says i.

my kids were freaked out by my bathing so often. but it was so warm. and solitary. and i was clean.

which is more than i am today.

Divorce, Humanity

Truth and Baggage

Lovelovemotherexpletive

0901181741aSometimes I can see clearly that my ex is making up a story about me., making me into something that I am not, for the purposes he believes in, whatever they are.  His treatment of me varies according to a story he is living.  I feel good when I can see this clearly, it removes me from the scene almost entirely.  (emotionally speaking)

but one of my biggest fears? like, the secret, whisper in the dark fear?

am i making him into something he isn’t? have i turned him into a narcissistic egomaniac for my own purposes? have i been in that for a dozen years?

i doubt myself. primarily because he has made me doubt myself for a dozen years.  Because i don’t have any idea or hold on what was true and what is true, anymore, about him.

and so i let it go, try to let go of the fear of it.

I wrote somewhere else lately that “I trust that there is more goodness than anything else”…

and I do believe that… and if I could believe it applied to my ex I feel like I could really let go of somethings… and my load would be so much lighter.

You know all that nonsense about letting go to move on…? yeah, that .

and then… there’s this: am i really working on forgiving hIM before I even look at forgiving myself? AGAIN? AGAIN?

making him more important than me?!

and so if i turn from that silly froth, i get this:

I Am more Goodness than anything else. 

So there is that.

 

Divorce, Humanity

Trust & Lying Liars and the Lies they tell..

Lovelovemotherexpletive

(thank you al franken, even if you’re an abuser, because i saying lying liars everytime i say either word. and i hope you are not. sincerely, kate.)

***

sometimes the wind blows through you.

you hear something, and the world stills.. and you become glass … one of those beach glass furies of shape, trying to encapsulate what you have just heard… make it less monumental / magical, or trying to fit it IN to your limited worldview…

fail.

when someone presents you with a lie, in the form of the truth… it is a gross violation and can devastate a person.

you think i jest? something so simple could have upended you? what?! but no, listen.

Your mate says to you, “I did not XXXXX last night. You are overthinking it.”

Your mate DID in fact XXXXX last night.  Thinking is unnecessary.

When this is repeated hundreds of time, you do grow to doubt yourself.  after all, this is someone you love.  they couldn’t possibly be lying this many times, right to your face, right?

It can deeply mess with your sense of self-trust. and trust in general, and it takes a while to unwind it from your internally glowing self.  in fact, it takes more than three years, in my case, and i’m working on it pretty regularly.

lots of questions, like ‘how could i have done this for so long? aren’t i smarter than this? why didn’t i see this for what it was? what is it about me that allowed this to be my life with my mate?  why didn’t i try to break this ? why didn’t i demand he get help? why did i ever doubt myself, like even that first time?

AAARGH.  thank god i swear so much in real life, its a real steam-thrower.

In my case specifically, I really think its a mindfuck that comes hand in hand with alcohol.  I don’t know why or how it works, but i’ve never heard of trust and alcohol being a longlasting bond.  Have you? Do you ?

FUUUUG.

 

Humanity

Loose-ing…damn damn damn.

Lovelovemotherexpletive
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Because everyone else in the picture was sitting cute and pretty and ‘posed’… my girl… she is just my girl…

EMPTY NEST SYNDROME?

My littlest starts school in a couple weeks. I’m not even going to sit here and figure out how many days that is, because it is giving me agita, and i am in great denial.  (agita is totally inappropriate word choice, its giving me full blown avoidance techniques… and i’ve been painting my nails like four times a day.)

I’ve been a stay at home mom for ten years. I have now divorced. Last year I worked in a lovely lovely job at my littlest’s preschool, so I was with her full-time even amidst the work.

and now?

Home alone. and unemployed. and so much time to miss her.

The boys have been gone for so many more years.  The next in line is entering fifth grade and the first is in 8th.  I’ve had time to get used to missing them.  But this? The last?

Oh my good god.  I don’t really know what I am going to do.

and because i have been writing, and figuring out my emotional upheavals and past issues, i know that i am having a lot of grief about my dad lately. and boy, if that isn’t an untapped reservoir, and intimately tethered to my decision to get a break in my marriage… (tether, tether, tether… its everywhere… even in this new old man who likes tethers!! oye, just wait…)

there is just a lot of grief going on, and its a murky chocolate lake.

I feel powerful to have realized the grief of losing my dad has been so connected to my decision to recognize my marriage for what it was.

It is powerful to experience a change in seasons of womanhood in letting my littlest go into full-time school… I’m no longer a stay-at-home mom, I’m just unemployed. (!) and the next stages for my children and I are radically diaper-free, and momentous. and so enormous as they navigate a larger world with just the tools they’ve seen used.

and i’m proud of the tools they’ve seen me using.  grief and sadness and anger and confusions… no quick fixes and no tools of avoidance.  (beyond nail polish… )

i laugh a hell of a lot more than i ever did before. There’s a hell of a lot of power moving around over here.

Let yourself be stained with light, babes. as you navigate the murk.