This One is for Recovering Jezebel – http://recoveringjezebel.blogspot.com/

http://recoveringjezebel.blogspot.com/

Hey Recovering Jezebel,

This one is for you. I read your blog. Often I check it. I’m happy when you have a post. I’m awed by your honesty and your writing. Your pain is wrenching. This has been a hard week for me. I have cried more this week than I have in a long time for many reasons. I’ll get to that. But what I also did which I didn’t always do in my life is remind myself to be grateful and mindful for what is going on even as I am crying and being sad or working on accepting that I am sad. And you wrote a post once about all you did this semester and how it may not have been a big deal for others but it was big for you. And what I did when I felt it was hard was different, and what I’m patting myself on the back for and feeling proud and grateful for isn’t the same, but the refrain, in my mind, in my center, “Hey, this IS something” is a gift not to turn on myself for feeling bad. And, a little bit I have learned that from you who goes on writing, grading and eating and feeding the cat and figuring out what to do next (medicine, geography, all ways) so thank you.

I am feeling quite accomplished for getting a live tree AND getting lights on it AND decorating it and sitting in the dark with child with all but the x-mas lights on. Last year I PROMISED we’d do some outside lights and so, I twirled some around our bannister on a 15 degree day and they are kind of pathetic but they are on and they greet us when we come home and they light up the porch and that IS something. Child collected morning glory seeds while I strung lights. We wrapped gifts and we didn’t blow our budget and I stuck to only buying for children except my mother and step father and Nana/Grampish neighbors and child’s teacher. HUGE. Not easy. Not fun. But done. And I told ex I’ll be stuffing my own stocking and he can do the same and we can even buy our own gifts (and tag them from one another) because I can’t stuff tic tacs in his favorite color, pens that are extra fine and the ones that I’ve hunted for 19 years and I can’t not unless I say, “I’m not,” because we aren’t married any more and it just hurts. So I’m delighting in stuffing my own stocking and that is a metaphor on so many levels! “He” is getting me a composter, but not any one, but a white ceramic on the counter one that looks pretty and has biodegradable bags because I have serious guilt over the broccoli stumps and apple cores and limp lettuce pieces I don’t like collecting fruit flies and stank but which which I can’t get out to easily in the cold to empty. And pot holders, with a pattern I adore, and an egg timer because my last one (a great tool for any parent to have us ‘race’ the timer to get out the door and to school on time” and it’s not hurtful or cruel, or habitual as it was last year.

And I told ex I would prefer not to exchange cards and sentiments. I can’t do the, “You’re so fab and deserve only the best,” and then unwrap four tons of wire off toys or crafts with child. I also can’t skip the pain and go right to the “it’s all good,” so I said, not, “You suck,” or “You can’t get me a card,” but only, “I’m not comfortable exchanging those intimate sentiments and am not buying a card. I’d like it if I didn’t get one either as I can’t read it that morning.” His response, via email was, “Cool” and then a few days later, “So what are we doing or not doing on Christmas?” I just said, “We’re letting child know we’re still a family, we’re in a different form, but we’re stuffing our own stockings and buying our own gifts and each getting some for child,” and let it go.

I did not call him yesterday morning when I had a dream that I was walking towards him and I couldn’t move. I looked down and an Indian saint was on the ground holding my ankle and he said, “You can’t go. There’s nothing you can do.” I got on the ground and sobbed and sobbed and said, “I’m going to explode tears,” and kept saying to anyone I bumped into, “I’m going to explode tears,” and then I’d sob and sob and sob and people held me and said, “It’s o.k. It’s really o.k.,” and I kept saying, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I know it’s been a while. I’m so sorry. I’m doing o.k. most of the time. But my heart hurts,” and I didn’t call to tel my ex how much my heart is broken, how much I trusted, how much I see I trusted too much and how I feel apologetic to my own heart for damning it for being so vulnerable, for clinging so tight to someone’s regard, for thinking myself the most independent woman on earth and really not knowing my own center or strength or spunk.

And finally, today, when I had the stomach bug and came home and got sick in the toilet in unpleasant fashion child was dear and caring and tender and funny. “The smell is spreading…” And she called, “Mama is sick,” as I can count the times I have been that kind of sick which luckily is rare for me. Well, ex on the phone is SO SORRY and is put on speaker and says, “Can I do anything you poor thing. Do you need anything?” He’s coming to pick up child as it’s their night and was switched this week (thank you merciful creator because I was wrecked with chills and nausea. Anyhow, I say, “Well if you wouldn’t mind some water, just some water would be great.” He says, “Sure, no problem. Do you need medicine? Ginger ale?” I say, “Water. Just water would be great.”

I get child all packed with Mama bear and phone and computer (as his are all off-limits) and he shows up and I’m on the couch. He stands in front of me and says, “Do you need anything?” and I say, “Just the water,” and he stares at me blank. Nothing. No word. No recall. No remembering that he was going to get it. He doesn’t say, “I forgot,” or, “I can get it.” Just silence. “Did you forget?” I ask though I guess that’s a no-brainer and he says, “I guess I did.” Child says, “Do you want me to fill a water bottle?” “I’ll be fine,” I say but really what I am thinking is, It would be kinder if you got on the phone, in private, and not in front of child and said, “I can’t be bothered to get you water bitch and I don’t care if you are sick. Don’t breathe on me when I show up.” Instead, they leave. I wave. I sob and sob and sob. Was it too much to ask? Was it a passive aggressive thing? Is he relapsed because this level of distractedness is not new but now I read it different and it causes concern for the mama in me. He’s got his head TOTALLY elsewhere. Maybe he just forgot. Maybe he didn’t want to get it. Maybe he was on the phone. And it really doesn’t matter. I sobbed out tears and got more dehydrated but made tea and just realized, “He was so much talk and so little delivering” and FOR SO LONG that was o.k. with me. That behavior was not new at all. In the past, with love, I’d let it pass or ask him to go get some or think he must be so stressed to forget. But it just doesn’t matter. I loved his concern and care and the idea that I was being loved up by a devoted partner even if in the actual moments it was not so great. I didn’t know. That’s on me. That’s what I am realizing and seeing and I just didn’t see it at all before. I did not. I meant and felt, “I didn’t know a thing,” but you know what I KNEW the distractedness but in the past if I complained he would say, “Why be so negative? Focus on what goes well,” and I’d feel bad for being critical or being disappointed. This time I was sad and so I cried and I called my sister and said, “It might be the fever a little but I’m so sad and it’s over… WATER!”

She was so kind, “Ugh,” she said when I said he forgot because she also knows it takes a lot for me to ask for anything from anyone and she was kind and listened and heard how it hurt in all the variations (relapse? how much is he paying attention to child? the road? is it shame that makes him not say,  ‘I’m sorry I forgot,’ or maybe he’s not sorry or he didn’t forget) and on and on.

So, later, my mother calls and offers to come over for the weekend to help with child. This is huge and I appreciate it and if I am feverish tomorrow I may say, “Yes, please.” But she also says she dreamt about my ex and his long hair and beard and saying to him, “You aren’t cool and hip and funky, you are just too lazy to groom and take care of your hair and beard.” And I just laughed. Of all the things my mother could say it just struck me as funny and in the dream he says, “You can’t say that to me” and she says, “I’m saying it,” and though I’m sick and sick to my stomach this just strikes me as hilarious and ridiculous. And I feel loved by my mother and by my sister and proud that I have a kid who cares if I’m sick and that someone offers to drive child to school and that I have friends who care when I say, “being sick and single sucks the most,” and I tell my cat how glad I am that she is around because I feel lonely to be feverish and with chills and home alone but I’m a freakin adult and it’s o.k. and it is.

So, back to recovering jezebel, some weeks are better than others, some days and some moments, even 2000 posts out and two years in and I hope that’s not terribly depressing but it does shift and change and we are always learning from ourselves, our reactions and even other total strangers on blogs in other states with other stories and with their own challenges and joys but that part is heartening to me. In the dream with the Indian saint or mystic or whatever I’m on the phone with a total stranger saying, “It’s hard to lose someone to AIDS,” and that person and I shared that experience and I think it’s from blog world – the anonymous web of others who get it or aspects even though they and we are strangers but that thread is tangible and palpable and during a sorry and sobbing time I can hear the refrain, “Well it’s a big deal for me,” and understand and know and feel I understand and feel affirmed as well. And that’s nice. And I’m grateful.

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