Muchness and Light

Scratchin' and survivin'.... Hangin' in and jivin'.

I wrote my last blog post four days before an unexpected first date.

That was eight months ago.

I have been crafting this post for weeks or longer, debating and processing what I wanted to say and what the implications were for me and others. I have thought about who would see this—those loyal readers who’ve been with me from the very beginning, the new friends I have picked up in the 10 years since I started writing again, the people who were removed from my life by their own accord or by mine, those who I know still lurk from time to time for whatever reasons.

Like so many others, I met him online. In the aftermath of my last breakup, I spent some time with some of my girls and debriefed, both before and after Achilles’ tendon surgery. I wanted to have some fun and see what the dating landscape might look like, for whenever I decided I was ready to spend time with another man. I needed to heal, both physically and emotionally. I was still working and raising two young men and in the middle of grad school.

But there was this smile, this tilt of the head that intrigued me. It was simply lovely. Candidly bashful but brazenly joyful and mischievous. Real, complicated emotion captured at just the right angle. Just the right moment.

We realized quickly we had mutual friends, people I’d gone to high school with in Alabama in the late 80s. Similar sense of humor. Incessant, funny, deep, honest conversation started immediately.

The day after I wrote my last blog post.

I was still in a splint and on a blue knee scooter with a basket, but we both wanted to meet. Soon.

That was eight months ago.

Neither of us could have foreseen this, though I suppose no one ever does. But our respective breakups happened almost simultaneously. There was no intention of becoming really involved with this man, and I know he had no intention of jumping into another relationship.

Woobiee. My manister. He’s warm and fuzzy and comfortable. He is strong and supportive. He is present and mindful and considerate. He has done his work—really, with a professional!—and he is wholly encouraging of my continuing my work. He is brilliant and funny and caring. He is gregarious and generous. He is complicated and open and honest even when it’s difficult for him or for me. He is respectful of my boundaries, and I am encouraged by his words and his actions to defend them when necessary, without fear of recrimination.

He did what I asked him to do—which is the same thing I asked of myself—to be open to the possibility, truly willing to accept the consequence of each other, good or bad.

That was eight months ago.

I could gush ad infinitum about his qualities, and I share those words with him regularly. That’s not what this is about.

Muchness and Light was born out of my need to understand myself and to change. Ten years ago, I was unhappy and unhealthy and restless. I didn’t understand that my midlife crisis was beginning. To look back from the position of my life now, it’s startling to see the changes. I don’t know how 2010 Stephanie would feel about 2020 Stephanie and if she would have made the same choices, if she’d known what changes were coming.

Whatever intention I had then, I have achieved only a modicum of success by those standards. I did some writing. I saw some bands. I did a lot of therapy. I have been in and out of a string of relationships that became increasingly nuanced in their unhealthiness.

Whatever I hoped or planned for in 2010 and in the subsequent few years didn’t materialize in the ways I’d intended.

What I got was even better.

I have gotten two sons almost to adulthood. I have a close-knit core of friends who love me, and whom I adore, even when we can’t be together. I am six hours away from finishing my third college degree. I work at a job that I love, and I intend to add part-time teaching to my schedule as soon as graduate school is finished. I am in a relationship that is healthier and more secure than I have ever experienced.

From the very beginning of this process, I have written about how it’s all about the journey and not the destination. I was always open to the possibility of having my path twisted and turned in unexpected directions. I often chose the road less traveled, just to have something new to see along the way.

Above all else, I wanted to live an adventure. It didn’t matter the details, so long as I could talk to my friends and hang with my kids and listen to music and eat some good food and spend time with a romantic partner who offered reciprocity in care and honesty. Nothing ever has to be grand; I thrive on small moments strung together like colorful, random beads.

That journey took me in an unimaginable direction. When I started Muchness and Light, I desperately needed to hear my own voice. It was never public validation that I needed. Accolades and encouragement from others is always nice, but what I needed most was to know that I existed and had value. For a while, I searched for proof that I had value to others.

What I was really always looking for was the value I had to myself.

Over the last 10 years, I have struggled through the demise of my marriage, the financial and emotional aftermath of divorce, returning to college while working and raising two kids, health issues, and one unhealthy relationship after another. Sometimes I flailed and raged against the difficulty and the unfairness of it all, but I never stopped moving forward. Not once.

I still have days that I struggle. Life continues, and my journey is ongoing.

But I am content. Most days, I’m happy. Some days are darker than most. But I am generally content in my life. I am still defiant in being exactly who I am, but it’s no longer in reaction to other people or their bullshit. I am no longer screaming to hearing my own echo, just to know I exist.

Woobiee has admonished me from the beginning to be present, to avoid comparing the past to the present or looking too far outside the immediate moment. As I’ve discussed before, creating expectation spawns the possibility of disappointment, and I still believe that to be true. But expending significant energy on extensive emotional contingency plans is exhausting, and Woobiee makes it safe for me to relax and enjoy myself. He does not make me happy—that’s wholly on me—but he supports and encourages my happiness to the best of his ability, with as much effort as I expend in supporting and encouraging his.

Most days, I am centered and Self-led. I am integrated and whole, better able to handle stressors and insecurities. Not perfect, but better. Self-aware and Self-actualized and Self-controlled.

One of the things I have struggled with is how to handle Muchness and Light.

This blog has been a huge part of my journey, though admittedly decreasingly so over the past couple of years. As my work and school took a different direction, I turned to this outlet less and less. I am no less- Self-analytical—perhaps even more so—but I can hash out those deep explorations with an audience of one or two who know me intimately; I no longer need to hear myself to know I exist.

 I am a Real Girl.

So I have decided to put this on hold indefinitely. I will likely leave something up for a while, at least until I can get my files downloaded and park my domain names and figure out what I want to leave publicly available. For a while, I felt as if I were letting down 2010 Stephanie and 2013 Stephanie and any number of internal parts and iterations that have depended on this medium to be heard.

But I realized they don’t need that anymore, either. Muchness and Light was an invaluable tool, and it helped me to find the voice I lost over the years. It helped me learn to listen to myself and to advocate for myself, even and especially when there is no one else who will advocate for me. The support is always nice, but it’s ultimately Me who is responsible for Me, no matter when or where I am.

I wanted a life with no regrets. That’s impossible to achieve, really. To be wholly human is to be flawed; it is how we react to the consequences of our flaws that defines us.

But to be comfortable in my own skin is blessing. It is a merciful gift that I have given to myself. All I could tell my earlier Selfs is that it gets better, to just keep going.

I intend to still be going for a while, just not this direction.

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me and supported me and challenged me. You have been an integral part of my journey. Some of you always will be; some of you may never have a place in my life again, nor mine in yours.

Wherever your journey takes you, I wish you well. I wish you good health and peace and the exact amount of adventure that you need. I wish you contentment and love.

Just as importantly, I wish the same things for myself, and I intend to do everything in my power to make that happen.

I deserve no less.

- StephQJ 5/16/2020

 

 

Everything has changed. It's a different kind of Christmas.

The first year DH and I were separated, I couldn’t stand being at home for Christmas. The boys and I packed up all our gifts and drove three hours to Alabama, back to family and where DH and I had grown up and where the boys had been born, locking our jaws tightly on high-held heads and got through our first Christmas as a family of three. The second year, I couldn’t stand to drag out the Christmas ornaments we’d collected as a family for years, so the boys and I made our own decorations that year. The court-mandated visitation schedule had begun, and Max and Tricky spent the first half of their Christmas holiday with their dad and his then-girlfriend. When they came home on Christmas Eve, they were sugar-coated and excited, announcing that we would be doing Christmas Guatemalan-style! and opening gifts at midnight. I made breakfast at 2 a.m., and that was the last time both boys slept with me in my bed.

For the next three years, we incorporated Rango into our new tradition. He didn’t have fond Christmas memories from his own childhood, and he was amenable to adopting ours. The day of celebration and the celebratory menu changed, depending on the visitation schedule and on his food allergy. He refused to participate in our annual viewing of A Christmas Story, saying it reminded him of unhappy Christmases growing up in a dysfunctional family. He would game elsewhere, while Max, Tricky, and I piled on the couch and yelled lines at the television, like we’d created our own Rocky Horror Christmas Show.

This year, without Rango, we weren’t limited by his food allergies or his ghosts. When I casually asked the boys what they’d like to eat for middle-of-the-night breakfast, Max cried out and demanded Waffle House.

“It’s Christmas. They’ll be open.”

And this is how a new Christmas tradition was born.

Traditions are beautiful. They tie you to a shared past and anchor you in loving nostalgia. But they are not fully fixed and are open to adaptation, to making them contemporaneously cogent. Some changes are welcomed—a new baby, a new marriage, a new home—and some are not. Since my divorce, both of my grandmothers have passed away, and childhood memories of being at their houses for the holidays are forever frozen in time. While the respective families have worked to create new memories and new traditions, it is bittersweet to conjure those last Christmases with my grandmothers.

I know many families who are creating new traditions this year. New babies make the holidays seem so much brighter. The loss of mothers and children and beloved family members can blur the holiday lights with slow, hot tears. But another Christmas, another new year, is coming and going, and how it is marked is completely up to them.

This is the last Christmas I know for sure that Max will be home. My baby will be graduating high school soon, and he will begin the slow embark on his own adult life. Eventually he will establish his own traditions and schedule that may not include me or his dad or his brother, not in the ways it has through his childhood. He will always be here in some way, but I don’t know how many more times I will get to hear the cacophony of my little boys parading down the hall to open gifts, or the sound of wrapping paper being ripped and tossed at light speed, or the boyish squeal of delight at having received just what they wanted.

“I’ll always come home…. I have to get my presents!”

“But you may be at your girlfriend’s parents’ ski retreat in Aspen,” I retorted.

“Yay. More presents for me,” Tricky chimed in.

But even when they are grown and bringing their babies home to create new memories at Sass’s house (yes, we’ve already agreed that Sass is the likely grandma name), Christmas at midnight—even if it’s on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Day or by phone—is something the boys and I can always share. Waffle House is always open; middle-of-the-night hashbrowns can come any day we like.

We were surprised to find our local Waffle House half-filled with grown families, dressed in spirited dress wear, as if they’d come after midnight mass. Two were apparently regulars who’d come to share a meal and bring a gift for their regular server, who hugged each of them and wished them a merry Christmas. Our new tradition of leaving a generous tip for our 1 a.m. server wasn’t original, but it did help to anchor us in this time, when it is still just Sass and her boys, for the inevitable coming change.

To everyone who is living tradition-challenging change this year, go with it. No matter the reason, find something in the newness in which to anchor yourself, and make it your own. There may be laughter or tears, unequivocal joy or breath-stealing heartache. Make them into what you need. They are yours to do with as you wish.

I wish you all love, light, and peace in this holiday season.

 

 

I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.

After a couple of intense days of more “discussion,” I took the boys out for the afternoon. It was a lovely afternoon with my men and Max’s girlfriend, Kiki, followed by a delicious if tense dinner with Rango. (The man is a great cook, by the way.) Rango and I excused ourselves to the talk privately, again going in circles about the same issues from the last few weeks. We disengaged, and he went to sleep on the couch while Max and I drove Kiki home.

On the way home, Max asked if Rango and I were going to break up.

“I don’t know,” I replied carefully.

“Well, I want you to do what’s best for you, of course, but I love him to death. I don’t want him to leave.”

And then I remembered exactly how much my relationship with Rango impacts so much more than just me and him.

By the time Rango came into our life, DH had been living out of state for four months. In the two years he’s been gone, he has seen the boys for 34 days. On average, they talk to him every 3-4 weeks. Max and Tricky have very little expectation of their father, other than 1) he will eventually show back up for a brief period and 2) he will buy them something when he does.

For Max, especially, this has been incredibly difficult. He has 4 extra years of memories with Dad that Tricky just doesn’t have. He was hit hardest by DH’s withdrawal. He is also the most willing to seek out a relationship with him, but he tends to do so guardedly, with hope but no anticipation of regular engagement. Having just turned 13 when the move happened, it came at a really tough stage in his life.

Enter Rango, who understood being a child of divorce, being the child of distant and difficult parents, and being a teenage boy in a way I just never will.

And while he fell for me, he also fell for my boys. They hit it off immediately, and he established a solid, loving, imperfect relationship with them that is entirely separate from me.

He did what a good stepdad should do.

They fight sometimes. They give each other shit. But he also brought Max out of his shell, showing him that it was okay to trust someone other than Mom. He is a steady, constant, loving, engaging influence on their lives.

And he does it because he loves them, not because he loves me. (Though he does, certainly.)

So is that a valid reason to stay in a relationship?

No, of course not. But it is a reason to re-evaluate the strengths and reasons for that relationship.

When I got divorced, DH and I blew the boys’ world apart. Max has said before that we are all happier and better off after the divorce, but it has also been really hard on my children. (see above) Rango is a large part of why and how it got better. (see above) And I do not want them to have to extricate another important, loving relationship from their lives. (see above)

So Rango and I have called a détente. We realized how scary this was for the boys, and that’s just not okay. We have issues to work through, but we have agreed to stop them in their tracks and move forward, together and carefully, because there is more at stake than just us.

I’ll be honest (surprise!): it still scares me. Choosing to rely on someone else means allowing for the possibility of disappointment. I’m not one to run from adversity, so why the hell would I choose to run now? In the end, the possible pay-off is much greater than the possible loss, and returns on investment don’t come when you buy high and sell low.

So there are still things to work on, and we will. This was a warning to us both, to remember the lessons of the past. I don’t want to repeat the past, good or bad, and it is unfair to compare Rango or myself to those times.

While I was out with the boys, Max bought me a gift. He saw it and thought of me, even before Kiki pointed out to him that it was Alice:

And on the drive home, he told me, “Just because something doesn’t go the way you want it to, that doesn’t mean it’s bad, even when it feels bad. You can’t appreciate what you have now if you didn’t experience the bad you had before.”

That boy is totally my kid.

Ain't these tears in my eyes telling you.

I posted a picture to Facebook a couple of days ago, of a cyan-tinted, forlorn, Bitstrips version of Stephanie that said, "Stephanie is feeling a blue."

Several friends immediately commented to inquire about what was wrong. Thankfully no one told me to cheer up. The girls reminded me to moving forward. A couple of people who've had their own sadness in recent months offered sympathetic well wishes.

One friend commented, "Just looking from the outside your future looks very bright."

He's right, of course, but that's exactly what has me in such a damn funk: the future.

I am finishing my last six weeks of my last semester at Georgia Piedmont Technical College. I am finishing my last two weeks as an (unpaid) intern with the ACLU of Georgia. I won this huge award and am trying to schedule the visit to pick up my new car, and I'm appearing fairly regularly as an ambassador for GPTC and for the Technical College System of Georgia.

Under all of that, there is a boatload of fear. I've explored the topic of fear—specifically why it's just stupid to let it hold you down—and I know this is one of those times when fear is not healthy. It's not a warning sign that something is about to eat me or that some berry will poison me. There's no imminent danger that demands I fight or flight.

But there is more uncertainty, more unknown. There is the choice to be made in the next few days of which bachelor's program I'll transition into (the private program that's close to home but only requires 42 hours to complete, or the public college that's an hour away and requires 67 hours to complete but at a third of the cost of the private school). There are the looming issues surrounding the still-jointly-held mortgage that has to be refinanced and the post-divorce credit score that's lower than the number we spend on groceries in a month. Credit takes time to rebuild, even without constant additional damage. There is the question of what will happen to my meager health insurance at the end of the year, tied up with political and financial issues that have embroiled Medicaid and the Obamacare that I still wouldn't be able to afford if I had to pay for it.

And all of that is directly impacted by my now two-month-long job search.

I was told by a hiring-type person (though it was an informational meeting, not an interview) that my qualifications are impressive.

"Until there's a job, my qualifications are worth the spare change in my sons' laundry," I retorted.

On paper, it does look impressive. Even I know that. I'm graduating with a 3.95 GPA from one of the only ABA-approved Paralegal Studies programs in Georgia. I'm a member of three honor societies, and I was named the 2015 Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership recipient by the Technical College System of Georgia, making me the top technical education student of 144,000 in the state. I interned with the ACLU of Georgia, having worked on substantive research issues for litigation and having extensively lobbied the Georgia General Assembly. I've had articles published on DivorcedMoms.com, MariaShriver.com, and The Huffington Post.

But there is no job.

Yes, I have applied for them. Yes, I have reached out to my extensive network of contacts to politely ask them to keep me in mind if they hear of possible positions. Yes, I have reached outside my own box, my own comfort zone, and looked beyond what I think I want to do, willing to consider positions that may be only mildly related if they may ultimately open the door to where I want to be.

But consistently, because I don't have my Bachelor's degree and because I don't have 3-5 years' experience as a paralegal, I am shut out of positions. My skills and talents don't matter, my hard work doesn't matter—it's that one piece of paper that holds me back. And because hiring processes are very often automated now, my application is very often automatically kicked out of employment systems for not quite meeting criteria that I know really doesn't impact what I know or how I perform.

So this starts the cycle of self-recrimination:

This is what you get for fucking it up and blowing your scholarship at 18.

But I wasn't ready. I didn't know how to be ready.

If I'd finished then I wouldn't have gotten married and have these boys now.

You promised these boys you'd be home with them in the afternoons.

I was at home with them for twelve years.

They misbehave, because you're not here like you should be to help them.

I'm doing the best I can. I'm showing them how to be adults and step up to their responsibilities, how not to run to the bottom of a bottle just to escape what is hard.

You're fucking up. You fucked up.

This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't fucked up your marriage.

You're a fuck up.

The constant anxiety has reached a frenzied peak, the likes of which I only saw during the worst of my divorce.

And isn't your divorce at the heart of this?

You fucked it all up.

On and on this cycle goes. My head is relentless sometimes. I get agitated and cranky. I do my best to power through and keep working—homework, household chores, job search, more homework—just to have a reprieve from the constantly animosity.

Lately I've not been very pleasant to be around. It's most likely the boys, or especially Rango, who takes the brunt of that.

I'm sorry.

You're just a fuck up.

You don't deserve him.

This is why DH left, because you're such a fuck up.

I'm sorry. I don't know what I did wrong this time, but I'm sorry.

Right now, it feels like every single nerve ending in me is exposed, peeking beneath the flay that still shimmers with fresh glitter.

 I do know that this will pass, in part because I'm writing about it and dealing with it in the most cathartic way I know how. I know that decisions will be made in a matter of days, which will bring some of the uncertainty to an end. I know that this specific cycle will end. After the last five years, I'm pretty sure there will be another one in the not-too-distant future. If there ever comes a time when everything is easy and I'm skating on rainbows, I have to assume it means I'm dead.

What I also know is that I am not alone in my propensity to tear myself down from the inside. I'm not the only maladaptive girl who sometimes clings tightly to the familiar shards of broken glass, simply because that's a pain you know, which feels far more manageable than the overwhelming uncertainty.

I questioned whether I should even post this publicly. I am representing my college and the system for the next ten months, and this is their shiny champion swearing loudly about her problems. But I'm hardly the only single welfare mom who's gone back to college in her 40s to take care of her family. I'm not the only non-traditional student who has to choke down her fear and step into the classroom and just get it done. I'm not the only one who has to keep fighting while backed into a corner.

If you're there, your shoulders pressing against the jagged walls, use it. For just a moment, let the walls support you and take a breath. Breathe past the tears and the fears. One breath. And then another. And then use those walls for leverage and come out kicking if you have to.

It is your fight. No one else can do this for you.

And no one else can do it for me.

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I'm not here for your entertainment.

Wonder if I'll ever bury the hatchet inside.

About the time Rango moved into the house with us, I started to realize that I was having a hard time with his past.

Due to the constraints of time and distance and the necessary logistics for the boys, he and I never spent a night in his apartment. He insists that the apartment was never more than a landing pad and that it never felt like home. While I do believe home for him became wherever I was within days of our meeting, part of me still feels like I never got the opportunity to... I don't know... mark that territory...?

It sounds stupid, I know. I feels stupid. Every time some ex comes up, I cringe.

I know part of my insecurity comes from my maladaptive attachment style, which was established in my childhood and then reinforced over and over and over (and over and over and over) in my adult dating life, especially in the two-and-a-half years after DH and I split. I'm a fragile cat, without a doubt, but so is Rango. Generally we are very careful and patient with one another's emotions, lovingly treading across the scarred battlefield of the other's heart.

But really, I have no idea why the hell I am so freaked out when some former relationship of his is mentioned. Because I took the brutally-open-and-honest approach while I was dating, Rango learned probably far more about me in those first days than maybe he wanted, especially my history with the fragile cats.

When you're divorced, or maybe it just happens at this age when you have a good deal of life experience, first date conversation inevitably turns to prior relationships. Were you married? Do you have kids? Why did you break up? First dates are basically an interview, after all—a chance to see if their fuckeduppedness will play well with your fuckeduppedness.

So he knew very quickly that I was living in the same house I'd lived in with my ex-husband. He knew my most painful ex lived just a few miles away and semi-regularly sees me in passing. He knew I'd had a very active dating and social life on the weekends before DH moved out of state and dropped regular contact with the boys.

Hell, I wrote a book about some of it.

In the semi-autobiographical Persona Non Grata, Tierney talks about how she has a hard time hearing about her husband, Sam's, relationship with his long-ago ex-girlfriend:

"I worried for years that you had loved her more than you loved me," I admitted one night.  I couldn't look at him when I said it.  I kept my gaze trained on the darkness in the woods behind our house.

"Why?  Why would you even think that?  Didn't I tell you every day that I loved you?  Couldn't you just believe that?"

"I believed you.  I still do.  But, Sam, you were so broken when you guys split.  I kept waiting for you to come home and tell me that she'd called, that she wanted you back.  I used to dream about it all the time."

I really didn't know that DH loved me more than he'd loved her until the day Max was born, more than seven years into our marriage.

And I know that love should never feel like a competition, but my head is sometimes a mess, and I sometimes feel like I am constantly at battle with the ghosts of the past. I am forever struggling to overcome my screwed up perceptions of how I think other people see me. Often this drives me to be bigger and better and faster and more. I feel like there is so much inherently wrong with me and about me, and that if I can perfect as many small things as possible then the huge amount of bad is still outweighed by lots of little good.

No one is harder on me than I am on myself.

I few weeks ago, I told Rango, "I won't feel secure until I've been with you longer than you've been with [your ex-wife]."

"But you already have."

I looked at him, puzzled. "You do remember that you were married for five years, don't you?"

"Yeah, but our relationship was over long before we even got married," he replied. "Emotionally, we were together for a week-and-a-half."

A few days later, we took our first trip together. Without the boys, we went to Texas for his sister's wedding, which also gave me the opportunity to meet and spend time with his family. We had a lovely couple of days in San Antonio, walking around Riverwalk and later dancing at the wedding, followed by a day in Houston.

 

Wedding Selfie #Sassafras #Rango #JenAndAli

A photo posted by Stephanie Quinn Jackson (@stephqj) on May 2, 2015 at 5:22pm PDT

DH and I had flown into San Antonio once, gone immediately to buy a car, and then drove straight home to Alabama. We passed through a section of Houston on the way. My 2012 trip to Austin by myself was my only real trip to Texas.

Rango spent his teen years in Texas, especially in and around Houston. He lived in various places before moving to Atlanta (to be with [his ex-wife]), but he still thinks of Texas as home. (Well, maybe until he met me.)

Although I'd never been to San Antonio, I set part of Persona Non Grata there. Tierney's life blows up (the climax without a climax) at the Marriott Riverwalk. I spent some time researching and wrote about what I'd never actually seen:

    I walked out from the hotel and turned onto the wide walkways along the river.  I knew there was a coffee shop nearby.  I ordered a frittata and took my coffee to a small table.  I ate slowly, trying to abate the nagging headache.

    I was tired but didn't want to hole up in my hotel room.  I spent a couple of hours exploring San Antonio.  I walked over little bridges and through lushly landscaped mini-parks.  I was impressed by the mix of modern and traditional, of historical and new. 

    I found a shady spot outside a coffee shop, sitting under a bright yellow umbrella.  It was still early, but the River Walk was bustling already with people ready for the new day.  I sketched the profile of a young woman sitting on a park bench, reading a book.  The face of the sleeping baby, parked in his stroller at his parents' table next to mine. 

 

Tierney is hanging out at the Riverwalk in San Antonio. #personanongrata #junkture

A photo posted by Stephanie Quinn Jackson (@stephqj) on May 2, 2015 at 11:21am PDT

Rango and I stayed at another Marriott a few blocks away. On Saturday morning, he happily walked with me to find the spot I'd written. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant that was included in an earlier draft of PNG. (It was eventually cut and re-written because the scene was lifeless.) And while he knew this was a fictionalized account, that I'd never been to these places, he also knew we were living a moment from the fictionalized account of the events that triggered the metamorphosis that led, in part, to my divorce.

Never did he complain. Never did he express a jealous thought. Not once did he have to choke back an angry lump and leave the room to catch his breath and regain control.

But driving to Houston the next day, picked up by his best friend, some comment was made about an ex they shared. (Who am I to judge someone for dating their best friend's ex?) Sitting in the back seat of the car, I bristled at the mention, knowing full well that she was long, long before me, that the relationship was short-lived and didn't work for a reason, that he loves me more.

Days later, as we were talking about traveling again soon—something DH and I never did together—I told him I would never go to Sweden with him, because he went there to see a now-ex.

"But it's a beautiful country," he argued. "You would love to see it."

I'm sure I would, but I was never willing to go to New Orleans with DH (in theory, because we didn't travel together or take vacations) because India had lived there in her childhood and later gone on vacation there with DH.

I've talked before about how I am a hoarder of memories. Because I remember virtually everything, I hold onto a lot of shit on my big, broken brain. Combine that with my intense sentimentality, and my head is an emotional minefield that I can barely traverse—how the hell is anyone else supposed to get through?

What I realized is that I am more than willing to give Rango the chance to replace some of those memories. Sometimes, he does it and doesn't even know it. Maybe we're having an incredibly wonderful moment and a song comes on that would have previously tied me up in knots, a reminder of a past moment. While there are still songs I just can't bear to hear anymore, there are a few that are now associated with Rango. Maybe it's a trip to a place I've been before or only dreamt about with someone else.

His heart replaced theirs in that memory space.

His cautions that there are formative memories that cannot be replaced. Of course. No matter what he or I do, there's no possible way to replace everything, and I wouldn't want either of us to do that. What happened before is what has led us to here, to the place where our paths converged. It's all about the journey and not the destination.

Yes, I know that I am letting my own insecurities and fears get in my way. I loathe that I think and feel this way. I am repulsed by the dark, tangled emotions that swirl around inside me, ensnaring my thoughts and hijacking what should be a calm, normal moment.

The only way I know to fight the dark is with light. When I don't feel like my own, internal light is strong enough to illuminate the path, I turn into the disco ball, spinning and reflecting a broken, scattered mosaic of brilliance that can be as annoyingly blinding as it is charming in its kinetic chaos.

Through it all, Rango says he is more than happy to be in my shadow, to let me spin in the spotlight while he supports me. I want him to be where he is happy and comfortable. I don't want to ever lose him to the darkness that I refuse to face and enter.

But I really have no idea how to counter the jealousy. I don't know how to not feel like it's a competition, even though it's one I know I'd have won months ago. I don't have a clue how not to snarl back at any of his memories that I'm afraid are snarling at me.

 

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Let's have a disco ball, and let's be happy.

So tuck your hair behind your ears, your tears and your silly fears.

I am tired.

There's so much on me right now.  The end of the school year for the boys, with its neverending stream of class activities and banquets and parties, means summer is encroaching.  In previous years, we were able to relax and have some fun, but that will be hard to manage this year.  Today was first day of summer classes for me—a full 15-hour class load that would normally take 15 weeks but is truncated to 10.  Somewhere in there I still have to work part-time, do my homework, care for the boys, clean the house, cut the grass, do the laundry, cook the meals, and try to breathe. 

I have a little help lined up but not much.  The decision to stay in Atlanta after the divorce, as opposed to moving back to Birmingham, meant I have no family backup within almost 200 miles.  I have friends close by, certainly, but almost none are in a position to be able to help.  DH is now living out of state.

It's all on me.

Every detail, every move the boys and I make, is considered and planned and stored in my head.  Days like today start in the middle of the night, when I wake for whatever reason and start to run through the lists of what needs to happen today, this week, in the next month, over the next few, and so on.  I am working on a two-year plan right now, and there is no room for error.  Time and financial constraints make this the only plausible course of action; I have no choice but to continue to move forward.

I look around the house and see all the little shit that needs to be done—the cluttery stacks of school papers and junk mail that are building up like landmarks, the leaking shower pipe that has forced us into sharing my small bathroom, the small hole in the roof, and the shredded, fading wallpaper that still hasn't been stripped after two years—and I just can't get to it all.  These days it feels like I have my fingers shoved in eight or nine leaking holes with no room to stretch even my Amazonian hands toward another emergency if it comes up. 

Money and time are tight.  Manageable but with little room for error.  There's not a lot of time for me to stop being Mom or Ms. Jackson; Stephanie barely seems to exist right now, let alone poor Sassafras, who convinces me to wear something pretty and shiny every couple of days just so I don't forget that she exists, even though somedays my greatest splurge is a trip to Target ten miles away. 

But when it gets hard, when I start to cry because I feel overwhelmed by all of it, I remind myself that I am an Amazonian princess who can save the world, and herself, with love. 

You got that tattoo for a reason.

I can do this.  I have to do this.  I am doing this.  I'm not pulling the freshly-laundered sheets over my head and ignoring the world.  (Believe me, I've tried.  I just lay there recounting my to-do list until I get up and do the dishes.  Again.)  I am busting my ass every single day to bring myself and my sons closer to a self-sufficient life, to a time when we are not dependent on anyone else's time or money or support.  I am teaching them and myself that there are strong, dogged, determined women who will work their asses off to make a change, even if it is only in their own world.

And things go wrong all the time.  I find myself missing a school event for Tricky because I'm working, kissing his teary face at the bus stop because he's frustrated I'm not there like he wants me to be.  Or I'm in the front yard, fending off a barrage of Fuck-yous from a pajama-clad Max, who at 13 doesn't understand why his father hasn't reached out to him in well over a month. 

I do my best to hold it together, to keep the shaking and the tears at bay until they're gone for the day or safely in their beds at night, but I screw up.  I yell about the cat boxes and the dirty laundry they won't pick up off their bedroom floors, about telling them again to unload the dishwasher.  And I don't sleep, worried like hell about how I'm ever going to manage this on my own.  And at night, I stare at the lonely dark until my brain tells my body to shut down, even though it is itself constantly churning and planning and worrying.

You got that tattoo for a reason.

Every day, I get up and try again.  Sassafras helps me pin my hair up in my crown and throws on some sparkly bangles.  I fuel up the invisible jet, and I cruise from errand to job to another errand, hoping like hell that I have a handle on it all.  Praying every single minute that I'm not losing track of my babies, because there is no one else around to keep them on track. 

But I know that everything that came before, all of the lessons I have worked so hard to learn, are playing out now, in real time.  There is no more practice, no more play-acting until I'm ready for the real thing. 

This is my life, and I got that tattoo for a reason.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

 

  

Only a crazy little thing I read....

I was both pleased and shocked to have two pieces from DivorcedMoms.com make The Huffington Post last week.  The first one, "8 Lessons Every Newly Single Woman Should Learn", had gotten great feedback from both its original post on Divorced Moms and later when it was picked up by Maria Shriver.  And not just from people who knew me.

When Divorced Moms ran "An Open Letter To The Dudes Dating My Mom", again there was positive feedback.  But by the time it got to HuffingtonPost.com, all Hell broke loose. 

"Dear child of my girlfriend, Lose the attitude! Your father may be your father but guess what, he now has visitation. I will be the one taking care of your daily needs. I will feed you when your father doesn't pay his support. I will be the one who has to comfort your mother when you're being a spiteful teenager. I will make sure you get to school on time. I will be the one that makes sure your homework is finished. I will have all the responsibilities of being your father, without your love and devotion, and I will be happy to do it because I love your mother."

"Best. Comment. Ever! The article just reeked of typical teenage self-importance and egocentricity."

"Stay away from single moms I guess. Thanks, snotty girl. :)"

"Sweet Jesus what a petulant little brat."

"Child... balance #2 against #8. Your mother has a right to build a life with a companion who will be there with her as a partner until death. That is not going to be you. That would not have been you if your mother had stayed with your biological father, and it's not going to be you if she never gets married again. If your mother chooses a companion for the rest of her life, that relationship will come 'first' in her (and his) life. You are expected to leave your mother's home and build your own independent life, with or without a companion.

You, child, should take a step back and learn about healthy life companionships from your mother and her man. If they are putting their relationship first, and it's that which allows them to build a stable, safe home for any children involved, they are doing the best thing possible for the children. If what you are learning from your parents is that partners are temporary and expendable, I feel sorry for you. Your parents are messing up big time, and they are teaching you to pass it forward to your own children, who will expect to come 'first', while you treat your life partner with disdain and as something disposable."

When Divorced Moms originally ran the piece, I included a picture of a pre-teen boy.  I have two sons, with whom I had talked about these issues and the idea of what they would want someone to know.  What were their fears, at 13 and 9?

"Love this! I have two boys and it really hit the mark:). Well done."

When HuffPost ran it, they included a picture of a young teen girl.  Otherwise there were no differences in the article, which is entirely gender-neutral.  Intentionally. 

Maybe it's a difference in audience, though Divorced Moms works closely with HuffPost to share appropriate pieces for their Divorce section, so there's certainly some crossover in readership. 

I'd like to respond to a few things, though:

1)      A grown-ass woman wrote this piece, not a teenage anything.  I'm sure DM and HP would both be willing to run a cogent, well-written article by a teenager, but that's not terribly common.  And that's not what happened here, hence the author link in the article.

2)      It wasn't written with boys or girls in mind.  I was careful not to make it about my sons, even though I did choose a picture of a boy.  That's what's usually in my mind when I'm writing about parenting through divorce.  The gender bias that was inferred from this piece blew my damn mind. 

3)      If it has a tone of self-importance, that's because the voice of the piece is a kid.  Children are egocentric by their very nature.  Any empathy they've developed in childhood is comparatively limited, and a lot of it is thrown out the window in adolescence.  They are self-centered and moody and demanding.  It's part of the process of growing into their independent adulthood.  Even the best teens can be utter assholes when the time is right.

4)      This is an article about dating, not marriage.  Dating doesn't always mean going to dinner three times a week with the next person you'll marry.  I never, ever take a shot at step-parents or those who fill the spaces of a missing parent to the best of their ability.  That's a unique relationship, though, and will never replace the bond of a parent—no matter the reason for the absence.  Ask my step-dad.

5)      All I said was that Dad wasn't around as much as the kid would like for him to be.  The kid would like Dad to be living in the house again, generally.  The kid would like to be able to see both Mom and Dad all the time, on demand.  That's not how divorce works.  That doesn't mean Dad is a deadbeat or absentee father.  I know many non-custodial fathers who maintain great relationships with their kids.  And if Dad is deceased, no one will ever be able to fully fill that void.

6)      The only unconditional love is that of a parent for child.  Period.  Mom will always love her child unconditionally, no matter how much she fucks it up.  If Mom is successful at her job, she will raise the kid to be a self-sufficient, healthy, productive member of society.  But that child will always be an integral part of her life, even well into adulthood.  That doesn't mean there's not room for anyone else, and sometimes other relationships take priority, but Mom will love her babies no matter what.  You, Mr. Dude, will have to work for that love, the same way Mom will have to work for yours.  That one's not guaranteed.  Ask my ex-husband.

After the feedback became a little snarky, Queen Frostine messaged me from Paris to say, "Yay!  You've been trolled!" 

The truth is, any readership is better than no readership.  I don't mind the comments, even when they seem so blatantly misconstrued.  I know from my own experience that for every person who takes the time to post a response, there are twenty others who just read it and keep going. 

A very special thanks goes out to WGST's Rich Sullivan for inviting me on "The Sully Show" this afternoon.  I'm scheduled to do an interview with WGN's "The Bill and Wendy Show" tomorrow. 

I'll keep talking, whether or not anyone is listening.

 

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DivorcedMoms.com | Article

An Open Letter To The Dudes Dating My Mom

8 Things Every Divorced Woman Should Learn NOW!

By the time I separated in October 2012, I was a couple of years into the grand mid-life transformation that brought a dramatically different version of myself than anyone had every really known. The heart of who I was—loud, brash, smart, funny, caring, independent, dogged—had always been there, but I worked to integrate those traits into a thriving, viable version of the Me who'd always seemed to be trapped inside the fat, unhappy girl I'd been for far too long.

Toward the end of my marriage, I'd already started to live parts of my life outside of that relationship. I traveled a bit. I was writing again. I'd lost 115 pounds.

Ending a twenty-year relationship was difficult. We were unraveling a lifetime of togetherness while trying to co-parent two fantastic children. Wife and Mother was now Divorced Mom. More importantly, Stephanie and DH was now just Stephanie. The lessons that had come before my separation, the hard work to learn who I was and what I wanted from myself and the people who could impact my life, were finally going to be tested. 

via divorcedmoms.com

Here's the link to a new piece I did for DivorcedMoms.com. They're things I think every woman should do, but especially if you're newly single.

Your story sad to tell, a teenage ne'er do well--most mixed up non-delinquent on the block!

After twenty years, I'm back in college.

In 1990, I started college on a substantial scholarship.  My life choices got in the way of studying, and I blew my scholarship within a year.  I tried, off and on, to finish what was originally a Communications degree, but I never quite got it together.  There was a lot of wasted time and money before I finally gave up, choosing to live my life with DH.  With the divorce came the realization that I would have to take care of myself long past the point of alimony or child support.

So as of last month, I'm back in school full time, enrolled at a local technical college to pursue a degree in Paralegal Studies.  Queen Frostine has said for years that I'd make a great attorney.  Given my attention to detail and my dogged curiosity, she thinks I'd be especially well-suited for the mechanics of the law life.  In my old life in financial planning, I spent a lot of time reviewing complicated estate and human resources documents, and I thoroughly enjoyed that process.  Writing Persona Non Grata brought entertainment law into my realm, and I ultimately finalized my divorce pro se (without an attorney). 

Being a paralegal seems like the natural and logical next step. 

But being back in school is weird.  When I was a college student in my late teens and early twenties, work/life balance was about little more than fitting classes in around a boyfriend or getting wasted.  Now at 41, I have not only my schedule of on-campus and online classes, homework, and real work, but also my sons' school and social activities to contend with.  And now DH has moved 300 miles away, which means I have the boys for the vast majority of their time.  Plus somewhere in there I have to take some time for me, to relax and socialize with my own peers and get recentered so that I can take on the constant demands of this life I am trying to rebuild.

The schoolwork thus far isn't terribly hard, though math is kicking my ass harder than it did when I was 18.  The courseload for this first semester includes some pretty interesting (and sometimes infuriating) introductions to sociology, humanities, and the law.  All too often I am fascinated by some random thought in a discussion group or textbook and find myself off on a tangent, researching the fundamentals of space law or Goffman's dramaturigcal perspective. 

And now with a brilliantly gifted 8^th grader who is naturally inclined to the same slacking I was in middle school, I am paranoid about his life choices.  I've always said I didn't care what my children did for a living, as long as they were happy.  While I know that my prior choices led me to the place and time of having my sons when I did, I am also painfully aware that we are in a financial bind in part as consequence of those choices. 

Had I applied myself and finished my degree when that was supposed to be my main priority, my life would be very different.  I might be better prepared to handle the financial fallout of divorce in my 40s, but I also might not have had these children.  I probably would've gone on to have kids, but Max and Tricky could only be who they are because they were conceived and born at their respective moments in history. 

I can't get caught up in what might have been or should have been; I live in the here and now, both as a result of and in defiance of my past.  All I can do now is work my ass off to provide better opportunities for my kids but also for myself.  This is part of learning to take care of myself in a whole new way. 

When it feels overwhelming, I have to remind myself that this won't last forever.  In the same way that the boys will age and grow—bringing an end to child support and the necessity of complete financial self-sufficiency—I will age and grow, getting through this process and reaping the rewards that I can on the other side. 

 

I stand up, and I'm searching for the better part of me.

During the process of divorce, especially at the beginning, life becomes almost exclusively about your children.  Obviously for people who don't have kids or who have adult children, it's a different story, but I don't know what that's like.  Living through both my parents' divorce when I was 11, as well as the last couple of years, I only have intimate knowledge of what it's like from my perspective.

Like so many couples, DH and I had brutal, nasty arguments before the separation.  We tried our best to keep them away from the boys, though I know we weren't always successful.  While we did our best to keep the energy off of them, there's no way they didn't feel the tension.  Sometimes it boiled over and disrupted their lives, occasionally waking them or turning into a heated exchange in the middle of dinner. 

The night we told them that we were separating was the worst of my life.  In that moment, I remembered very clearly being the child huddled on the couch between my parents.  They were both sadly stoic, trying to explain clearly and concisely that they were divorcing, that our lives would change, but that we were still a family who would get through this together.  Watching the boys cry the night we told them, I knew exactly how their hearts were breaking and all of the questions they'd both ask me and keep quietly and painfully to themselves. 

At first, all of my energy went into keeping them calm and safe.  With very good reason, I was even more attentive and patient with them.  I tried to make every waking moment as quality as I could muster, while also giving them space to be able to breathe and think on their own or together, away from Mom. 

Eventually I had to start living my own, private life.  I had to begin to see what being a single mom and woman was like.  A big part of that, of course, has been dating. 

My parents were very good at this.  I was about the same age as Max, so four years older than Tricky, when my parents separated.  When they each started dating, they were careful to keep those new people away from me.  I can only remember meeting two men my mom went out with, one of whom is my stepdad of more than twenty-five years.  I met a few more women with my dad, though he has always said some were nothing more than friends.  He dated one woman for several years, and she actually lived with us for a good portion of their relationship.  Both he and I are still friends with her, even though they've been broken up far, far longer than they were together. 

When I started dating Bounder and saw the potential of something more important, having him meet the boys eventually became necessary.  It wasn't that I needed them to welcome their new daddy into their life; no one will ever replace their father, whom they love very, very much.  But if he and I were going to have a relationship, we would need to spend quality, physical time together.  And, no, I don't just mean sex.  (He never, ever spent the night at my house while the boys were home.) 

Dating and being in love would have to consist of more than constant texts and emails.  Regular phone calls couldn't replace regular hugs and kisses.  While quality time and conversation are of tantamount importance to me, I am bi-lingual (in The 5 Love Languages sense) for physical touch.  The small intimacies of handholding and kisses on the cheek are just as important to me as the loving whispers and soft laughs in my ear.  I need boisterous laughter, both in and out of the bedroom. 

Of all the men I've met and gone out with since I separated from DH, the boys have only met Bounder.  Initially, it was a ten-minute, "nice to meet you" moment one afternoon.  Eventually they were okay with his coming to visit me after they went to bed, then they were comfortable with dinners together and a movie after.  We would occasionally take them out and do something with them, together.  When he and I broke up, they were sad for me but also a little sad that they wouldn't get to see him.  I handled it well (at least in front of them).  They know that I still have occasional contact with him and ask me about him from time to time. 

It's hard enough to bring someone new into my life, but my life includes two boys.  They have to be a part of anything substantial.  Not only are they the most important people in my life, I am their primary caregiver.  They spend the majority of their time in my care.  With some potential changes on the horizon, I am likely to be responsible for them even more of the time.  If I try to wait to see someone I'm dating until a night when I don't have them, it could be weeks that we have to wait. 

Relationships can't function healthily like that. 

While it was best to make the boys the main focus initially, it does no one any good for them to be the only priority.  We live in such a child-centric time, but they have to learn that they really aren't the epicenter of anyone's world but their own.  They are of an age to begin to realize there's more to life than just them. 

Stephanie is more than Mommy.

Going back to school, working small jobs while I'm doing it, makes our life very busy.  I can no longer devote all of my time and energy to their schedules.  Our family calendar is sometimes a color-coded nightmare of homework and school events and appointments.

But taking the time to be me, content and comfortable in who I am and my abilities, makes me a better woman.  Being a complete woman, who is able to both express and receive love from more than just my children, makes me a better mother. 

And it's good for them to see that Mom can go on and have a happy, healthy, productive life.  They won't always been in the house with me, no matter how often they declare that they'll always live with me.  They will eventually move on to college and relationships and the lives that they build for themselves.  I will be here (figuratively or literally, I don't know yet), living and building my own future. 

When I am happy and healthy, living my life while incorporating them into it, I show them by example.  My goal is to raise healthy young men who can handle their own shit.  My hope is that they find partners who can do the same, in part because that is what their mother modeled for them.