Aug

29

Good times

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I spent some real good time with both kids this week. Monday night I took Riley and his girlfriend out to dinner and it was so nice; I enjoyed seeing how they interact with each other when there’s fewer people around — less pressure to politely endure being peppered with adult questions, more space to reveal how nicely intertwined they are. They’re so young, but in a sweet authentic kind of love that is a pleasure to be around. We laughed a lot and I walked away feeling like they are just both in really good hands.

A couple days later Dylan came over for Hawaiian takeout (huli huli chicken hell yeah) and we made do with my lack of dining surfaces and he checked out the house progress and deemed it worthy. While we were in the backyard admiring my new fence, he spotted an osprey overhead. Upon further inspection, it had a fish in its grip! An unexpected exciting benefit of living closer to the river, my gosh.

When I hugged him goodbye at the door and watched him drive away I did feel some heavy sadness. It is, of course, a big loss to go from getting to see him every day in a shared household to hosting him like he is some sort of guest. Riley too, for that matter, although he’s heading back to college soon. But I will say that both of these visits felt very different from the various hallway passings and morning ‘sups. Far more intentional, with their full focus. It’s less — but more quality.

It IS less, though, no way to silver-line my way around that. I don’t get those small interactions throughout the day, I’m out of the loop. It sometimes feels like a fairy tale sort of tradeoff: poof, you only have to clean up after yourself now! But that’s because you don’t live with your family any more!

I went around and around and around the pros and cons of separating for so long. The ugly math of us together versus us apart. I guess for a long time it felt impossible to reconcile, like both scenarios just led to unhappiness, but the knowns felt less scary than the unknowns. Certain things felt too hard to bear, like not being able to talk with someone about shared memories of the kids, and the painful idea that me and the kids might drift apart if I wasn’t physically stationed nearby.

What I can say now is that it has been a great soul-lifting relief to be able to stop doing that math, to simply have a decision in place and a sense of forward momentum. I think it’s too early to share what it’s really like to be apart from the boys, but I do know we were going to be apart anyway. One kid is already out the door and fully ensconced in his own life, one kid will be there soon enough. We are finding new points of connection, we are finding our ways to new relationships with each other. I am maybe finding that I feel more meaningful to them, less a part of the familiar furniture and more of an actual person to talk with and learn about.

As for shared memories, I have faith that John and I will continue to evolve our own new ways of relating as loving exes who don’t regret the many years spent together. We’ll be able to have that banter: “Remember when they used to…?” It’ll be different than we both imagined, but it will be okay. I feel broken free from old loops and roles, and I hope we’ll be able to see each other with fresh eyes, remembering the good times.

Aug

26

Not Ken’s Dream House

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I am faced with all sorts of decisions with this new home: where do I put things? What things do I pay money to fix/update and what things do I decide are good enough for now? For the things I am updating, what further choices do I make — for instance, now that I’ve decided the whole place could use a fresh coat of paint, professionally applied, what colors? Oh, I’ve decided that simple good old white is a nice backdrop, well did you know there are 2382957190053715465728983002058261 shades of white, and that’s just from one paint brand???

The bigger more expensive decisions give me a bit of anxiety/paralysis but I am finding that the ongoing issue of “where does THIS go?” is an unexpected delight. My approach to keeping a semitidy home has always come down to the idea that everything should have a home, and that way cleaning up is easy enough: you go back to your home, you cluttery rascal. Inevitably, entropy invades this process and your thing-homes become a little nonsensical. Like, the batteries live in a jumbled drawer along with random screws and mini lightbulbs, why? Who knows! But now I’m starting completely fresh and I can create brand new tidy thing-homes that align with my own thinking and no one else’s.

I’m discovering that it’s not necessarily the most strategic move to decide upon a storage location without developing your own rhythms. You know, you want to figure out how you routinely move around a kitchen before you figure out which should be the silverware drawer and which should be the ziplocs/parchment paper/foil drawer. Plus there’s my own built-in muscle memory to override — like, I switched up where my socks and bras and nightgowns go in my dresser because now I can use the whole thing instead of half, and so I find myself constantly reaching for the wrong drawer. But I don’t think that’s because they’re in the wrong place, I’m just not used to the new arrangement yet. Or maybe they are in the wrong place, and that will reveal itself over time.

Anyway, I find all this effort of discovery pleasing in a satisfying sort of way. Narrowing in on what feels right, through trial and error. It’s also gratifying to be slowly moving past the stage of full-on chaos and the feeling of wanting a specific thing but not being sure what temporary heap of disarray it might be residing in.

Bit by bit, I am unfucking the mess with only me in mind. Sure, I still have a giant cardboard box that I’m using as a coffee table, and one room is strewn with footwear because I’m using my shoe rack to hold toiletries, but I’m getting there! I am dialing this all in to my own liking, and there is a real satisfaction to that — to learning what I prefer, and creating ecosystems that support those preferences.

I don’t have pink elevators or pools, but there’s a real Barbie’s Dream House aspect to this stage I’m in. Every choice offers me the chance to make it my own. Sometimes I catch myself wondering if I shouldn’t feel more sad than I do, but those just aren’t the feelings I’m sitting in right now. It was a terribly difficult tradeoff to make, and I’m past all the dreary what ifs and I’m in the new reality. I know there will be more ups and downs to come but things are coming into focus, and the view gets better each day.

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