Unraveling

crocus raindrops

This post has been in the works for six months.

Six long, painful months where I’ve watched my life unravel. A thread was pulled too hard, and it all came apart. No amount of skill could repair the damage.

I am alone. In love, anyway. I’m now facing the world as a single mother to three kids. Three kids who now have to move through life without the benefit of their family under one roof. We spoke to them on Saturday morning. My youngest was completely accepting, my middle girl very emotional and her older sister quietly resigned. They all asked incredible questions.

I have an army of support, and I haven’t been shy about rallying the troops. There are so many people who care for me, and without them, and the light they have shone into the darkest corners of my life, I don’t know where I would be right now. I’m not afraid to lean on them, and I will continue to reach out and draw strength from the people who know me and see me.

This is not a choice I ever wanted to make, and yet it became the only choice I could make. Anger continues to swirl through me, a noxious cloud of ‘why’ and ‘should’ and ‘how’, but I hold it gently and tell it to propel me forward rather than drag me through the past or shove me too far into a future that I cannot see.

One breath at a time.

I haven’t lost everything, but when my heart fills with the moments I have lost, it feels like part of my soul has been stripped away. Fifty percent of my time with my children. A partner I thought I would grow old and gray with. A co-parent I thought was a close friend. Had I closed my eyes to the truth that was right there before me? Should I have known better? Was I asking for this in trying to do something that few people before us have done? Is there any point to answering any of these questions now?

I am living in two places; our home where the children stay 100% of the time, and my parents home in Hamilton where I stay when it isn’t my turn on the custody calendar. This post will go live hours before I taste this new reality. This post will go live only because we’ve shared this news with our beautiful babies. I stopped praying a long time ago, but I whisper to the universe, begging that this won’t forever dim the light of those three radiant souls.

Nothing has ever hurt like this. Losing love and my sense of family is like dealing with death. I thought I’d become an expert in grieving. A pro at heartbreak. Nothing could have prepared me for this.

How do I wake up and get out of bed? I have to. I have to be a mother. I have to be an entrepreneur. I have to arrive each day and learn how I will reinvent myself. I have to understand who I am as I move through this world without my love. I moved mountains for that love. Now I have to move those mountains to survive.

This grief feels like I am fighting to breathe. Like my life is a nightmare I can’t wake up from. Like my worst fears in this relationship have been realized.

And sometimes it feels like a glimmer of possibility.

There has never been a shadow in my life so dark that I haven’t seen the light. These last six months have brought me close to yielding to darkness, but with the return of spring, I feel like I can find a balance again. Between sorrow and hope. Between loss and discovery.

I’m not okay, but I think at some distant point on this path, I will be again.

Stranger

The morning we’d planned to talk to the kids, you stood in the doorway of our bedroom, staring at me.

Your beautiful face, the one I’ve held in these hands and kissed a thousand times, was the face of a stranger.

Tears streaming down your cheeks, you looked so fragile in your sorrow. What was in that look? Regret? Shame? Were you sorry that you’d fallen out of love with me? Sorry that we now had to tell our children? Were you worried that letting me go was a mistake?

I’m not asking you to reconsider. I’ve laid my heart and soul on the table, and your response was to tell me to gather up the pieces of myself, put them back together, and carry on alone.

And I think, perhaps, that you did me a favor in this final, absolute rejection of me. I pored through the pages of an old diary where I’d scribbled all my frustrations and fear. The same theme played out in a steady loop; I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel like I can trust, I don’t feel like you want me to belong here. The same theme has been repeated so many times that now we’ve brought it to life, and there’s no going back to try to change this pattern. For so long, I thought those scary feelings were a product of my own damage. Maybe that’s true, in part, but those black thoughts were also a kind of prophecy.

I am my own safety. I belong to me. I know and trust my heart, my good intentions. I know what my love looks and feels like when it comes from a place of security and trust. That love will blossom now, fed by the goodness of my own soul, my children, and the people who are grateful for my love, however imperfect it may be.

For your tears, I am sorry. I would have dried each and every one. Even now, in this place of finality, my impulse is to reach for you. But instead I must hold my own hand and walk myself out this door and into my new life.

Chrysalis, Day Three

Being sick and homeless sucks. Beyond that, I’m doing okay. I’m back in the city, in a comfortable guest room at my friends’ home. They also have a dog, so my creature comforts are covered here.

I saw my family last night. It was bittersweet. There’s the usual happiness and exuberance of the little ones, who are such an absolute delight, but then there is the sadness and other complicated adult emotion, which of course I expected. Expectation doesn’t make it any easier.

Today I will head downtown, after a moment of silent reflection on this important day of remembering. I have a doctor’s appointment which is keeping me in the city. After that I’ll head back to the house to gather some things, and help get the kids from school. I hope that I’ll be able to stay to spend some play time with them, and see them into bed.

I feel blocked today. The words aren’t flowing very well. It’s like my sinuses and my fingers are mirroring each other. Jian Gomeshi is telling me that Nora Effron is now the editor of a special section of The Huffington Post devoted to divorce. I skip over to it, and I’m immediately disgusted by do’s and don’ts that include:

Do know you’re a hot chick.

Don’t act crazy.

Nora is talking to Jian about the difference between divorcing with and without kids. I’ve divorced without children. It was fairly seamless. Now I have no legal rights at all, and I move forward with hope that I won’t be denied access to kids that I have no legal rights over. I can’t fight for my home, the business I had started was never put to paper so it exists as a vapor, and my job is no longer because I was working in the family business. No protection for me whatsoever.

Every fear I had about this relationship has come to realization.

I’m lucky that I don’t immediately have to think about work. I’m going to use some time for healing, but next week I will tackle my resume and make it look shiny and new. Even a simple retail job during the holidays is something to help give me my power back. I will never, ever again rely on anyone else to support me, no matter how sincere their intentions are.

I am a complex nut. I find it incredibly difficult to trust someone who I approach as a romantic partner, yet I continually subject myself to such complicated, compromised situations. In this instance I’ve given away so much of my independence. I thought I had an amazing opportunity to realize some of my own professional dreams, and I did. I was working hard, and seeing my work come to beautiful fruition, but that’s all gone now, and I have no idea if this is a permanent change. I should have insisted on putting things in writing. At least then I’d have some sense of security.

I made a baby too. A book that now lies suspended, it’s fate entirely uncertain. I poured my heart and soul into it, and I have real belief in it, but I simply don’t know what to do next.

Day three in the chrysalis is the most despairing yet. Despite the sunshine, it’s feeling rather impossible to see the light at the end of this tunnel.