Cat Skinner Club

The Process

Thanks for your patience. I’ve been wading through this complicated new reality, not always keeping my head up, and not always feeling like I wanted to share.  The grieving process is like that sometimes.

The other morning I woke up at 8:00 am, took my canine companion for a walk in the rain, still wearing my pjs, unloaded boxes from the trunk of my car, fried some bacon, scrambled some eggs in the bacon fat, made coffee, sat down at the table near the window overlooking the garden and I felt good.

A few nights ago, I cooked dinner for myself, poured a glass of wine, settled into the cabana in the backyard (I’m house sitting again) and binge watched the new season of Queer Eye on Netflix. That show has literally injected pure joy into my heart on numerous occasions through the last several months.

I feel good.

Not all the time. Certainly not the day I spent sorting through bins of stuff while my ex helped me purge garbage bags full of old clothes and fabric I forgot I even had. Certainly not when I found out the apartment I thought I was moving into wasn’t going to work out. Certainly not when I went to see the first couple of alternative apartments available in my budget and was terrified of both the filth and the neighbours. That was a double-whammy of a day when there was also a full moon and I was in the throes of PMS, but these moments of bad feeling are quickly replaced with a sense of hope, and a sense of peace. There’s a voice somewhere just beyond me that keeps insisting that it’s going to be okay, and that voice feels very true.

There isn’t a single part of this separation that has gone the way that I want. It doesn’t matter. I’m not in control. I’ll work with what I get, and keep trusting that voice. Maybe I wasn’t meant to spend this year of healing in a basement. Maybe my moments with my daughters, though far less frequent, will be of greater connection and quality. Maybe constant trips to the home we made together when we were a family would have made it too hard to really let go. Maybe living with my parents for the summer was always going to be a safer place to land as I start this new life. Maybe lawyers are painfully slow because there are more conversations that need to be had, and greater understanding to be achieved.

I’m spending more time thinking about what I want than crying over what I’ve lost. So, on this bright and sunny morning, a moon into my single-hood, here’s what I want for the summer:

Quiet Saturday mornings for writing and eating home-cooked breakfasts

The feeling of liberation that comes with getting rid of mountains of stuff I don’t need (both physical and emotional)

Continued work opportunities to create this new life for myself

The fun of dreaming of a new living space

Dinners with great conversation and people who I feel good around

A camping adventure or two, and one that includes the kids

Someone to teach me how to become an expert paddler

Weekly hikes

Time for reading, just for fun

The courage to embrace the lonely and overwhelming moments, sit with them, and know that they aren’t forever

Great moments of bonding with all of my kids

Continued acceptance of change, even if I don’t understand other people’s choices

A safe, clean home of my own in a place that feels good

The momentum to create a routine of ongoing physical activity

I think this is a great list, but I’m always open to suggestions. For example, a dear friend challenged me to get a massage. I never do things like that for myself, so I’m going to schedule an appointment. So, can you be a pal and throw some of your own suggestions below for the #summerofme?

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.