Releasing: A Poem for a Failed Marriage

Facebook's "On This Day" button is one I click on every single day.  My husband said he wanted out of the marriage on March 11, and every day so far, I've been checking, wondering how I broke my silence.  There's a lot my mind protects me from in forgetfulness.  I had a community that wouldn't get involved and suggested I keep quiet about our separation. I felt this burden of shame because he wanted to quit.  I wanted to move forward and he was so stubbornly stuck on the past and I had no way of going back to repair damages. So I wrote a poem and left it on my Facebook wall.  I didn't give it a title.  Some emotions are too raw to be tamed with a name.  Then I forgot about it until today.

I willed her survival as I tried to pull her along. Feet stalled and failed until I saw she was lost in her prison of despair. The door swung open on failing hinges and she shut her eyes. How she couldn't hear the grinding and reigning rust is beyond me. She held the bars that gave blisters when I offered honeyed balm.

She died this night and my body swayed and rocked with dried tears and tired sobs. He came and watched me pull her. His hands were tied in before.

She left with all my insides. Her gift was too much pain. My dear so sweet you thrilled me and I must learn to live once more.

First Steps in Releasing My Marriage

I deleted music files from my iTunes library that included a love song to me from my husband.  He raps.  He never understood how time has made me hate rap music.  I can listen to older songs that I loved when I was younger, but there's something in the sound that hurts my ears.  There's something in the culture that makes me hate being female.  It's the idea I'm only good for sex and life is only about making money and hate. It ties me to the memories of the boys I wanted to love, that worshipped the music that idolized misogyny and abuse. The lyrics are no longer about political change and empowerment. I started shuffling music on my laptop and old songs that got me through previous breakups would hit me and it was heavy with nostalgia.  I then got in my car and when my phone started shuffling through music I deleted off of my laptop, I realized I need to go through every library on every device to remove him.  That was a bit much, so I listened to Lorde for most of the day instead.  I may have thrown in a little Blu Cantrell to make me laugh, and DJ Quick because he reminds me of a certain boy that wanted to treat me like the song and I wanted to remind myself why I'm not that person anymore.  I will never again be "Down, Down, Down," no matter how much I loved the beat. Nothing creates distance and disgust faster than the music that boy loved. I started my day by visiting my father in law.  When we first married, my mother in law gave me a bracelet that belonged to her first mother in law and was intended for me, before my husband was born.  When my husband left he asked for it back. I'm sure it was his mother's suggestion because he never thinks that far ahead.  At first I was certain that we would reconcile and I said no. It was my right. I had earned it.  When I decided I was done, it felt right to give it to my father in law when it was his mother's. He and his wife greeted me with hugs and love.  He wanted to see it, and remembered he had given it to his mother.  I told him I wore it to family gatherings and weddings to feel as though she was with us in spirit. He insisted that I keep it.  His thoughts were he loved me and I'm his daughter.  He understood my value of family which is why he asked me to stand in as a family representative for his late brother.  He loves me in a way that his own kids could never feel and I'm so blessed in having that honor. My husband asked him to remove our family photos from his walls, and that request was denied.  I've only known him 16 years, and I know that once he claims you as his family, nothing can change that.  He kept apologizing for his son, and I told him it wasn't necessary.  Then he tried to give me his impressions of my husband's girlfriend, and the fact that she's still with her husband.  I needed to excuse myself then, because it's too easy to jump on that train and it never leaves me in a good place.

I got home and when the kids arrived after school I told them what I had told their grandfathers. They don't do well with surprises and I try to give them as much warning and preparation as possible. They're kids, and in their hopes and dreams their family will one day be restored.  I pointed out that their Dad is already acting like we're divorced. They took that news better than they did when I told them I wasn't working again.  It was crazy the way my oldest railed that he couldn't believe I lost my job.  In that moment I could see his father in him.  I could see the eggshells before me and calmly pointed out I worked for a temp agency and I'm between assignments.  I didn't get fired.  Then I pointed out I had a crush on my boss and it was probably for the best.  He then said, "it's okay mom.  It'll work out," and I could see he has his mother's eyes. I did laugh at his miraculous turn around though. I woke up to sounds of my kids gaming and singing. This is that adjustment I keep hoping will settle around us with seamless regularity and hopeful optimism.

Marital Separation through File Deletion

He moved out months ago and I've finally decided to accept his decision for our lives. I'm starting to see it as my deliverance. I'm letting go.  It's easy to say it's over in anger, but it's moments of peace and reflection that I listen to. I sent an email to my attorney tonight asking about the next steps that I would like her to walk me through. There were no tears but I felt peace and an acceptance that is new.

A friend emailed me and we had a back and forth, picking up like we were just getting drunk together last week. He told me that I seem happier now.  He's right.  I'm doing better than I was before I found out we were over. He offered his support and love in the way good friends with lasting memories do. He was there when we first started dating.  With gentleness that could only come from a friendship built on love and mutual respect, he told me I was so much better than who I was settling for, without making me feel bad about it. In the years I put between us for the sake of my husband, he never held a minute against me. He couldn't imagine what I'm going through, nor would I want him to.  He's a newlywed and I adore his bride.

I started clicking through Facebook albums to delete him, but decided some albums can just be hidden  until I'm ready to erase those images that are etched in my mind. I want to ensure a decent history is catalogued for our kids because we are who they came from, and I can't erase who they are and hope that will make it better. They come before I do, and family pictures still sit on walls.

I haven't spied on his page for a while and I haven't checked to see if I'm still blocked, because it no longer matters what he does. I thought giving up Facebook for Lent would be too hard, and so I gave up Lent, but find I've also given up Facebook because so much of "us" belonged to those walls. I'm going through emails and wiping away what is no longer relevant to me and some of it was relevant to us.  I do it as a farewell and there are no tears or anguish.  There's no sorrow or anxiety.  I've heard "it is what it is," and the phrase feels like giving up in failure.  Instead I feel it is what we've made it and I accept the choice to not change it.

This momentary pause is my moment before I clear out music files.  It's music that he liked.  It's his music.  I don't want to shuffle my songs to hear his voice tell me he's winning in the wife department.  It doesn't make me cry. It doesn't hurt or make me angry.  It's just no longer what I want to hear and I can control that.

A Day in the Life: Single Mom Duties

I rushed to my son's school to pick him up on a shortened day. His parent conference was an arbitrary day where his teacher could fit me in.  I asked if she had an earlier appointment and she fit me in immediately.  She tries so hard for order, but teachers rarely get parents that show up on time, or show up at all when work and other kids come before a report we see on a card.  But I wanted to meet with her so she could tell me he's missed too much school and been tardy far too often because the numbers in black and white with a legend in the corner couldn't be clear enough.  I remind her of the day in dress and heels I carried him over my shoulder from the car onto campus and left him with the principal, later calling in tears on my way to work to see how much he hated me. My knees hated me for days after that. He's doing well in spite of his absences and still has time to improve.  We're starting separate homework packets because separate homes weren't enough.  The line between responsibility tears him in two, but he accepts it with a smile because this insanity is his insanity and it's somehow acceptable. We head home and the fight for his homework begins.  He wants my phone. "Can't find a pencil." Now in need of a sharpener.  "This is too hard.  We haven't done the work that she told you we did." But it says review and I know he's capable when I tell him I'm struggling and I need him to show me. "What are you doing?" As I'm writing thank you's to lovers in my past. "I'm writing a zombie story," because he knows it's entirely a possibility and more exciting than therapy writing. He needs my full focus to get me to give him answers he works really hard to not figure out. I continue writing and he slowly figures it out.

But his brothers will be home in 10 minutes and the three of them will start fighting over the two computers. Miraculously, he gets it done and has minutes to spare before the brothers get home.  Once home, they fight, as predicted because they each want time on the computer immediately.  It's the preferred routine and there's a system to their chaos when they can predict what will happen. Kid1 tries to pry kid2 from the chair, then sees the food and starts with bribery.  The computer battle is won and their after school hungers are sated.  Mom's cherry macarons decided the battle. Kid2 takes his clothes off because there are tags that scratch, and really, he's had clothes on all day and it should be enough.  He sits and strokes his boy parts through his clothes and I remind him we can see him and his restless hands stop but he takes the tablet into the bedroom where I won't hear his videos as easily.

"Hey kids, it's a soup day.  Chicken vegetable okay?" Yeses and sures and "I would like that, Mom." I start boiling a chicken with loose skin and too much blood. My stomach is roiling from the stresses I ignore.  I run a bath and heat eases pain in my old lady knees.  I yell to kid3, "want a bath tonight? Now's the time if you do."  Followed by, "no mom, I'm busy mom .  . . I'll shower later."

Chicken is cooked and cooled and I'm burning fingertips, tearing the bird apart.  "Are you sure you want soup? I still have time to make something different." Kid1 wants soup.  Kid2 thinks he can get past celery and cooked carrots. He'll eat it raw, but cooked carrots and celery have a texture my sensory sensitive autistic children can't always handle.  Kid3 loves mommy's soup. He can't wait for mommy's soup.

Soup is served and only Mom and Kid1 will eat it.  Kid2 wants bread and only bread.  Kid3 isn't hungry.

It's time for showers and bed, and I start with kid2 who wants to avoid his shower just a little longer because he's watching a video.  I check the video and it's on pornhub and I have to explain that it's inappropriate and gives a wrong idea of real sex. Good sex.  Sex that isn't violence based and I have to pry my eyes away from the sex scenes that held my sex starved mind because it's a video where it looks like orgasms are being given which is different entirely from solo play. I'm so tired of solo play.

Kid2 in the shower, then kid3.  He wants that bath - once offered and rejected and he will cry until I give in but I don't give in to his bath. Instead I soap him up in the shower.  And it's a battle I've lost that his Dad always wins.  I tell myself he just needed the cry that he cries every time he comes home. He doesn't need to control me too, that's just a side effect - a latent benefit and then I can't see the manifest benefit.  I can't see the antecedent to the behavior that I just rewarded and I'm the one with the consequence.  He's out of the shower and dripping wet and insists on climbing into bed, dripping wet because that's what Dad does. It's okay with Dad.  He's okay with Dad. And he's hungry now and refuses the soup that burned my fingers and I'm headed out to the deep freezer in the laundry room to get him a Hot Pocket that he eats halfway through before falling asleep.

Kid1 in the shower with a smirk and a grunt.  I ask too much of him but I ask and he does what I want, if slower than I want and the night has wound down and we're done.  The pressure builds in my head and I go over it again because I can't see where we went from smiles and hugs and mutual claims to have missed each other to the mess this night dissolved into.  I can't see where it shifted and my mind races through it again and again.

I don't drink.  I won't cry.  I will see the crap for what it was and hug them in their sleep because they are so well behaved then.  I will say prayers for their peace and obedience as I tuck them in. And I will have Butter Pecan gelato because I don't drink even if I really want to right now.

Homecoming, a Custody Exchange Day Poem

I woke up to raindrops and my kids come home today. The rushing winds and falling sky replenish the life the sun has stolen,

but the sounds of life on earth will be drowned out

by the sounds of life that tore through me.

They were each mine for a time then they were ours and now I have to share them

I have to trust they won't be destroyed with the love that nearly destroyed me

The path of healing is steep and full of thorns that catch you when you aren't ready

The first days of loss weren't just my battle to rage.

The heavy bag swung and rattled with fury spent,

post rage teens were sobbing in my arms

Hands that reached for us and held us in love were forging pain with what they were given

There were no words to unleash the pain that was in hearts, under skin,

and we made raw knuckles and tender wrists excuses to cry

Thunder shakes the sky and ground in a mirror of the anger that I pray away late at night

when the only sounds loud enough to hear are the shifting landscape of a life we planned

and the growing pains from a life I can't control right now

My kids come home today so I can be Mom and being a sister and daughter can wait

I will see faces I've missed and kiss cheeks and I will hold my babies.

I will inhale their scent and engrave the moment in my memory when they are with me

because those moments sustain me when my babies are away.

I used to fret over a night at Grandma's, and now I endure 5 days at a time

I fill my bed with stuff as a placeholder, that was once a spouse and is now a child

sometimes he's content with space

other times he lays on top of me, trapped in the comfort required in infancy at 9 years old

The thunderstorm rages its fury outside and for a few days

I won't have to wonder if they'll answer my call.

Respecting the boundaries they set, I tell them my calls are just to tell them I love them

because I know I'm loved I think I'm loved I may not be needed

I feel excitement and joy and worry and fear in the moments where the sun is hiding

the clouds pour out their burdens and the thunder announces its rage

at some point the clouds will disperse enough to let me know the sun was always there

a rainbow will cut the sky in hope and beauty

and my life will imitate the art of nature

Owning Up to Falling Apart

My moment of truth showed up just before 5 tonight. Foraging for sustenance landed me in strawberry shortcake ice cream. The dawning realization that it was all that had passed my lips other than my toothbrush this morning was clear evidence that I'm not doing well and patterns of brokenness are emerging.  Searching for protein, I also poached an egg.  In breaking the yolk and scooping bland warmth into me without bothering to pick a lemon from the yard to whip up Hollandaise, it was the comfort I was seeking and I saw that in my food choices.  I looked around at the wreckage of a neglected home and found myself surrounded in the hollow ache of last year when my husband left.  I'm not that person anymore because now I can see my phenomenal coming out of every smile.  It's time to give her a hug, acknowledge her pain, and help her up. I am determined to break these patterns but first I needed to acknowledge that as beautiful as my time at my job was . . . as giving as it was and as much as I learned, there is the sudden loss of income and identity.

This morning I had the first IEP recessed because I wasn't pleased with the inadequate job the psychologist did in her report.  Calls will be made.  Responsibilities will be taken and where heads should roll, they'll find there's grace because my life is full enough without a bone to pick. The other IEP was successfully closed and signed and I have a copy to send to Regional Center. There was a moment when the school district rep and one of the teachers were alone in the room with me.  They marvelled at how I do it all. I'm an autism mom.  We slay dragons.  We sometimes have to dig deep, but we can do the amazing and impossible. We talked about my kid's early development and speech delays. We talked about sensory issues, and my kid running head first into the door, only to slam the back of his head against the floor.  We talked about poopy painting and tasting.  I don't miss those days.

These meetings were always my job but with the separation, the husband is now involved in every meeting and decision in any way he can do it without being around me.  During the meeting he joined by phone conference.  It was the first time in a long while we heard each other's voices and we did our best to not acknowledge that.  I felt mild annoyance, from time to time, but a lot of what I felt was gone. He was in some ways just another random voice and not the man I wanted to love or maim. That's where I first saw my healing today.

I stopped at the Gamble House in Pasadena because it is beautiful and the grounds make me smile.  One day I may take that tour inside, but on most days, I prefer to check out the pond and watch the fish.  It was a time of quiet reflection.

Throughout the day I saw other people as I ran errands and it occurred to me I wasn't attention whoring or flirting with anyone that looked at me.  Part of me has always been afraid that I would start looking for validation in other people, but today I realized I'm going to be okay in that way.  I've always been not so private.  I was the girl in school that would get on stage in front of peers and sing. And dance. And act.  I even had a wardrobe malfunction with an errant nipple in a really tight Elizabethan dress that presented my breasts as a shelf that I could rest things on. Being a senior in high school that inadvertently shows her nipple off to way too many people at once was not easy to live down.  Although, I didn't get any complaints either.  Go figure.

I still haven't cleaned up my house.  Dirty laundry is piled and there are dishes around.   I'm not seeing it as being lazy but a form of depression that is creeping up on me. Honestly I don't feel like doing it, but I'm making the choice to deal with it before bedtime, and I'm also making a choice to make myself a steak dinner because food is good and I can't start unintentionally starving myself. I like my curves and the clothes that fit me now.  I'm still waiting to hear about an interview from my agency, and perhaps tonight will see an updated Monster resume in the making, but I'm coping by looking at my situation. I'm coping by not ignoring it, even if that is my first instinct and laying in bed in all my bloggy glory feels better.

Today's lessons: The feelings for the husband are easing into a comfortable place.  I'm not attention whoring all over my neighborhood, just my blogs.  Feeling sad is okay and I am still healing.  I should pay y'all in therapy fees but instead I give you words and angst.  Lots of angst all around.