Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with my mom. I told her how concrete between the ears Stanley is and how he keeps saying, “it is what is written on the schedule” making me want to go all homicidal. Somehow the conversation morphed into this whole load of failure and how I wish I had done things differently with him and I started crying as usual. I am really ready to quit with the waterworks, I’m sick of crying about my divorce. She was very supportive, this was my conversation and she is a saint for continuing to listen to me and mopping up tears.
Sometimes my mascara runs.
Then she asked how I think the kids are doing and gave me her opinions about how she thinks the kids are doing.I told her that I think they are coping well, we really haven’t had behavior changes. I know that kids are really selfish beasts, and that they want to know how changes are going to effect them, and I have worked really hard for them to have as few changes in their daily lives as possible. She brought up the fact that Jumping Bean is ‘high strung’ and seems to have occasional melt downs, but I think this child has always been “high strung”, she has ADHD after all, and I don’t know that she is worse since the divorce.Mom said that she thinks they are very tight with me, and the kids are; they are very close with me. I often wake up in the morning with both girls in my bed. I get frequent texts when I am out of the house wanting to know when I am coming back. She said that she thinks because of the divorce and their bearing witness to my sadness at times, that the kids are very ‘protective of me’. That possibly they want to be with me all of the time to make sure I’m okay.
Well, Shit.
That bothered me all day.
I don’t want to be a burden to my kids.
As usual, I told Al, who helped me process my thoughts about it.
He reported that he thought that was a very simplistic notion of why they are clingy with me and offered up some other thoughts based on his observations. He said that there probably is a component of them feeling protective of me, but that also because they have witnessed my emotions that they know what to expect from me and know that my emotions are honest indicators of what is happening. True. Stanley can be fine one minute and screaming the next and the children know that he can be unpredictable. That would make them feel less safe with him and want to be with me.
I am the parent that they come to, each of the three of them, when they are hurt or worried about something. Stanley isn’t as emotionally available to them, like he wasn’t to me, and they know that. They come to my bed when I’m home but he wouldn’t allow them to come to his bed, they might interfere with his sleep. I on the other hand, would rather them come curl up with me when they have a nightmare or are anxious and not sleeping well, so that they go back to sleep quickly and can function better the next day. Yes, I wish that they would sleep in their own beds and not disturb me but in the end I would rather be disturbed and them have adequate rest. They know that.
Once again, he talked me off of the ledge and I thank God everyday for having someone in my life that actually thinks things through and is observant enough about happenings around him to be able to offer insight.
I am sure not used to it.
My divorce has been final almost 10 months.
I’ve been separated for almost 2 years.
When in the hell am I going to stop worrying about this?
I want off the ledge.
I don’t know when you’ll leave the ledge forever, but it does seem to me from this distance that you only visit the ledge occassionally: you spend lots of time loving your kids, doing your job, and lovin’ on Al, and it seems that in those moments you are far from the ledge.
I believe that grief is a tricky creature, full of surprises, and one of those surprises is that it pops up at the most unexpected times. Once we understand that it’s okay that grief comes, because it also leaves, grief loses its power to surprise us, and therefore loses a great deal of its power over us.
We grieve the loss of our dreams most of all. This is not what we wanted, this is not what we hoped for for ourselves or our children. I think that mourning that loss is only natural.
You’re doing great. The grief is there, but it isn’t ruling your every move. As long as your visits to the ledge become shorter and less frequent, I think you’re on the right path. Look how far you’ve come already! You can do this.