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March 6, 2008 Table for Two 
Once upon a time, just over a year ago although it seems much longer than that, I had a Plan. I was going to be a Mom by the time I was 28; second baby would follow somewhere around 32, which would give me a few years to decide whether or not I wanted a number three before I'd wanted to have things all wrapped up, by 37. This Plan probably looks out of step to many of you, when most university educated women in Canada are only getting married at 28 and having their first baby in their thirties. Knowing that you have a 1-2% chance of living to retirement and that every year that passes not only reduces your fertility but also potentially introduces diabetes complications which would make pregnancy dangerous and difficult creates a whole new biological clock. I wanted to have my first baby at 28 so I would have a good chance of living long enough to meet my grandchildren. Any number of factors might complicate such a scheme (not living long enough, children not procreating) but I wanted the odds on my side. I had my first baby a few months before I turned 29. If that's not timing, I don't know what is. This month I turn 33. And there may never be a baby number two. Long-time readers will already know that Erik and I had begun trying for baby number two when I finally decided I had to leave. That sentence ought to be intrinsically oxymoronic, I know; but it seemed then (and still does) that our attempt was yet more evidence. My ovaries were obstinately uncooperative, generally timing ovulation with the precise moment in which there could be no chance of encountering sperm. Given that I'd been ovulating regularly before we tried and resumed ovulating regularly after I told him I was leaving, I'm still mostly convinced that this was my reproductive system's little way of saying, "I know you want a baby, but not with him!" It was right, I grudginly admit. It's one thing to bring a child into a marriage that you believe is solid and which thereafter disintegrates, and quite another to knowingly bring a child into a marriage that will certainly disintegrate, with all of the consequences for parents and children that would entail. I had to let go of the Plan. Up until, I think, two months ago, I believed I was ok with this, mostly. Frances makes me the luckiest mom ever; I am happy to be sleeping through the night on a consistent basis; and after spending my twenties being, I now believe, too responsible, I am not averse to spending a portion of my thirties being not quite responsible enough. If it turns out she's my only one, that's ok, I told myself. It's more important to make sure I don't make the same mistakes again, and if that means there's no baby, then there's no baby. Then I read a story in Brain, Child and the scene where the father-to-be puts his hand on his wife's belly to feel the baby move undid me. Then I went to a birthday party for one of Frances's friends and one of my friends brought her ten-month-old, and she had that great older-baby grin, and I played finger spiders with me and she laughed that great older-baby laugh, and I had a half-mad impulse to smuggle her out under my shirt. (Just kidding, Wendy.) It's not even those. I'm avoiding it. Then a friend had a baby. She went to term, her baby is healthy and normal and growing in boilerplate style. And in the midst of my happiness for her (which I am) I thought, I am never going to have that. I already knew that whatever happened I wasn't ever going to have a normal pregnancy or delivery. A type 1 diabetic with a history of pre-term labour and a baby with an undiagnosable genetic syndrome doesn't get to opt for the low-tech approach to reproduction. I am never going to go to term. I am never going to go into labour terrified only of pain and emergencies, not strapped down by a fetal monitor and frantic over potential undiagnosed genetic issues. I am never going to show up at a hospital in labour and leave a few days later with the baby in the carseat. I am never going to have the luxury of panicking over a single ounce lost or gained, never be able to worry myself sick over whether my child is on the 25th centile line or the 50th, never be able to use such well-loved cliches as "S/he's growing so fast!" and "I just bought this outfit last week and already it's too small." Never. It's a loss of the planned for baby-number-two, but it's also a loss of the planned-for baby-number-one, the Dream Baby, the one you think you're going to have when you get pregnant. Frances is in every way so much better than I could have planned; but that Dream Baby isn't as dead as I thought she was. She's still kicking me hard right under the ribs. Baby-number-two, on some level, was still supposed to make up for what I still believe are losses from baby-number-one. It feels like a betrayal of Frances to even think it, let alone say it; but it's not having her that I grieve, it's all the parts of the experience of becoming pregnant and becoming a mother that I still feel like an outsider on because I don't share them. I thought I was ok with it, but looking at "never," picking it up and fingering it and sticking it in my pocket and bringing it out again, is making it hard again in a way I didn't anticipate. I know what you will say. You will say that it's way too early to be thinking about "never." But there's the Cat, so at the earliest I will be in a position to make a commitment which might be the foundation of a baby at 34. Which would then be a few years before the appearance of an actual baby. By which point the appearance of an actual baby is no longer a given. Or less of a given. With a history of diabetes and asthma and insomnia and repeated kidney infections, my first assumption is always that my body won't work. Some people are still fertile at 37; I don't expect to be one of them. Posted by Andrea at 8:24 AM | Comments (16) January 29, 2008 Even when it's good, it's bad
He put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, smiling, and said, "So are all of your friends married and having kids right now?" "All of them." I laughed. "Actually, so was I, but I separated last year." "Really!" It's so strange to think of all of my friends just entering the funhouse as I'm leaving it. So many engagement rings and wedding rings and ultrasound photos and baby showers; and stranger still is, we're all the same age. But as out-of-step as I must be with the typical life cycle of my actual generation, it's hard for me to think of my life as inappropriate: my mother was married when she was 17. Seventeen! And still married, 37 years later. So for me to be married at 24 was practically delinquent. I was pushing spinster status. So there they all are, getting married and having babies, and I'm getting divorced and (unless something changes in the next few years) probably done with having babies, as sad as that makes me. Except that another friend or two and a colleague are in marriages that are either crumbling or have crumbled. You're told to go out and get this thing and then build your life on it, but then sometimes in a matter of hours it vanishes; this thing that was supposed to be the foundation of your adult life turns into gravel. All of a sudden all the other things you thought you had, you don't have either. The job and the house and the neighbourhood and the family and the friends and the finances and the plans and the retirement and all the other things you built on top of this one thing that was supposed to be the foundation; the foundation gets whisked away like the magician's tablecloth, only nothing else stays standing. When you lose your spouse you don't just lose your spouse. You lose everything else. Sunday morning I woke from a dream where it was last summer again, and I was moving out of my house. Sorting through all the paperwork, choosing what to bring, what to shred, what to throw away, what to leave. I emptied can after can of recycled paper, carried boxes into the truck. My father and mother and brother were there, for some reason, though my brother lives out east and wouldn't have come for such an occasion in any case. Coming back from carrying one box into the truck, I walked down the hall, into the old kitchen, and put my palms flat onto the countertop, rested my forehead between them, and cried. Now: I don't miss my ex-husband, and I don't miss that house; but all of the things I built on the assumption that they would be forever, and which were lost too--I suppose, the paperwork; what to keep, what to leave, what to destroy--all of that, Frances riding her tricycle down the driveway and walking to find toads in the woods nearby and the picture of the family I thought I was going to have all those years ago, the one with a happy child between two happy parents who are happy with each other, maybe another happy child or two in time, the one that proved itself to be so entirely illusory that it could not tolerate the contrast with reality--all of that. So even then, even when all the traces of love in the relationship have been scrubbed out with acid and salt, even when you know it is the right thing to do, even when part of you is looking forward to some of the changes, even then, it's hard. It's a hard thing. Even when it's not the actual person or the actual place that you miss, even when it's just the idea of those things, what they were supposed to represent. Then I think of what it must be like when the spouse you might lose is someone you still love, the house you might lose is one you still love, and all of the other things depending on that, the entire life built that might be about to crash down, and you'd think I'd have been through this often enough to know what to say or do, but I don't. Posted by Andrea at 8:49 AM | Comments (9) January 2, 2008 Solitary
There are two kinds of witches: the kind who practice in groups, in circles and covens (yes, covens, really), and those who practice by themselves, the solitaries. And if I asked for a show of hands of which sort you thought I would be--covener or solitary?--I'd be surprised if even a one of you raised your hand to guess I am a covener. I'm not, of course. I'm a solitary. It shows, I know. The intraversion, the hermitishness, I know. And it suits me perfectly, being a solitary wiccan. I get to do my own thing my own way all by myself. I get to pretend that Silver Ravenwolf doesn't even exist, and that the entire cotton-candy-pink cast-a-spell-to-get-a-boyfriend shelf of the nearest bookstore is surely an illusion, a hallucination, and nothing connected with me. My hobbies, too, are of the solitary sort. I read, I write, I do crafts, I blog, I work out at home because I can't get to a gym, I do a million and one things that revolve around me sitting on my butt on the couch talking to myself. (Or working out. Less sitting with that.) "Is that what Freya would say?" I ask the air. Or: "I need an acrylic stamp cleaner." Or: "Oh crap, I forgot to call the optometrist again." I'll know to be concerned if one day the TV cabinet answers me. All the while, loneliness sits purring under the couch, a small fluffy cat. Cute, self-contained and solitary; it keeps me company, but in the background where I don't pay it much attention and it asks for even less. Am I missing anything? Yes, but no. I have Frances, of course; and she is excellent company when she's awake. Of course she doesn't stay awake, though often she would like to, and there is that pesky Thursday to Saturday period where she is not there at all. It is then that the sleeping kitty stretches up, and then down, leaps on to the couch to settle on my lap, paws needling my thighs. I scratch it behind the ears and we mope together, the fluffy cat and I. Am I missing anything? Maybe a little. The cat is easily fed. There is housework to do and no one there to do it but me, and that keeps me busy for a while, sweeping and mopping and doing dishes and putting food away and cleaning the kitchen table and laundry and all the things that every adult gets to do. The cat will eat housework, if that's all there is. There are blog posts to write and books to read, and no incessant television on in the background to distract me, no guilt to feel over someone who is being neglected while I pencil my notes on green post-it tags and litter them all over my reading. The cat likes books, it will gobble them down. There is exercising. The cat will tolerate exercising if I force it. And oh, there is writing, real meaty writing, essays and stories and even a novel. Uninterrupted writing time, every day. Time to revel in words, roll around in them, wrap myself up in sentences and paragraphs, plots and narratives, like quilts. The cat loves writing. It would eat that every meal, if I let it. This cat and I are still getting to know each other. I've never been alone enough to be lonely, before. I am by nature so solitary that it takes a good long stretch of solitude before it switches over into its conjoined twin, loneliness, and stares at me with sad eyes instead of merry ones. So sometimes I trip over it or step on its tail and it yowls at me, hisses and scratches; but that's ok. We're new to each other, and settling in. For instance, I can tell you that the cat really likes having the bed to itself, most of the time. The cat likes knowing that it never needs to rearrange the dishes in the dishwasher (mostly because I don't have one), and that my regular shirts will never be left to rot because they were assumed to be delicates, nor my knit shirts shrunken in the dryer. The cat is very happy not to have to pay for cable, and not to have a largeish collection of plastic bags accumulating uselessly under the sink. The cat really, really likes knowing that if it gets woken up at some ungodly hour, it can switch the nightstand lamp on and read in bed for a while. As I said, it doesn't ask for much. It is generally a pretty happy cat. It sleeps under the couch, and purrs. I agreed to take this cat in August, when I moved. (Doesn't this cat need a name? Is its namelessness beginning to grate at you?) I committed to it back in March, when I told Erik I was leaving. I promised it two years. Two years, I thought, would be the minimum required for me to learn about it, and for it to learn about me. I haven't ever really lived on my own. I had roommates in university, and when I graduated I married Erik almost right away. He had a job that involved shiftwork so I spent plenty of time by myself, but he was always coming back, and that's different. That was temporary and with a known end date. And I wonder now with the wisdom of hindsight if part of what got me into trouble way back when was a desire to avoid loneliness, and I jumped when I should have held back. In any case, I can't make that mistake now. If nothing else, then for Frances's sake I need to be positively, absolutely, 100% certain that whatever new change I make to her living situation, especially if it involves an adult male who is not her father, is completely and unquestionably in her best interests, or at least defensible and not likely to cause my resilient and brave girl to utterly collapse. Two years, I reasoned, would be enough. Enough to learn myself. Enough to be certain that if I did leap again, it would not be because I am afraid of single motherhood, or of loneliness. Enough to question myself relentlessly about my motives and desires and to know that what I am giving myself to is not going to destroy me again. Two years, I promised it. March 2009. At least. And that cat, I tell you, it acts like it owns the place. Two years! it purrs knowingly. You're stuck with me. I can shred the curtains and the couch and puke hairballs all over the place, and what are you going to do about it? You promised me two years. At times I think I might have been a little hasty, and I should turf the ungrateful little bugger now. Intellectually I know I was right. "To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet," the cat says smugly. Charles Colton said that. And it's true. My heart and I have some catching up to do, no matter how often I wish it, too, would just blink out like a snuffed candle. That's why I gave the cat two years, after all. But then there are times when I am too tired for the housework, the reading, the blogging, the working out, the crafts, the writing; too tired to feed the cat and give it what it's asking for. I want there to be someone to say "No that's ok, I'll do the dishes tonight, you sit down." Or: "How was your day?" Or: "I'm going to the store for milk, should I pick up anything?" Or: "You look nice today." And it's not like I can pick any random fellow off the street and plug him into that role and expect it to work any better than it did the last time, but holy hell, the temptation is there; and at those times, my cute little fluffy cat disappears. It expands and takes on Aslan's dimensions, only mean; a fierce and hungry lion larger than a horse; and then it eats me alive. When it is late and I am alone and tired and don't have the energy to feed it, it eats me instead. "Two years," it says, licking its lips; and then I don't think I can do this. "You promised," it says. "I'm not going anywhere." And then I think that anything else must be better. "'Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for,'" it says. "Dag Hammarskjold." And then it shrinks a little. And I, feeling uncomfortably like a handful of ground meat, regard it. Cat: Ah, that one got you. I knew it would. Andrea: Damn you. Cat: You are a sucker for a challenge. Ha. Now you're going to try to turn this to some account. Andrea: (sighs) Cat: So? Can you take this? It is generally about then that I do the dishes, wipe the crumbs off the counter. I come back to the couch to read a bit before bed, and a small furry cat buts its hot forehead against my elbow and purrs. I scratch it behind the ears. Posted by Andrea at 9:02 AM | Comments (5) December 19, 2007 Co-Parenting
Erik and I never fought. In the five years since the issue that finally drove us apart became apparent, we fought four, maybe five times over it, and the same number of times on other issues. There is a gag order in the separation agreement that prevents me from discussing those issues (I think I'm allowed to mention the gag order, though), and skirting around it now is as challenging as it has been since the summer. But we never fought about what broke us up. Instead the Monster set up residence in the living room and we perfected the art of walking around it. (Monster? What Monster? That's a futon.) And so, as most of you know, I decided to leave, believing that it was better for Frances to have two happy parents who lived apart than two fucked-up parents who lived together--and having accepted that there was no solving the fucked-up-ness. That five years was more than enough time for there to be at least some glimmerings of the beginnings of improvement or change, and there wasn't any, and there never was going to be. But it was still a leap of faith. I suspected that I would be a better mother, I believed Frances would be better off, but I didn't really know and I couldn't know until I had my own place and Frances and I were living there. And while it's true that studies consistently show that exposure to constant conflict between parents is much worse than divorced parents (thanks to my data source, Liz, for reminding me so frequently), and that the kids of divorced parents do just as well as their nuclear-familied peers when controlled for socioeconomic status and other factors--it's also true that Erik and I never fought. We glared, we simmered, we avoided, we sniped, but we never fought. So I wasn't sure how that would play out for my wee girl, and thus for me. I believed that it would be easy. I believed I would move out and be again the person I thought I still was, under all the anger, except a lot more tired. But I didn't know, and underneath there were doubts. How sure was I, really? How could it be that easy to dissolve a ten-year-old bond? How easy would it be for Frances--would she regress, would we struggle with new problems to replace the old? Surely I would find, when I moved, that I missed him more than I thought, that it was harder than I thought, that Frances would struggle more and my increased peace of mind could not compensate. But it was that easy. It shouldn't have been, but it was. Overnight I was no longer angry. I got to be the mother I wanted to be and thought I could be again. It's a loss for Frances, and I don't want to minimize that. She feels her father's absence keenly, I know. But she has a mother again, and that counts for a lot. And the truth is that Erik and I are much better co-parents than we were spouses (for the last few years anyway); as some of you mentioned on the Worry post--we don't talk about anything but Frances, but when it comes to her we talk exhaustively. Every bit of news is shared, all the documents passed back and forth regarding school and daycare. She can tell me when she misses her Daddy, and then she and I sit down and think of ways to help (maybe calling him, or writing a letter, or making him a picture, or just a snuggle on the couch). We rearrange our lives and schedules to give her what she needs when we have to. Frances is a very well-loved little girl with two devoted parents. She would prefer that we all live together, I know, and it makes me sad to realize that I can't give her two devoted parents in the same house. But Frances's family has not changed. Her living situation has changed (and significantly) and that makes her sad, but when she draws a picture of her family, it still includes Frances, me, Erik and Roxie the cat. Posted by Andrea at 9:18 AM | Comments (9) November 28, 2007 No No No
What's that, you say? My comeuppence is here? Frances is no longer the angel-perfect child? Alas, Dear Readers; she is not the one throwing tantrums. I am. Last Thursday night, in fact, when she had gone to visit her father for an extra-long weekend together, and I saw the dirt and dead leaves and mudtrails from the stroller in the front hall, the table piled with paper, the coffee table covered in magazines and letters from the school, the dishes in the sink, the laundry piling up in the basket on the landing, the list of groceries on the fridge, Frances's birthday party pencilled in on the calendar, the necessity of assisting Santa Claus with his holiday purchases; and, in that fogged state that can only be brought on when one's child has been sick with a bad cough for a week which gets them up half a dozen times each night, and there is no one else to get up with her, or get her lunch while you take a nap, so that at 7:30 pm one is already longing for nothing but sleep; and one promised oneself to write 2000 words that evening, and work out, and possibly eat too--A large wall fell on my head. Normally, I run into the wall, and it knocks me flat on my ass. This time, the wall fell on me. It was taking nothing for granted. It was going to make sure it got my attention. Wicked Witch of the East style--SPLAT. No pint-sized heroine emerged to the raucous cheers of a gang of underfed munchkins, but there was, on this wall, a large neon sign blinking in capital letters way up near the top. It read, "HA HA HA." This was overly ambiguous, I felt. It required interpretation. Thus, I interpreted it to mean: "You will never again be able to do anything just because you want to." Hence, a tantrum: No - I don't want to, I don't want to. No - I don't want to , no, no. No - I don't want to, I don't want to. No, no, no, I don't want to. Oh no. Leave me...alone.* I wanted A DAY OFF. Does it seem like so much to ask? There is never A DAY OFF anymore. There are hours off, and those stolen from the margins. There is Thursday evening, and Friday evening, and Saturday until the afternoon. But an entire day? Sleep in, relax, no work that has to be done? No. And by Thursday, the chores and errands have piled up like ... well, like a large wall that has it in for you and is planning to flatten you like a sheet of tissue paper. Or maybe a kleenex, so you can blow your nose when you start to feel sorry for yourself. By Thursday, there are groceries. There is a week of meals that need to be made in advance, because cooking in the evenings after work just will not happen, and if I don't have something in the fridge that's ready for reheating, I'll eat chocolate for dinner every night. Not so good for the blood sugar, that. Then there is a week's worth of laundry to be done, beds to be changed, floors to be cleaned, more dishes to be washed. Bills to be paid, mail to be sorted, garbage and recycling to be taken out, a fridge to be cleared of produce that didn't get eaten before sprouting a civilization of its own. I don't want to be quiet. I don't want to be good. I don't want to do anything if you tell me I should. I won't listen to you. If you call, I won't come. All I want to do now... Is have a tantrum. That's what I call my "what I need to do to maintain custody of my child" list, and it is my top priority. Then there is the "what I need to do to maintain sanity for myself" list, which includes eating regular meals that do not consist entirely of differing proportions of sugar and fat, getting some regular exercise, and sleep. To this, add a novel. Add December, with both Frances's birthday and Yule/Christmas. Subtract sleep. SPLAT. Without the extras, this single-moming thing isn't so bad. Most of the time, I find myself wondering what I was so scared of, why I put this off for so long? It's like spreading warm icing on a cool cake. Then: subtract sleep, add December, add a novel. Now the icing's cold, the cake is warm, and the knife is scraping crumbs up into the icing so that the whole thing is a butchered, ugly mess. No one could eat this cake! No, no, no, I don't want to . I don't want to. No, no, no, I don't want to. No, no. This is not even counting all of the things that I chopped out of my life already: the magazine has not been touched in months because I can't do it. Scrapbooking now happens every other month or so (good thing I was caught up before I moved). No cable, no TV. No computer games. Have you noticed I don't comment on other people's blogs much anymore? I also have half a dozen actual paper letters to reply to. No movies. Life was stripped down to the basics: Keep custody of child, maintain sanity. From this, something can be subtracted without a meltdown (sleep). Or to this, something can be added without a meltdown (novel, December). Both at once? SPLAT. No, no, no, I don't want to . I don't want to. No, no, no, I don't want to. No, no. A day off. This idea presented itself to me in a golden, glowing halo, possibly wearing wings. A day off! Sleep in. Get up. Feed self and only self. Do the housework and errands, get all caught up. Then loll around. Just loll. Loll is such a lovely word, I think; so underused and unappreciated. Poor loll. We all need some more lolling. I thought of this at 7:45 pm, when I'd realized it had taken me an hour to write 800 words, and I owed myself another 1200, and I so badly wanted to go to sleep and just pretend that all this stuff that had to be done would be taken care of by someone else--the munchkins, maybe, or the pint-sized heroine, or even the yappy dog--that I could just go to sleep and wake up the next morning to a beautifully iced cake, instead of a crumby, lopsided mess. I felt pretty damned sorry for myself (never mind that the novel was self-imposed). Good thing I'd been flattened out into a tissue, because I needed one. I don't want to be quiet. I don't want to be good. And I won't cooperate if you tell me I should. I don't want to behave. I won't go to my room. Gonna rant, gonna rave Gonna throw a tantrum. Taaan-trum OK, more than one. I'm a wild child and I'm gonna make a scene. I'm a wild child let me show you what I mean: How dare the mud and leaves follow the stroller into the house? How dare a cold set up shop in my daughter's lungs for a week and wake her up all night? How dare it rain almost every day in October and November so that riding my bike to work is impossible and I have to fit exercise into my evenings? How dare the garbage can fill up so quickly? How dare the laundry machines be taken in the only thirty-minute free segment I have today? How dare Christmas be a month away? How dare all my spare weekends between now and Frances's party be full already? It's amazing how quickly this form of exhaustion can sweep downhill to rage, and then build. How dare life continue to make demands when I am barely functioning already? No, no, no, I don't want to. I don't want to. No, no, no, I don't want to. No, no. The Art of Saying No has been finely honed in the last few months. Handmade invitations to my daughter's birthday party? No. Handmade Christmas cards? A few, for a very few very special people. Presents for all my friends this year? No. The traditional full complement of baked goods? No--maybe three or four recipes, after my holiday vacation starts. Any handmade presents this year? No. Like that loss exercise I wrote about a week or two ago--it felt like I had written on slips of paper all of the things I do that make me feel like me. And, one at a time, I was adding them to a little bonfire: which one can I give up? Now which one can I give up? How deeply can I cut and still be me? We're down to the bone now; any further cuts will be limbs lost, not flesh. Like last night, when I looked in front of me at four glorious days free of childcare (in which I would miss Frances like a missing limb, but at least would have time to myself), and saw that almost every minute was already accounted for. I had four days off and they were full already! I had four days off and the to-do list was long enough that I probably wouldn't get all of it done! I was never, ever going to catch up. There was never ever going to be a time when I could just do something because I wanted to do it and not because I had to. No, no, no, I don't want to. I don't want to. No, no, no, I don't want to. No, no. All of the different problems and issues got rolled together into one big, sticky, snotty mess. By the end of it, each brick of perceived grievance--loneliness and exhaustion, and groceries and laundry I would forever have to do by myself, and mud and leaves in the front hall that were not going to clean themselves away, and dishes that persisted in piling up in the sink, and christmas presents that were not being constructed by industrious elves at the north pole, and a birthday party, and bills--goddammit! bills!, and who in hell invented the torture device of christmas cards? and why wasn't someone coming to relieve me of the burden of living my life? where was the person who was going to save me from the consequences of my own decisions?--added themselves to all the other bricks into a big mean wall in the sky. Instead of getting out of the way, like a sensible person, I shook my fist at it. That worked out well. Leave me alone. DON'T Leave me alone SPLAT. The world looks a bit different when you've been flattened into the dimensions of a tissue and are contemplating it from beneath a large wall. Maybe, I thought, maybe I ought to think of this as a logistical problem, instead of a mammoth injustice being perpetrated against me by faceless forces of evil (and dirt). Logistical problems tend to have solutions. Maybe, if I lie here quietly for a moment (not that I have much choice, with this wall on me) I can get myself to remember that nobody made me become a single mom, and I did this because I wanted to, because I thought it would be better; and so, if this is turning out to be pretty hard sometimes, it's up to me to find some way to make this easier. Maybe I can go for a long walk instead of my normal workout, clear my head and get outside; maybe I can change Frances's sheets next weekend; maybe I can stay in this weekend and get a grip on things here; and maybe I can stop banging my head on this next scene and write a different part of the novel instead. And lo: the wall did disintegrate, and I did manage to write the next 1200 words, and I did get a bit of housework done, although I still felt like a tissue. Well I'm gonna be quiet and I'm gonna be good and I might cooperate if you tell me I should I've got something to say and you never will guess if you ask the right way them I'm gonna say.... Some things don't change. For example: I stil think A DAY OFF sounds like a pretty great idea. And in about four weeks, I'm going to get one. ~~~~~ *Lyrics courtesy of Sandra Boyton's song "Tantrum" off of the Dog Train album. Posted by Andrea at 10:15 AM | Comments (10) October 14, 2007 Sick and the Single Mom
I wish I could show you a picture of my stomach right now, Dear Readers, and allow it to linger in your consciousnesses for only the duration of this post, never to trouble you again. When I switched to the new pump a few months ago, I stocked up on a few boxes of the kind of insertion sites that with the old pump could only be used in my stomach. Accordingly, that's where they have all been going. My stomach is now a mess of red marks and scars, some of which bled in impressive fountains or left noticeable holes on the way out. Not good. Not good, and possibly connected to a few weeks of high blood sugars that wouldn't respond to insulin the way I am used to: my stomach is getting 'worn out.' I ordered new insertion sites of the kind I used to use in my hips with the old pump, and put the first one in last night, intending to give my stomach some time off. This event coincided with the onset of a particularly nasty cold; I feel as if I have swallowed a bucketfull of coarse sand and gravel, my throat is so raw, and my head feels as if it is fifteen pounds. Which it actually might be, consideirng the amount of goo I'm removing from it on a regular basis. It also coincided with the return of Frances to my loving maternal care. The ideal conditions for a perfect storm of sleeplessness. 1. Take daytime cold drugs at 6 to allow one to take care of one's child. 2. Put her to bed at 7:30 3. Wait out the period until the package allows one to take night-time cold drugs, past 11, and then go to bed. 4. Cough. Sneeze. Kleenex. Repeat. 5. Sleep. 6. Wake to the dulcet tones of an alarming pump. "Blockage detected. No delivery." 7. Reset pump, assuming that you were sleeping funny and the tube was twisted. 8. Repeat steps six and 7 a handful of times, refusing to change the site because this means getting up and turning on lights and you might not be able to fall asleep again. 9. Test blood sugar. High. 10. In an hour, pump alarm reminds you to test again. Higher. 11. In an hour, pump alarm reminds you to test again. Higher still. Correction boluses having no effect. 12. When the pump alarms at 6 am, give up and change insertion site. 13. When the child alarms at 6:30, whimper, and stagger downstairs for a quality morning of hallowe'en DVDs. 14. Take daytime cold drugs, generously supplemented with hot tea, so that one does not fall asleep on the couch. 15. New site also not working. Blood sugar now very high. Contort oneself to insert angled-insertion set manually on hip. 16. Bitch to the world about one's terrible night on one's blog. I'm not sure what to do if I can't use sites on my hip with my new pump. I can't use my stomach forever--it's not absorbing insulin as well as it used to--and I have more fat on my hips than my arms or legs, so if it won't work there, it won't work on my arms or legs either. Needless to say, last night's poor sleep is not helping the cold any. (Are there any other diabetic single moms in the audience? If so, leave me a comment or drop me an email at andrea AT andreamcdowell DOT com. I'm doing a bit of research for a potential article/essay.) Posted by Andrea at 6:31 AM | Comments (15) September 24, 2007 Passing Another Test
In the end I let the wedding dress go. I didn't want to have to see it whenever I turned around. But I kept the photographs, one of which--a shot showing the three of us together in a garden on our fifth anniversary--is sitting on the TV cabinet. I used to love that photograph, me in my red knit tank top, Erik in a short-sleeved shirt, adorable nine-month-old Frances in her sleeveless pink dress with the green leaves embroidered on it. That dress is still hanging in her closet, too precious to let go. It was my favourite picture of my family, when I had one. But it is still a picture of Frances's family, so even though it makes me cringe, on the TV cabinet it stays. One day soon I will move it into a frame that will fit in her room. ~~~~~ After buying two more hardcover books that I certainly don't need but couldn't resist, I walked to the convenience store for a Diet Coke and picked up a magazine while I was there. (Really. Print addict. I'm not kidding). As I put it on the counter and the shopkeeper rang it in, he smiled, and I smiled back. "Hello, gorgeous neighbour," he said. This is his standard form of address. I laughed, as I normally do. "How are you today?" "Good. You?" "Not bad. How's your daughter?" "Great. She loves school, she's really settling in." "No chance for a reconciliation for you, eh?" He heard about the divorce when, a few months back, he pumped me for information on when Frances would have a sibling. I laughed again. "Nope. Not a chance." "No? Why not?" "I have good reasons." "Everyone makes mistakes and deserves a second chance. No?" "No. Not in this case." I took the magazine and can of pop and added them to the bag of books, tucked the change back in my wallet. "You've already forgiven him one or two times, eh?" "More like a few dozen." "Oh." He passed me my receipt. "Well, you're entitled then. Good day, neighbour." I'm glad that my marital decisions meet with the approval of my friendly neighbourhood shopkeeper. One of these days we may even learn each other's names. Posted by Andrea at 6:20 AM | Comments (5) September 13, 2007 So.
Lord this blog is self-absorbed lately. I promise I will pry my head out of my ass at some point. Scout's honour. So. So. It looks like I might have a date tomorrow. I have not been on a date since I was eighteen. And yes, I met Erik when I was twenty-two, but he (and the others between 18 and 22) were cases of people I already knew, friends, where relationships developed. But an actual date, an I-don't-really-know-you-yet-so-let's-get-together-and-suss-each-other-out date? It's been a hell of a long time. I haven't got a clue what I'm doing. Furthermore it appears as though there may be more on the horizon, thanks to a single parents site I signed up at mostly to locate a few playdates and single mom friends and found, much to my surprise, that you can only be a WOMAN looking for a MAN or a MAN looking for a WOMAN (yay heterosexism). So no friends, but a couple of single dads, who seem nice and write funny emails and I think it's more than likely they will ask me out on a date at some point and I have no reason to say no, except that it's been a hell of a long time (see above) and I haven't got a clue what I'm doing. Of course the longer I wait the longer it will have been so that's no solution. The last time I was in the position of dating more than one person at a time, I was fifteen. I didn't do it well then either. Let's hope seventeen years have taught me something and the grey hairs came with wisdom, as advertised. (No salacious details, Dear Readers; I hope you understand.) Yeah. Part of the reason of getting a divorce is surely to have the option of spending time with members of the preferred sex who do not make you furious and upset all the time, but now that the opportunity is actually here, I could not tell you whether I am more anxious or excited. Posted by Andrea at 9:54 AM | Comments (9) September 12, 2007 I'm a statistic
According to this news article in the Toronto Star this morning, the latest Canadian census puts single-parent families at the highest level ever (more than 1 in 4) and adults who are not married in the majority (51.5%). Huh. The last few years have been strange. When I was in highschool, I cross-stitched and crocheted and made candles, and it made me a geek. Now you can't go ten feet in any direction without a big feminist craft revival festival--new magazines, dozens of book titles a year, stitch and bitch groups sprouting like mushrooms after rain. When I was in highschool, loving science fiction and fantasy stories made me a geek. Now you can't go ten feet in any direction without a new speculative fiction movie or tv show popping up and garnering huge fan bases and critical acclaim--The Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Firefly. When I was in highschool, having my diary published in the newspaper definitely made me a geek. Now you can't go ten feet in any direction without stumbling on a new blog. When I was in highschool, taking my camera with me everywhere and taking a million photos of everything also made me a geek. Now anyone and everyone has a scrapbook and they all do the same bloody thing. When I was in highschool, reading as much as I did was definitely geeky. Now book clubs are so ubiquitous they're over. Reading? We're done with reading. That was last year's thing. When I was in highschool, being an environmentalist was geeky, or very definitely strange. Now everyone cares about global warming and smog and wants to calculate their ecological footprints and purchase carbon offsets for their SUVs (not that I think this is an effective way to manage environmental guilt, but you know what I mean). When I was in highschool, being single was geeky, or at least pathetic; and being part of a single-parent family was definitely tragic. Now? It's passe, it's been done. Now I'm just part of the crowd. What's next? Is wicca going to be the Next Big Religious Craze? Will baking chocolate chip cookies and banana bread be the next Feminist Craft Revival? Will everyone be painting their abodes in the Carnival Funhouse Modern scheme? Is feminism going to become cool again? Will poetry explode on the cultural scene in a big way? Quit it, world. Back off. Leave me my oddities. Posted by Andrea at 8:13 AM | Comments (6) September 11, 2007 Day One
At 6:48 this morning I woke to the bleary sounds of Frances asking for me from her bedroom. I found her sitting on the floor beside her bed in her ballerina nightgown (as pink and lovely as if she had never bled all over it), smiling, her hair mussed and tangled. "Good morning, sweet girl." "Good morning, Mummy. Is it morning time?" "It sure is. Do you want to snuggle in the big bed for a few minutes?" "Yeah!" I wrapped us both in the blankets and Frances played with the baby mole. "Can I watch some TV while I eat my minigo?" "No, sweetie. No time this morning. We have to get you ready for school." "But I don't want to go to school. I want to stay home!" "I know. But you have to go to school, and I have to go to work. In a minute we're going to get up and get dressed." "So we can play?" "No, honey. So you can go to school." "But I don't want to go to school." "I know." Rinse, repeat. Just before seven we got up, and I dressed her in her long-sleeved light-pink shirt with a horse on it (she picked it herself--"it's the same colour as my nightgown!"), and a pair of brown leggings with light-pink flowers on them, and her brown suede mary-janes. With the tangles combed out of her hair she was the most adorable big-school girl I'd ever seen. She ate two minigos and half a banana while I packed my lunch and her snack and my work bag, and brushed my teeth and even actually put on make-up. Then we put on her raincoat ("you have to pull up the hood so my hair won't get wet") and my jacket and out we went. The rain had stopped but there were many large and interesting puddles on the bike path behind our house. "Come on, sweetie." "I AM coming," she'd say, as she dawdled and splashed, zig-zagged over the path. "OK. Can you come a little faster?" "I don't want to come faster. I want to come slow." And she did. What is a five-minute walk for me when she's in the stroller is over ten when she walks; but I'd left the stroller outside last night and it is too wet to be used this morning. So she dawdles, and I try to find the joy in the sight of her little splashing feet, her wee head in the raincoat, her smile. We walk slowly. At least, until she sees that my jacket sleeves are so long that they cover my hands, and she wants to catch them! So now the chase is on. Can she catch my hands? Oh, she caught them. But wait, now she's running; can I catch her? No, I can't, she's running too fast, look how fast she's running! She giggles. "You can't catch me, Mummy!" She walks all the way to school by herself, and we go into her classroom, hang up her coat, put her rainboots underneath in case they go outside later on, put her lunch bag on the floor beside her boots for kindergarten this afternoon. I leave her with an interesting toy; she cries a little on my way out the door, but I know she will be ok. A walk to the subway, a wait, a short ride, a walk to my office; I am at my desk by 8:30. Not bad. I'll leave to pick her up at 5:20. It will be a long day for my wee girl, and for me. But so far, so good. Posted by Andrea at 9:23 AM | Comments (13) September 10, 2007 I swear to god this is the last painting post.
Until I start posting about refinishing the furniture. And won't that be a barrel of monkeys.
The flowers in Frances's room are finally painted.
I think they turned out rather well. They make her room look a little less boxy, I think. ("Rooms are supposed to be boxy, Andrea." I know, shut up.) There are shelves hung for craft goodies over a desk in the eating area, and on it a perfect little craft goodie cabinet from a friend.
Propped up against the wall (and now hung on a hook with a bit of picture wire) is an in-progress cross-stitched dragon. It's been in progress now for about six years and I'm sure it will be a few decades before I manage to finish it. But in the meantime it is pretty and it seemed a shame to have it stuck in a closet somewhere until it's done. "But how can you work on anything with that mess on your desk?" The mess is actually a bit of treasure I excavated--a box of crocheted lace I inherited from a great-aunt when she passed away a year or so ago. I'm sure everyone thought it was junk, but crafty junk, so why not send it to Andrea? She's into that. When I got around to going through it I was stunned. Lots of beautiful handmade crocheted lace--doilies, mostly, of course, but nice ones. And an embroidered silk handkerchief, and a linen handkerchief embroidered by hand with a large A monogram in a blue that just happens to match my new bedroom.
If that's not serendipity, what is? Also two old, beaten wedding rings, his-and-hers, and no idea who they belonged to. My great-aunt? Her mother?
The front hall is organized, a mail-sorter and two sets of hooks (one at Frances height, one at Andrea height), and a table I got years ago that fits perfectly between the radiator and the wall. So far so good. Everything is staying neat. (All bets are off when I go back to work Tuesday.) Another lovely old table that fits perfectly by the back door. LauraJ's beautiful quilt folded on the overstuffed armchair by the television, for emergency snuggling sessions (there have been several). The other day I found, on a run, a large nearby park, with a river through it, and expanses of mature trees, small forests, wild patches. There were benches and rocky paths leading down to riverbanks, the air quieter and cool. Right now it is full of goldenrod, asters, snapdragons, and other late-summer local wildflowers; but I know in the spring it will be full of trilliums. So far so good. I'll really find out on Tuesday, when real life starts again. Posted by Andrea at 6:07 AM | Comments (20) September 6, 2007 Just a Nosebleed
Every girl needs a light pink nightgown with frilly satin edging on the sleeves and the hem and an applique of ballerina slippers on the front, with matching real ballerina slippers, as part of their back to school ensemble. You'll never wear it to the classroom, but surely the improved rest brought on by knowing you look your ballerina-best all night long will have an impact on learning and attention span. Shut up. Frances got a ballerina nightgown during her school shopping spree, ok? And it looks adorable, and she looks adorable in it, and she loves to do ballet in it by doing arabesques and twirling around with a leg in the air (I think I need to sign her up for dance classes). And Tuesday night she wore it to bed, though it was much too warm, because she couldn't bear yet to sleep in anything else. Near one o'clock, there was a loud thump and a scream. I rushed into her room and turned on the light to see Frances struggling on the floor in a small pool of her own blood. She had fallen off her bed and landed on her face, and a river was pouring from her nose and her mouth. It was all over her new nightgown, and shortly all over me, as I picked her up and settled her against my shoulder, still screaming. She could not be comforted and the blood did not seem to stop coming. I called telehealth--how can I tell if her nose is broken? I asked. Can I have your name, your daughter's name, current address, phone number, date of birth, compelte medical history please? said the nurse. Eventually he expressed an opinion that I should take her to the hospital. Shit, I thought. Fuck. Shit. I peeled off her nightie carefully without touching her face and set it to soak in cold water. I mopped the obvious blood puddles off the floor, cleaned her up as well as I could, put on some blue jeans, and took my crying girl into the night. To walk to the hospital. Subway? Closed. Taxi? Don't have any numbers here yet. Car? What car? It's not as bad as it sounds, it's only a few blocks away, it just doesn't seem ideal somehow. Then again, what about the situation was ideal? I got us outside, in the dark, streetlamps lighting our way while I walked quickly, Frances still on my shoulder. But no longer crying. We talked about how nice the air was, how quiet it was, how strange that no one else was around. We talked about how morning was still very far away and the lights weren't going to turn off soon. "Are you feeling better, sweetie?" I asked. "No," she said. "My tummy hurts." "How about your nose?" "It's just fine." "Your tongue?" "No, it doesn't hurt. It's just fine." "Your forehead?" "It's just fine too." "Your feet and your knees?" "They are just fine. And this and this and this and this"--here she touched herself all over--"are all just fine. Everything is just fine. Only my tummy hurts." "Just your tummy?" "Yeah." "You know, sweet girl, the tummy ache is from all your crying--from swallowing blood and air and stuff. The doctors at the hospital aren't going to be able to fix it." "Oh." "But maybe a few zookies and a drink of apple juice at home can fix it. What do you think?" "OK!" So home we went, and after a long-past-midnight snack of zookies and apple juice, and another bedtime story (this one about brave and strong Princess Frances who fell from the tower window and landed on her head and got a very bad owwie), and a bed rail installed to make sure that never happens again, and more kisses and snuggles, she slept in late and had zookies again for breakfast (maternal guilt can work dietary wonders). While she was at daycare I wrung out her nightgown and hung it on the shower curtain rod to dry. It, too, is just fine, all the bloodstains gone. Posted by Andrea at 6:33 AM | Comments (14) September 4, 2007 Gone Fishing
I'm not dead, no, though you all could be pardoned for thinking so. I'm on vacation, and in more than the obvious sense. My brain has entered a different space. I'm not thinking about big questions. I'm thinking about--the iPod is fried; do I get a new one now, or later; and in blue, or green? I bought a bike to ride back and forth to work; should I get one of those little carriers that goes over the back wheel for Frances? Dare I trust my precious baby to such a precarious contraption? I'm baking chocolate chip cookies and banana bread, cooking roast lamb and pork chops, reading books and magazines at a nice glacial pace. I'm taking Frances school shopping and spending way too much money on the most adorable little outfits you've ever seen just because you only start school for the first time once--obviously--which makes this something special and worth celebrating. I'm presiding over her spontaneous playdates with her new friend C, and our trips to the complex pool, and walks to the park. It's unsustainable, I start back at work full-time next week. But right now everything has slowed, and a great many things have fallen off, and it's nice. Frances is having a great time with her vacation, even though, to help her adapt to her new daycare and school, she is spending a few hours each day at the new place (which I then spend getting things done). She'd rather not, and I know and understand why, but as of next Tuesday she'll have no choice but to be there all day nearly every day, and I don't want that to be a shock to her system, so we're keeping in the groove. It's still an easier groove. We get up when Frances wakes up and take our time getting ready, then head over, instead of dragging ourselves from our comfy blankets when the alarm goes to beat the traffic. It's such an idyllic pause: just the two of us, and no reason to hurry. I don't even miss blogging right now, neither the reading nor the writing. Though, to be fair, I have no idea what I'd write or when I'd write it. I'm living my life in the fractured fifteen-minute fragments I remember from my mat leave days; and even so, nothing seems compelling right now. I don't know who I am. I was a wife and mother for a long time, and now I'm not. I am still a mother, even during those 48 hours every week when I live like a bachelor (gender intentional), letting the dishes pile up in the sink and walking around in my pyjamas until past noon. I don't miss being married, and I don't miss my ex-husband, but something is shifting underneath the surface and I don't know in what direction it is going. To adapt, slowly, we've started building a few new routines. We've started reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a chapter at a time before bed. I didn't get cable in the new place (so far, so good) and instead she watches a limit of about one hour's worth of dvd's over the course of the day, which I expect will be much easier to enforce once I am back at work and we are hardly ever here. She's eating a lot healthier now that my word goes on the snacks and meals issue. I wish I could say the same for myself; but as I mentioned, I'm doing a lot more baking. (An aside on that: I used to bake all the time when I was living with roommates in university, and I stopped over the last five or six years. But since moving here I just started again, and I don't know why. It's one of those things that is shifting. Who would have thought becoming a single mother would make me more of a Susie Q Homemaker? Not that it's bad; I've already had half of yesterday's cookies eaten by neighbourhood kids and their appreciative families.) Friday nights, when Frances isn't here, I cook myself a nice dinner that will make good leftovers. Thursday nights are for laundry, so far, and doing groceries, and then a nice long run or bike ride to explore the new neighbourhood. After Frances is put to bed and falls asleep the rest of the week--which doesn't take long, she's given up her last nap over the course of her vacation--I do a workout, do the dishes, tidy up what needs tidying, and when the post-workout energy buzz fades, collapse into bed. Most things are getting done, except for writing, and I haven't yet figured out where that one is going to go or how it will work. The crafty stuff has been set up in the kitchen and I can work on that while Frances plays. And I do, for as long as she'll let me. I'm exhausted, but not stressed; we'll see how long that lasts once I start working again. Posted by Andrea at 5:59 PM | Comments (10) August 23, 2007 Getting There
Everything is unpacked. OK, so the books are double-stacked horizontally in the big bookcase in the living room, and in the bookcase in my room; and ok, there are books in the bookcases in the hallway and the kitchen. (Yes. Kitchen. What?) OK, trying to hang the mirror in Frances's room tore a hole in the drywall, that I will now have to fill and sand and paint (again). OK, I still need to paint and refinish the furniture. OK, I still need a blind in my room, and I need to hang the curtains. And, ok, we still need somewhere to put our shoes. And, ok, the printer and scanner are currently stored in the linen closet, and the pantry has been turned into a craft supply cupboard, and the storage room is an impromptu gym. OK, there are frames that need pictures, and a few small things left to get for the apartment. But other than that. I think I'm done. Posted by Andrea at 6:14 AM | Comments (13) August 20, 2007 First Day: Will we wake in the morning, and know what it was for?
Wake up, say good morning to It's us. Yes, we're back again, Lift your head head, look out the window. Gridlock on the parkway now. She's gone. Lift your head and look out the window. We've won-- Lift your head, and look out the window. The war is over, but we are beginning. Here it comes, here comes the first day. After the war. ~~~~~ "In Our Bedroom After the War," by Stars. Stuck in my head, Dear Readers. For weeks. It's worth the 99 cents for a legal download. This was my idea, leaving. It was my choice. I made up my mind and tore my family apart because I believed it was better for Frances to have two sane parents part-time than two crazy full-time parents. But I dreaded it. Sunday was my first day. My first full day alone with Frances in the new place. I unpacked and organized and played with her and read; she smiled and laughed and pretended to be Little Ruby Riding Hood and played with her new toys. We talked a bit about why Daddy wasn't here and wasn't coming until Thursday, but it was ok. And the rest of the day was good. Great. We had a fabulous day. There were no clenched jaws, no grinding teeth. No pursed lips. No hunched shoulders. No bitten tongue, no unsaid retort, no wordless glares. No swallowed anger. No bitter, angry, sarcastic, paranoid, suspicious mama who knows she is a nightmare to be around but can't help herself because she is full of rage all the time. Instead, when I thought of it at all, which wasn't often because--maybe because of how much time I've spent here by myself--it feels like home already, I simply felt relieved. Posted by Andrea at 6:04 AM | Comments (24) August 16, 2007 One Day: Ready Or Not
I'm not ready. There is still some packing to be done, mostly Christmas ornaments under the basement stairs. The books have not been donated to the library, and sit in a ragged pile in the garage. There are stacks of things to be thrown out in every room. Tonight, in addition to cleaning up and finishing the packing, I need to drive Frances to spend the night at my parents'. Tomorrow morning the movers come. Tomorrow night will be my first one in my own place. (The one I've been paying for for almost two months.) I'm not ready. Logistically. All the details left to be sorted in the next twenty-four hours. I haven't had a full night's sleep since the first of July but this week has been particularly brutal. Work all day; either to the apartment for a tidy and stock or home for packing; off to bed well after midnight. And all the little ambushes, the boxes of this or that tucked into some closet's corner or an underused shelf, to be discovered and set off while packing, like a landmine. The shoebox with our wedding thank-you cards and invitations inside. The teddy-bear I gave Erik when he came back from a weekend trip to Boston to tell him I was pregnant. The pendant he gave me on our fifth anniversary. The photo cd from our Vegas trip, to celebrate his fortieth birthday. The framed picture of the three of us all dressed up and grinning like fools at the camera. The gap between what I thought I had and what I had has not widened, but I feel it more acutely with all of these reminders, these tangible, physical memories of promises broken as soon as they were made. The grief over what is lost and the anticipation over what is coming next are walking uneasily together, side by side, hand in hand. It is an odd feeling: get me out of here; don't make me go. One way or the other it's coming, and there's still no point in wallowing. Who cares if the glass is half-full or half-empty? Or nearly-full or almost-empty? Who cares? Does worrying over it ever add even so much as an extra drop? Will the water taste better if I've measured and described it first with perfect accuracy? It just is. Empty picture hooks are hanging on the walls all over the house. Furniture has been disassembled and tagged for this apartment or that. The drawers and cupboards in the kitchen are empty. Colour-coded boxes mass themselves in every room. The closets display only empty wire hangers. But Frances's toys are still out and scattered on the floor, the kitchen table still needs to be cleaned, her tiffany butterfly lamp in the dining room still needs to be well-padded with bubble wrap and placed carefully into a box, the shoes need to be stuffed into bags. I don't have time. I'm not ready. Posted by Andrea at 8:27 AM | Comments (17) August 12, 2007 Four Days: Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Shit shit shit. 1. Address changes for license and health card. If you're thinking there's a lot left on this list for me to do, especially considering I'll be at work all week, you'd be right. What did I do this weekend instead of pack and refinish furniture? I went to Ann's cottage. Umm, yeah. Just for 24 hours. And while I was there I hung out with Ann and her lovely son Iain and Marla and Josephine and Jen of MUBAR and her little girl, and we talked and watched the girls adore each other and splash in the lake, and we went out on paddle boat rides, and I streaked myself with sunscreen that dries on contact like cement, and they didn't even tease me about it much, and Frances and Josephine had a little campout in a mini-tent that Josephine brought with two little birdie lights that now I will have to go to Ikea to find myself because Frances loved them so much and ate bread and yogurt while Marla entertained them with a shadow-show on the tent's back wall and I took pictures (which really turned out, Marla, and I will send them to you soon), and Frances was so upset about leaving that we had to promise the girls that they would be able to show each other their new pink bedrooms soon. It was great. I couldn't afford the time but I needed the break, and I'm so glad I went. Following so soon after the shower that has already been blogged elsewhere, it's been a really bloggy week, in the best real-life sense possible. And now I have way too much moving prep left to do and four working days left to do it in. Shit shit shit. Posted by Andrea at 10:52 AM | Comments (8) August 7, 2007 Ten Days: Single Mom
Back when Frances was about six months old, Erik and I had a bad fight. Bad enough that I took off my wedding ring and threw it across the room. Bad enough that he accused me of being a physical danger to Frances (new fathers and fathers-to-be, don't do this. Not ever). Bad enough that I packed the contents of my closet into boxes and bags, and told him I was leaving. A bad fight. Now I look back and wonder. If I had, it would all be over now. Frances and I would be in our new life and settled. Why didn't I? Why did I stay? Why did I give it another chance? Why did I keep giving it another chance? It's not that I thought things were going to get better. Why didn't I leave on any of the other dozens of occasions where I was so close to walking out the door? There are always a lot of reasons. Because I thought I didn't deserve more. Because I thought it wasn't really that bad, not abuse, not assault, not hunger, not homelessness. Because I said I would. Because Frances loves her father above all other people. Because I didn't want to hurt her, ruin her life, add her to the list of statistics of children from broken homes. Because I didn't want to fail, again. So many reasons; as it turns out, none of them enough, not in the long run. But back then, during Frances's first year, the most important and overwhelming was simply because I could not do it on my own. Could not be a single mom to a premature reflux baby with an undiagnosable growth issue who would not sleep horizontal in a crib, would not take a bottle, would not be put down. I could not do it. I was already close enough to the edge with a partner. Any mothers in the audience with partners will know exactly what I mean. The "how do single moms do it" conversation is perhaps the most common during a new mother's first year, right behind major developmental milestones, feeding issues and sleep. How do single mothers do it? How do they handle the month-long colds when no one sleeps, the endless nightwakings, uncooperative mealtimes, sick days, the morning and bathtime and bedtime routines? I am about to find out. It is terrifying. Why, I don't know. Millions of women the world over with more children and fewer resources do this all the time. I know it will be fine. I just can't imagine it. In the same way I couldn't imagine getting used to diabetes when I was first diagnosed and couldn't imagine getting used to the lack of knowledge about Frances's health issues when she was first undiagnosed, I can't imagine getting used to this. I can only imagine it being hard. Ten days. It will be fine. I will get used to it, and I will be fine. Posted by Andrea at 6:20 AM | Comments (22) August 6, 2007 Eleven Days: A relaxing weekend
So what did you do, Dear Readers? Spend some time at a cottage? Chase the bairns around? Have a barbeque? Read a book or magazine? I did this.
And this.
And this.
And this.
The painting is "done." As in, I'm not doing any more until after I move in. I've given up on the inside of the kitchen cabinets, it's just too much work for right now. Maybe the rest of the kitchen, but not right now. (Unless any of you are volunteering to come help.) Took the kitchen doors off, and good Maude what a difference that makes. Found the recycling depot and carried out several loads of empty boxes; found the garbage room and got rid of the crap. Swept the floors (they still desperately need a mopping). Tidied up the storage room, which somehow was already full of crap. Cut shelf liners and put the dishes away. Hung up some hooks and organizing things in the front hall. The one thing I didn't do much of, was sleep. I feel like I ran a marathon this weekend, if a marathon can also make your arms and chest and back ache. But it is actually starting to come together now, and I can sit here on the loveseat (that I assembled last weekend) and picture where things are going to go and how it's all going to look when it's done. I can picture living here. Posted by Andrea at 8:29 AM | Comments (15) August 2, 2007 Fifteen Days: Breathe, breathe, breathe
Even more boring than painting posts: to-do list posts! I've decided to be kind to you and italicize the new stuff. 1. Address changes for license and health card. I'm up to eight off the list. And hoping to scratch off a lot more over the weekend when Erik takes Frances to visit his family for a few days. Maybe if I just stop sleeping.... Posted by Andrea at 6:34 AM | Comments (4) July 30, 2007 Eighteen Days
It's like Christmas. It's way off in the future and you've got plenty of time and you'll buy the cards this weekend and pick up a few gifts on your way home from work next week and then all of a sudden OH MY GOD there are THREE SHOPPING DAYS left until Christmas and there is no way you're going to get it all done! Except that when the big day dawns, there won't be a pile of tinsel-bedecked packages to open under the tree, and there won't be a little girl running down the stairs to see if Santa came. There will be a household in the final stages of dissolution, everything tagged and packed for one apartment or the other, and a team of movers coming to gut what's left. What do I do with the wedding photos? I don't want them. Is it right to let them go? Should I put them aside for Frances? And Frances's old clothes, the little tiny pieces from when she was a little tiny preemie, the onesies as small as my hand, that I thought she might never grow out of? The boxes of precious old Frances clothes that I won't have space for? The baby bits and baubles I have no reason to think I will ever need again, though I want to? The wedding dress? Do I leave it on the curb? Give it to Goodwill? The Christmas tree decorations? I'm keeping the ones I made myself. What of the others? What do I do with the stocking I made Erik? Is he likely to ever want to use it? But what would I do with it? Frances's artwork? Her toys and games? So much of the fabric of a family rips cleanly, in large sections; most of what remains can be picked out with a seamripper; but the last bits, the selvage, must be deliberately cut. ~~~~~ I hate reading discussions about divorce by married people. It's like reading discussions about Canada's health care system written by people in perfect health who never anticipate having to use it themselves; their investment in the discussion is slight and peripheral, lacking almost entirely in experience, and (sometimes inadvertently) can reflect a smug lack of compassion: "This will never happen to me because I take such good care of myself that I will never be sick." Apparently, even getting hit on the head by a falling piano is something that can be forestalled with planning and good nutrition. I'm diabetic: I use the health care system constantly; my daughter was a preemie reflux baby with a growth disorder, and she saw a lot of medical action too. I could give you a pretty good rundown of the flaws of the system based on both experience and knowledge, but voices such as ours are rare in the debate. It is almost as if, by needing to use the health care system, you make yourself incompetent to participate in the conversation by default since, if you are sick, you must have done something to deserve it. And it seems the same with divorce. If you're married, unless you know your marriage is in trouble, you probably assume it will last forever and so divorce debates are something that affect other people. Other people who were careless, who chose mates badly, who didn't put the proper effort or maintenance into their relationships, who didn't do enough counseling, who don't have the right values, who are too selfish, too self-focused, who did things wrong, not like you did them. In Canada, in 2003, the divorce rate per 100 married couples by the thirtieth wedding anniversary was 38.3%. If you knew that your chances of getting into a serious car accident through the ownership cycle of your vehicle was 38.3%, I'll bet you would do everything you could to minimize the consequences, through purchasing a safer vehicle, driving more carefully, always wearing seatbelts and so on. You would first of all want to do everything you could to avoid the car accident. But following closely, you would want to make sure that if you got into an accident anyway, it wouldn't kill you. But when it comes to marriage, people act as if by driving carefully they can completely avoid the risk of marital breakdown, so they don't need to wear seatbelts. I haven't touched the wedding photos. I can bear neither to pack them nor to throw them away. When I look at them I remember both how happy I was that day, and the house of cards that happiness turned out to be built on. I was certain I had chosen well. Who enters into such a partnership with the expectation of it ending? I look back, over and over the memories of when and how we met and what it was like and I cannot find one single red flag to tell me what I was in for. To warn me that one day I would be faced with the choice of whether the one person I love most on earth, my daughter, was better off with a father she sees only occasionally or a mother she sees constantly who is bitter and paranoid and suspicious and angry all the time. But according to the divorce debates, I did not have the right values, I was too selfish, too self-focused, I didn't do enough counseling, I chose badly, I didn't work hard enough, I deserve it. I am automatically disqualified from participation since, if I knew anything about marriage, I would still be married. See how that works? Unfortunately the divorce debates take as an unquestionable assertion the value of marriage itself. Marriage is a good that can and should (nearly) always be saved, for the benefit of everyone involved. This is demonstrated by statistics showing that married people are happier, live longer, have more money, and so on. No one ever points out that I can see that white people are also happier, live longer, have more money; or that men are happier and have more money; no one points out, in short, that the beneficial effects of marriage could be entirely due to the privilege it confers on its participants. That marriage in fact might not be all that great but if you are married all kinds of societal benefits will accrue to you that are not at all inherent in marriage and might more equitably be provided by other means. The breathlessness with which changes in the divorce rate are monitored are predictable but also baffling, if you do not take the value of marriage as a given. The divorce rates are up--that's bad! The divorce rates are down--that's good! But why? Certainly marriage is only good insofar as it is capable of enhancing human happiness or achievement, and if it ceases to do either of those things, the proper thing to do is end it? Surely marriage is meant to serve people, both as groups and as individuals, and not the other way around? Posted by Andrea at 8:15 AM | Comments (23) July 26, 2007 Twenty-Two Days: Progress?
With 22 days to go (breathe, Andrea, breathe) here's how the to-do list looks: 1. Address changes for license and health card. So in a week, I've done five and a half things out of thirty-five. I'm in great shape. Posted by Andrea at 6:15 AM | Comments (6) July 25, 2007 Twenty-Four Days: Diversions
The problem is that I've simply run out of other things to say. I know they're in there somewhere; but the divorce/separation and its interminable minutae of logistics and management is taking over everything. It's so much work. And with twenty-four days to go it is beginning to feel as if I won't possibly have enough time to get everything done. So instead of taxing my brain trying to pretend as if I care about anything else, or have the mental resources to think of anything else, right now, with a few unbloggable exceptions: How about some photos I took with the new camera? I took it out to the local woodlot to play with the macro setting and take some pictures of the things I love before I lose the ability to see them every day. I know that to most people they are indescribably common; but to me they are beautiful, and I'll miss them.
Have to admit that one is one of my favourites. I'm not sure what those little critters are, but they sure seem to be enjoying themselves.
And this one is for Jennifer:
But more about it on Friday. Posted by Andrea at 6:20 AM | Comments (12) July 23, 2007 Twenty-Six days: The Painting Continues
See, after 28 of you commented on the last painting post, I figured that you were in no danger of being bored by the subject. So pardon me while I bend your ears again with more fascinating stories of life behind the roller: Earlier last week I started the sanding and scrubbing in the living/dining room, as I mentioned. The pleasant surprise was finding that the paint on the walls was not high-gloss after all--just around the windows and doors. "Yay!" I thought. "No sanding the walls!" I started to sand and then wipe down the windowsills, which are deep (about a foot), and noticed a strange pilling, if you will. Yes, pilling. The paint on the windowsills just peeled right off with a bit of mild scrubbing with warm water and a sponge. I didn't even know this was possible, but it makes an effective argument for primer. And sanding. Imagine if I hadn't been repainting and Frances had made a mess there and I'd gone to clean it up and ended up wiping the paint off the windowsill. She's a preschooler, this is more than likely. So instead of sanding the walls in the common room, I inadvertently stripped the windowsills. Anyway. I sanded the upstairs bathroom, scrubbed it, primed it, painted the ceiling, and put the first coat of white on the walls. It already looks much better, but I suffered for beauty, Dear Readers. Small room without windows and lots of paint fumes equals a very sore head. I also primed the first floor, except for the kitchen, which I get a headache just thinking about (the ceiling is beige! The insides of the cabinets are beige! It's all high-gloss! I can't find liquid sander!), painted the eating area and did a first coat on most of the rest. The colours are certainly very bright. It's a look I like to call "Carnival Funhouse Modern":
I don't think a single interior decorating show would endorse it; but I like it. The funny thing is that the orangey-yellow looks yellow, definitely yellow, when seen on its own; but when seen next to the green it looks orange. Also: the picture was taken with my new D40 camera. Not bad, eh? At least I figured out how to take a picture and download it to the computer. Posted by Andrea at 6:11 AM | Comments (15) July 19, 2007 Thirty Days: See Andrea. See Andrea Run. See Andrea Fall Flat on Her Face.
That's, like, less than a month. And I thought it would never get here. So, thirty days. And way more than thirty things left to do: 1. Address changes for license and health card. Yeah. Nooooo problem. ~~~~~ * Technically both of these wrap up after thirty days from now, but the bulk of the work of them will be completed before then. Posted by Andrea at 6:32 AM | Comments (13) July 17, 2007 Thirty-Two Days: And would you believe that they painted the ceilings beige, too?
They did. In the bathrooms and kitchen, at least. Forget the bother of priming and painting the ceilings. I have to sand them. OK, you try. Yeah, that's what I thought. ("Why would you bother, Andrea?" you ask. Because I can't very well paint the bathrooms white and leave that bandaid-coloured ceiling, can I? They'd clash.) My room is blue. Frances's room is pink. This explains why I'm painting the main rooms pear-green and a slightly orangey yellow. Have I mentioned that I really like colour? If you were a smallish kitchen without windows in an apartment with pear-green, butternut squashy, ice blue, and overwhelmingly pink walls, what colour would you want to be? Assume that you don't want to be beige and you're about to be inundated with multicoloured pots, bowls, towels, etc. What if I painted the whole thing white and then just did spots of bright colour--a cabinet door here, a square on the backsplash there? Or painted everything white and put the colours on the inside of the drawers and cabinets? I promise I will get bored of paint-talk soon. Posted by Andrea at 6:25 AM | Comments (29) July 16, 2007 Thirty-Three Days: The Talk
There were two possibilities heading into The Talk: 1. She would understand, and be devastated. 2. She would not understand. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or worried that we are solidly in option #2. We told her. We told her Mummy and Daddy can't live together anymore, but we would always be her Mummy and Daddy, and always love her, and she would live sometimes with Mummy and sometimes with Daddy (actually, this is what I told her. In the interests of being less catty than I'd like to be, I won't repeat Erik's speech). We told her Mummy would have her own house and Daddy would have his own house, and she would have a room and a bed in both houses; and we'd be putting all of our things into boxes and moving them in a few weeks. I told her I'd been gone so much lately because I was painting her new bedroom pink. When we asked her if she understood, she nodded; and when we asked if she had any questions, she shook her head. But I can tell she doesn't understand. Little things, like: "You will have your own house, and Daddy will have his own house, and I will have my own house!" "This is my room. It's pink. Your room is blue. Where is Daddy's room?" (At least she loves the pink.) Or in the car, on the way, pointing to the passenger seat: "Is that Daddy's chair?" Each such question or observation elicited the same explanations all over again. She still doesn't understand, and I don't think she will until she and I are settled into the new house on our first night there, and she asks me when Daddy is coming. Posted by Andrea at 6:19 AM | Comments (13) July 12, 2007 Thirty-Six Days
This is the beige I am contending with.
It is everywhere. Cabinets. Cabinet interiors. Walls. Trim. Doors. Inside of closets. Everywhere. Have I mentioned that I am not a fan of beige? I'm not. The beige is, moreover, an oil-based high-gloss beige that requires sanding and priming. Sanding and priming walls and trim and doors is tedious. Because everything was beige, even the trim, taping had to be done more than once--the first time so I could prime everything, the second time so I could paint just the walls. Also, they painted Frances's closet door shut. It would not budge. Chiseling the closet door open caused the decades of layers of oil-based high-gloss paint to peel off like old vinyl wallpaper--but not consistently, leaving patches of paint that wouldn't budge themselves and also had to be chiseled off. Then sanded and primed. But look! Even just covering the beige with primer made such a huge difference.
Though not as much of a difference as the actual paint. The blue looks exactly the way I had imagined it. Going on it was so light that it was difficult to see where the paint had gone; it looked more like a shadow than a different colour. Even now, if it weren't for the white trim and white doors, it might look simply like white walls.
The pink, on the other hand...
...is very, very pink.
Very pink. Frances is lucky she's so cute. She'll love it. Me, not so much. The trim still needs to be done, but after that the bedrooms will be finished. Posted by Andrea at 5:50 AM | Comments (16) July 10, 2007 Thirty-Eight Days: Unrelated
I have a post ready to go, and I have pictures; but the pictures aren't on the post, so you'll have to wait another day to see it. I'm still peeling primer out of my hair and I think I'm going back tomorrow to finish the trim in the bedrooms, and maybe start the bathrooms. But the phone line and internet are hooked up, and I've started restocking the kitchen and bathrooms and moving a few boxes in to the storage room, so little by little it is starting to feel like the place I will live. Soon. In the meantime, that and related drama are making it hard for me to turn my thoughts to other subjects for even the half hour or so necessary to develop the most half-hearted post. I'd like to have something more interesting to offer those of you still reading; it might have to wait for life to calm down a bit. Here's a list of the things I might like to write about, if I could write about anything right now: 1. I'm reading Ann Carson's latest collection, Decreation. It's not as unified thematically as her previous collections, in my opinion; but buried away in the middle of it is an interesting little essay about total eclipses and marriage, in which she appears to make several contradictory statements. Spouses are colours; eclipses are a form of totality as well as a metaphor for marriage and coupling throughout history; total eclipses invert and absent colour. For example. I've read it half a dozen times and I'm still not sure I "get" it (if anyone in the audience has read this particular piece and has insights in advance of whenever I get around to posting about it, feel free). 2. Oh yeah! That book swap thing! I'm busy on the 14th and 15th and the 29th. How's everyone for the 22nd? Once I get an idea of the numbers I'll decide on a location and email people separately. 3. The functions of guilt and remorse. Specifically, that the main claim--that guilt is self-focused and therefore useless while remorse is other-focused and therefore productive in preventing further occurences of problematic behaviour--is bullshit. 4. Intentions, good and otherwise. Posted by Andrea at 9:54 AM | Comments (8) July 7, 2007 Forty-One Days
I am one big ache. I sanded both bedrooms top to bottom--high-gloss oil-based paint--and primed them. Even just covering that god-awful beige with white primer made a huge difference. The first coat of ice blue in my room is done. Today I buy Frances's light pink paint and finish the second coat of blue in my room, possibly doing the first of hers, depending on how sore I am. My hands are red and sore from the rollers and brushes. My arms and legs are speckled with white and near-white. My arms are sore from painting and from lugging loads of paint from the car to the apartment (it's a walk). My legs are stiff from going back and forth to the car, up and down the stairs, up and down the stepstool. My back is sore from scrubbing brushes and rollers. But it looks good. The light blue is exactly what I wanted--icy and pale and in the right light indistinguishable from white. And Frances has picked a very nice, very pale pink, and asked that I pair it with red. I think it's going to be sharp, not at all princess-y or Barbiesh. With a new white bed and dresser that we will pick out next weekend. I've been taking before-and-after pictures, so my next countdown post should have some visuals. Posted by Andrea at 8:21 AM | Comments (5) July 4, 2007 Independence Day.
Only because that sounds a lot better than "Canada Day" for the contents of the post, even though I'm not American, and it's very premature. On Canada Day, I got the keys. I took in a few boxes (staking out territory, as it were), tested the locks, measured the rooms and made floorplans. I also sat in a puddle of light in the dining/living room and thought about how badly I wished I didn't have to go back. On Monday, I sanded the walls of the master bedroom and Frances's room, noting that they had painted her closet door shut. I bought towels and a bathmat and shower curtain for the bathroom, a garbage can for the kitchen, a shower caddy, a broom, a bucket--other basic household things. I brought over a few loads of painting things--trays and rollers and tape and brushes. Tuesday the girl and I went to see my parents in the morning, who took us out for lunch at the westauwant with an M on the doow; and she slept in the car on the way home, thus foiling the plans for naps that afternoon. Erik got back from work--I hate calling this place 'home' now and try to avoid it where I can--and I went to get paint and primer, finish cleaning the walls, and tape them up. This took me until almost 11:00 pm, so the first coat of primer will go on today. I killed my first earwig. I made the acquaintance of a very fat beagle who said "hello" in beaglish every time I walked by. I met the two young girls who live next door, though I didn't get their names. I admired people's gardens and patio furniture. It looks like a lot of young families spend years there. I spent way too much money--it can't be helped. I hooked up the new phone line and made arrangements for internet access and wished I could just move in now, instead of the middle of August. I couldn't anyway. The windows need blinds and Frances needs a new bed and dresser but it's hard to have it there and not use it. It's hard to know it's there and come back here to walking on eggshells and trying not to fight in front of Frances. Forty-four days. The countdown is on. Posted by Andrea at 7:50 AM | Comments (12) June 25, 2007 One Week
In March, I had no idea how I was going to keep my sanity until August. Not that I had much sanity to begin with; these things are relative. A week from today, I will get my apartment/townhouse hybrid. I won't be able to move into it right away--it's too far away from Frances's current daycare--but by the middle of August I should be out of here. I have to paint. I have to pack. I have a few pieces of furniture I want to refinish, another one that needs to be repaired. I have to move. Set up the phone and interent connections. Change addresses for my license and health card and Frances's ID. Pick up the draft separation agreement from my lawyer tomorrow. Give it to Erik. Haggle out the last bits. Get it signed. Change addresses for my subscriptions. Get new furniture for Frances (it looks like Erik will be taking Frances's existing bedroom furniture). I have a week off in July to do the preparatory stuff; the move is in August; then I'm taking off three weeks unpaid while Frances is between daycares. I won't have had so much time off in the summer since school. The finish line is in sight. So, of course, what I'm doing is reading. Posted by Andrea at 6:29 AM | Comments (9) May 10, 2007 Doors and Other Rot
According to Daniel Gilbert, people underestimate the likelihood of things changing in the future because they misremember how much things changed in the past; studies have shown, for instance, that middle-aged liberal wine drinkers are highly likely to overestimate how liberal and wine-drinking they were in college, because people tend to assume that the way we are now is the way we've always been is the way we'll always be, and things won't change much. I vastly enjoyed his book, Stumbling On Happiness, and continue to hope irrationally that I'll come across the key to contentment in it even though he explicitly states in the introduction that such hopes are unfounded. However, this one study continues to pick at my brain because it is not how I perceive myself at all. I do remember being a very different person than the one I am now--I remember being an intolerant bible-thumping baptist who thought armeggeddon was coming in 1989. And then 1994. I remember thinking that Raymond E Feist's fantasy novels had literary merit. I remember enjoying the Xanth series. It is an uncomfortable sensation to reread my highschool diaries, because I not only remember the events portrayed, but the emotional state I wrote the entry in, and the exact nature of any dissembling contained therein (at times, I wished to impress my future self; and other times, I wished to impress future archaeologists, who will undoubtedly find my over-recorded life a boon to their research. No?) If there is one reason why I am so relentlessly honest here, it is because experience has taught me that I will exactly remember my lies, and that is too uncomfortable. Do I still overestimate my resemblance to my former selves? If so, then I must be completely the opposite of the fourteen-year-old me, because I already thought that we had not much in common. The worst part of leaving Erik, I've discovered, is that I too exactly remember what it was like when I thought it was good. I can divide our marriage along the faultline of a single day: before it was a state of assumed near perfection, and after it was a desperate attempt to put it back together again. Before it, I thought I knew who he was, and who we were together; and afterwards each cherished assumption was replaced one by one until none of them were left. ~~~~~ Instead of wallowing, how about a poem by Dorothy Parker? Indian Summer In youth, it was a way I had ~~~~~ What else do I do with these memories? They knock insistently at my door, but I can't let them in for anything more than a brief chat. They have nothing to teach me. "This is what happened," they tell me; "This is what you thought, and felt, and why." "That's interesting," I say; "How could I have avoided this? How can I avoid this in the future?" They squirm a little in their seats. "Well. You could have distrusted him from the start, I suppose. You could have insisted that he prove to you that he wasn't lying to you from day one, when you had no reason to disbelieve him. You could have snooped on his emails and his bank statements before you started living together. You would have known, then, what the lies were, and what the truth was." "I could have. But is that the person I want to be?" The memories shake their heads sheepishly, and show themselves out the door, whereupon they promptly resume knocking. "Look at this one!" they say, when I open it again. "Do you remember how before he met you, he was in debt, and within six months of moving in together he was out of debt, and how he said it was because J couldn't hold a job and bought too many clothes?" "Yes. I remember." "And now what do you suppose? Do you think he's going to stay out of debt? And do you remember that time he told you that he used to organize camping trips with his friends from work, but J made him stop, so he never did anymore, but now that he was with you, he'd start again?" "I remember that too, yes." "But he hates camping! He can't even speak in the morning until he has a hot shower. And I'm sure you remember how before you got married he told you he knew he wanted kids one day, but after you got married, he changed his mind and made you wait and wait and wait, because you couldn't afford one, but meanwhile...." I shut the door in their faces. I can do nothing with these memories but catalogue them, after all, each instance another reason I can't trust any promise he's made regarding reconciliation since the third of March. I can't use them as lessons in future relationships unless I want to stay a paranoid and distrustful person. And I don't. It's just what happened, here, with this person; were there warning signs? Eventually. But it took years for the misrepresentations to add up into a pattern other than typical self-puffery. ~~~~~ Enough of that. Knock knock! Who's there? Shirley. Shirly who? Shirley you can open the door! .... Who's there? Umm, Ben! Ben who? Ben knocking at this door for a while now. (sigh) Who's there? Police! (warily) Police who? Police let me in, it's cold out here! Oh, go away. I'm not opening the damn door. ~~~~~ What did it add up to? Even now I'm not quite sure. He lied to himself, or he lied to me. I'd like to say that only he knows; but I'm not sure that even that's true. I'm violating my own boundaries with this one. I shouldn't talk about him so directly, I don't think--but this has been a central part of my own story for these past few months. I present him with evidence of misrepresentation. He reacts as if scalded with hot water. "How can you remember?" he asks. How can I not remember? Was I supposed to forget? Was that supposed to be my half of the bargain, not to notice the lies? What do I do with the double life? What do I do with it? How can I stop it from rewriting every moment, every memory, from before I was aware of it? That day in front of my old office building at the region, when we were talking about our exes, and what he said--and even then, it was all a lie. The very first conversations we had. The reasons he gave me for his breakup with J. The person he said he was when J wasn't around. Those, too, were lies. A false front for a double life. It's as if someone has invaded my memories with a black sharpie and scribbled devil's horns and false moustaches on to every one. ~~~~~ Let's see what the inestimable Ms. Parker has to say about this: Finis Now it's over, and now it's done; | |
