Breathe

She stands in wonder at the geese that are flying overhead. Stops with mouth wide open, eyes wide, and frozen in her tracks. I still get excited when I see Canadian Geese and I was excited to introduce her to this feeling. I wanted to capture the "newness" of this for her when she becomes "tainted" to all the other things that happen in this world. Geese overhead? Oh, thats great. Let's go to the store. Not in that moment.

Going to see Santa and she is standing tall and grasping her list. "Mom, can you go up there with me and sit beside me? Yes honey." As much as I want her to be independent I don't know that I am ever ready for her to do something and NOT ask for me. To not ask for me when going into a new situation. To not ask for me when she walks into first grade, into second grade, into middle school, and into high school. I am not ready. I walk into school this afternoon and she is playing with two of her little gal friends. "Let's pretend that we are reading a book and then trade. Okay?" So she flips through the book, pretending like she is reading, gets to the end, and proclaims "This is a great book, you should read it! O.K. Switch!" I smile and wonder will she always play this well with others, will she always have such a great imagination, will she always have her love of reading?

Everyday she grows up and everyday those moments I capture get older and are replaced with newer. I want to freeze time, I want Emma to know how much I love her, how hard I will work to keep her safe and happy. I want for her to always remember the geese, the parking lot, and her breath in the cold air- as I always will.

Got Fair?

Gosh.. I just reread that blog from so very long ago. Was tempted to delete it, but just like I cannot delete times from my life I choose not to delete the entry.

This morning was crazy. As I was on my way to the job fair there were a million thoughts racing through my head. This is all I have ever wanted. I have spent the last ten years of my life methodically chipping away at this goal. A goal that sometimes cost me relationships, a goal that has had the power to change who I was then and who I am going to be very soon. Good and bad, of course. I almost gave up this past summer when I realized I would be teaching and not able to work and the consequences that would accompany that decision. I decided to go for it, to go big or stay home, ha ha, and went for it. I could not give up a goal I was so close to. I could not let anyone or anything stop me. I have to be the person that shows Emma Roo you get what you work for, no matter how hard the work is.

Getting dressed this morning was like "suiting up." (Thank you Barney..) Building this exterior that I thought would be what people wanted to see, when I all want from them is to see my interior and see how this is all I have ever wanted. That next to being a mom, this is one of the most important events in my life.

So, here I am "suited up," driving way too fast down 695, and nothing was what it seems. I am driving to my future, too fast, but figuring I would meet it all head on, just as I have every other event of my life. Maintain speed, even though there are road blocks, don't make too many changes because that doesn't get you where you need to. Adjust. Be patient. My radio is blaring, of course, and of course I have to analyze the song.

Because-of course you realize by now- I over analyze everything.

It is the Adam Lambert song Whataya Want From Me? and that was it. "Don't give up, don't give in, Whataya want from me?" I haven't given up. I wanted to so many times. Especially when things got hard after the separation and I was hurting so bad and trying to act like I was just fine. I was trying to put on my big girl panties and deal.. But god damn I wanted to sulk, cry, beat up things, beat up people, scream and stomp and hide. I didn't (at least not in public) :o) When I was working 6 days a week, playing mom, 4 and 5 classes, the homework that accompanies those classes, keeping house, maintaining and building relationships. Exhausting. All of it. But, I remained strong for Roo and for my family around me, and just did. I had to.

Whataya want from me? I have done the schooling. I got the experience. I got the heart and the soul and enough passion to fuel a few tankers. This is what you are going to get from me, if this is whataya want from me..

And so I did. I went. I conquered. I sat straight and tall, answered questions, shook hands, smiled, and soaked it in. Live in the moment Amanda. Think about what you say before you say it and be yourself. If they don't like it, it is not a working relationship that is met to be. Five people later I walked out confident. Email this person this paperwork and we will get a list of principals out to you. Complete this and we will begin your journey at Baltimore County Public Schools.

So, if you know me.. You will know I have not seen many movies, and fewer musicals. I dislike television, and dislike movies.. Probably more.. . . But I wanted to be every scene you have ever seen in every bad movie….(Note the scene/seen. A million dollars to the first one who can tell me what those words are.. Ha ha)

Anyhow.. I wanted for clouds to part, singing animals rustle all around me, as I sing in a high soprano, (falsetto really) voice, my beautiful gown swinging in large elegant circles around me as I dance and celebrate. (Sounds like a Disney movie I may or may not have seen a million times…. Ha ha)

However, the animals stayed in, it was still overcast and cold, and my slacks didn't really twirl quite the way I wished. However, I may or may not have broken into the running man beside the Jeep. I will never tell.

Amidst all this chaos and joy, my morning was filled with a number of texts from someone from my past. A reminder of the things and the people that can hold you back and the confusion they can cause. Thank goodness I am at a good point in my life, because had those texts been a year or so ago.. I would have been beside myself. I try not to overanalyze them….but that is me. I am Ms. Analytical. Have you met me? I have tried for a number of months to stop……I'm doing much better…. But you can't help who you are. Why these texts? Why now? Why ever? You lose the ability to have these discussions with me when you made the decision you did. So I compartmentalize and decide to leave that whole "issue" (proper word anyone?) alone and chalk one up to … oh who knows what the hell I chalk it up too. I digress, I move on. It won't be the last time the texts occur and it surely wasn't the first.

So, my crazy day in a small analytical blog for you to consume. Fun, huh?

Manda

And so.. life does go on...

I swear.. not all posts will be about the separation, however in the absence of a good therapist.. this does this trick quite well.



Everyday is a new day. I do my best to take it moment by moment and appreciate where I am and all that I do have. I enrolled Emma Rose and myself into Mommy and Me swimming classes. I cannot get over how big she is and all the new things she does and says everyday. For one fleeting moment I think, "Oh, I should write this down so I could tell E.J." Then I remember he is the one that made the choice not to see all those little moments. And to be fair I am sure he has those same kind of moments. It's just that I am the lucky lucky one who gets to see them more.

Stages of Grief

Back in the 60’s a woman named Elizabeth Kubler Ross came up with the 5 stages of grief. It normally applies to death and while no one physically died my relationship surely did. I continue to go through some of the stages skating back and forth on some and diving in on others. You don’t need to go through the five stages in order: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Actually, I skipped the depression part all together. Partially because I can’t-be depressed that is. You see I was not the one that gets to walk away and leave everyone behind. I am the one that stands in the car wreck of my life with Emma Rose right beside me. I still have to uphold routines and keep this home, the only home Emma has ever even known as normal as possible. I try to do the right things and say the right things. When she catches me crying I just say that, “Mommy just stubbed her toe.” in actuality I want to say, “Your Daddy hurt me more than any man has ever in my life.” When she was super excited about her big girl bed I did the right thing and said “Daddy and Mommy bought it for you.” And she says “Pour me?” (No f’s in her language yet..) And I say yes, “Pour you.” What I really want to say is, “That in an attempt to move on I want to throw everything away that your Daddy ever came near. And the more I change things the less it all reminds me of him. I hate him.” When she cries out for Daddy before she goes to bed I tell her the truth “Daddy loves you very much but he is living at his new house.” I was sick of lying to her and telling her Daddy was working at Whole “Poods” (again, the F). Over the past few months I was continually lied to by a man who was clearly not the same man I thought he was and I am not doing the same to our daughter. Mommy is doing the right thing even if it pains her to the core.
Just yesterday Emma spent her first day as a true child of (impending) divorce. Daddy had her all day. When I came home from work I came home and busied myself with some things I needed to do. Then when all those things were done I stood in the middle of my living room with my hands on (my now, much more slender) hips, realizing how much different things are, my kid is not here, my walls that were once filled with wedding pictures are bare, my house is minus one. I wake up in the middle of the night and for a moment think he is down on the sofa. Then I blink and realize he is no longer here at all. Then I remember all the hurt he continues to put me through and realize he is gone. Denial and realization comes in waves.
Yet, as those waves peek and crest., so does the anger. I do my best to contain it, because of course, I have to keep it all together for my little world that looks to me with those big blue eyes. Don’t worry Em, mommy has got it all under control. I am a firm believer if you want things done the right way do them yourself….so sometimes it isn’t like I am missing anyone here at all.
I think one of the most important steps for me, although not one of Ross’ stages is the realization of disrespect. Blatant disrespect. How can you deeply disrespect someone you had been with for so long, that never did anything to you of this magnitude?
Alright, so you claim you have not been happy for sometime now. Couldn’t you have waited at least a month before you moved in with her? Couldn’t you have at least waited until after you told me you wanted to get a divorce before you go gallivanting around with her at some VFW hall with all the other Hampden low life’s. All with your ring still on. Good going dumb ass. Even really dumb people know that while you are still married you conduct your marriage infidelities behind closed doors. Well, and maybe he did that too… but it should have stayed there….at least until you told me you wanted a divorce. Not to mention one last time for the horizontal mattress mambo. Much less the idea that you are breaking the law, you really should have been waiting until separation agreements were drawn. Good going dumb ass. Then there is the expectation that I should be okay with you taking my daughter around her. Yes, please stand in front of my face and continually slap me one side and then the other. Let’s flaunt the fact that you not only left me for some woman you yourself called a whore that you now live with. Blatant disrespect for me and anything I had ever done for you. Yet, I am the one expected to stand here and take it and allow my daughter anywhere you deem appropriate. Slap.
I hurt some days more than others and working on some days not at all. You just prance yourself in here rubbing your new dysfunctional relationship in my face. Maybe disrespect takes place of anger, sometimes. Slap.
Then we have down right humor.
At the end of the day the relationship will be much the same. She works and goes to school and he works. However, we must add in the ingredients of three baby daddy’s, one baby mama, 4 children, no place of your own, no items of your own, no weekly poker games, no time to yourself, having to still make time to be here for Emma, a now whacked out working schedule (switching between days and nights), no friends, a rebound relationship, and the appearance of your true self. The one who does not like people, who does not like to go out (the movies out these days are crap, you don’t like to go to bars because you cannot smoke and you hate the music…) I clutch my sides laughing so hard. He says at a certain point something clicked and he didn’t want to work to make this work. Can someone please tell me when a relationship does not take work? Especially when there are jobs and children and school and household responsibilities and alone time and us time and all the other stuff in-between. So without work every relationship is doomed for relationship failure. Just do not think my daughter will be drug into everyone of them.
Acceptance.
What a big one. I did everything I thought he wanted, what I thought I was supposed to do. After Roo had been put to bed I “gave” him his time to watch the television programs he wanted and play his poker games. I encouraged him to find live poker games so he could strengthen his live play. He went to Vegas, Cooperstown, and Atlantic City, and I always said “No, it’s a guy thing you go and have a good time.” I was here when he had no job, when his job paid close to nothing, and when he begrudgingly climbed the ladder. I was his biggest believer and supporter when it came to accomplishing anything he set his mind to. Evidentially a wife who does all those things is not the wife he wanted… a woman who did everything she could for you and her daughter, always putting herself last, that is not the woman he says he needed. Good riddance I say because any other man would understand what they had and would do those little things to keep me happy. Like they were ever really that much.
At the end of this whole big long process I am the one who lays down and sees my daughter peacefully sleeping in her new big girl bed. I will see the first time she goes on the potty, who teaches her to ride her bike, who will be here to kiss all her boo’s-boo’s and makes them better. And in time I will find that guy, a real man, who will kiss my boo -boo and make it all better.