Better Days

My blog has unfortunately become rather like a neglected houseplant this year. A once well-tended and thriving entity, it now sits in a dark corner most days, dust settling on its brown-tinged leaves, and if I happen to glance down at it while walking past on my way to somewhere else, I will think to myself, "Wow, it's probably time I water that", yet the thought and the action never seem to meet.
I’m guessing that the blog neglect stems from the fact that this year, as opposed to last year, little is new, which is both comforting and unsettling at the same time. I've been busy, but it's busy with the same old every day tasks. Most of the shifts that were planned for me in this chapter of my life seem to lay behind me, yet I find myself nervously tapping my foot, waiting for something else. I'm not asking for something, but it feels like after a year of constant change, suddenly status quo is a bit nerve-wracking.
It's not just me, either. My friend who also slumped along the messy divorce path last year has since signed the papers, worked out an e-mail plan that allows for very few four-letter word exchanges between her and her ex, and met a nice man. We talked outside my house last week as we handed off daughters for a play date, and I asked how her Thanksgiving was.
"Fine." She shrugged. "Yeah, fine, I guess."
I nodded my head. "Mine too. Good. Yeah, fine." I paused and watched my neighbor across the way struggle with a ladder and some Christmas lights. "I think the second year may be tough."
"Yeah. I think you're right. Although I’m not sure why."
Over the phone several nights later, we talked of Christmas trees that seemed out of place in our houses this year, and presents that we’re procrastinating buying, and the fact that the local station that plays Christmas music non-stop has all but been banned from both of our houses. The holidays feel like a bad fit this year. And yet, on a rational level, that makes little sense.
The second year is easier in so many respects. The papers are signed. The work of dividing up eight years on paper, laying out respective financial worth and arguing how much the cost of raising a child should be, is over. There are no more visits to the paralegal office or the courthouse. The uncertainty of how it will all be done has been resolved, and the longer we go about our own lives in our own houses, the more natural it all begins to feel.
There is also less mommy guilt the second year. The full trauma for my daughter is beginning to abate, and she has a vocabulary now with which to discuss the issues as they arise. She's accepted the fact that her dad and I will not reconcile, she's learned the routine of the overnights at his house, and she's even told me that it's not bad, having both of us apart. I think this last development comes as her dad moves into a happier place in his life. We have relaxed, and now she can too.
But it's still tough, and this is due mainly because along with the ick, many of the firsts also lay behind. This year has no first time the closet became all mine (sue me…it was a wonderful moment), no first time that the dog messed up, or the child messed up, or I did, and there was no one there to judge, make a snide remark about, or yell. There is no first time I reclaimed the entire width of the bed, and slept better than I had in years, and no first time that I was too tired to cook, and suddenly, it didn't matter because the four-year old thought eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner was cool. The firsts are over, and this year, divorced life is as routine as married life once used to be.
I’m also realizing, the more I pry, that the firsts distracted a lot from the reality of what was happening. Now that the shock has worn off, and some layers are more exposed, it's easier to see how much was really lost. And it's not the man; it's the idea. It's the longing I get when I see a family walking across the parking lot to Starbucks, the mother and two sons laughing about something as the man checks the luggage rack on the car before they all head in for coffee and then back out on the road to wherever home happens to be. It's my best friend Jen and her husband, whom I finally got over to see the Friday after Thanksgiving, setting up their tree November early, but Kevin, so indulging, so doting, so adoring of his wife and daughter, he could deny them nothing. It's the families that make plans for tomorrow, next week, next month, next summer, without even a thought as to who will have custody at that time, and without the “will we have to switch weeks/get permission/waste the money on the reservation and then have to cancel because we misjudged the whole situation?”. It's my neighbors, the ones I made fun of in one of my Christmas blogs last year, celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in September, Vern's face lit up with the accomplishment of 50 years with the same woman by his side.
This year is good, and rationally, there is so much to celebrate. My daughter is thriving. The girl I worried wouldn't survive kindergarten got one negative comment on her first quarter report card: excessive talking. I convinced myself that her shyness would do her in, and now it turns out, she never shuts up. My house is still wonderful, and this year, it’s all mine. The furnace, refrigerator, and water heater occasionally shudder ominously as it nears its 110th year, but I hang pictures at will, rearrange throw pillows, and move the mugs over the sink without worrying that someone might not be able to find them later on. My dog has aged into a very mellow, very adorable, very attached to my daughter and very protective of both of us, companion. I stare at him some days, big brown eyes, tail swishing along the floor, and marvel at the day I almost insisted they put him back in his kennel at the pound. He doesn't even throw up in the car anymore. If that’s not worthy of a celebration, my goodness, what is? And of course the man who never should have ended up in my life, did. And despite the fact that we seem to have hit a rather large wall with our scheduling issues, there’s not a subject that has come up that I don’t feel comfortable addressing with him. He’s amazing. And we’re often pretty amazing together.
But I miss my family. Maybe not as it was, but as it could have been if I had been one of the lucky ones who had been able to watch my daughter grow up with her father by my side. If we could have been able to walk her to kindergarten this year, holding hands and shaking our heads back and forth, whispering in awe at how quickly five years had passed. And while time heals, and I can see that this year, I also know that this is a wound that will reopen over and over again. I will miss him when she falls in love. I will miss him when she slams her bedroom door and yells how much she hates me. I will miss him when she walks down the aisle, first with a cap and gown and maybe later dressed in white, and we sit apart, hands in our laps, sharing our love and pride for her separately. No matter how strongly I love someone else, no matter how wonderfully it may all turn out, even if I get the fairy tale this time around, I will miss that. I'm not throwing it in the face of all that I have but rather acknowledging that the moments this year, when I'm standing in my kitchen, a bit panicked because something doesn't feel right, and I'm not sure what it is, it's probably a little bit of this. And unfortunately, it's the kind of thing that doesn't look better even if you drape it with twinkly lights.