A year ago: I’d met C. and we were talking – daily. We hadn’t yet kissed. We hadn’t yet envisioned a commitment. We were curious and mutually pleased to have found someone with whom we could talk so freely, with whom we shared so much, by whom we were challenged to re-consider all that we knew about relationships.
Now: C. has moved in. His clothes are hung in the closet. His shoes are by the front door. His razor is on the bathroom sink. His almond butter is in the fridge. It’s both comforting and sweet but also a bit maddening to live with another adult again. And yet I go into this experience knowing that the relationship is a teacher; that I am in it by choice to learn more about myself, to show my children what a daily commitment looks like, to learn patience and grace and see it mirrored back to me.
A year ago: A. was about a month back from Africa. He’d moved into an apartment nearby and we were actively getting divorced, as opposed to the slow-mo events of the previous eight months while he was gone. He was signed up for online dating services and subtly complaining that there were more interesting women everywhere but here — DC, NYC, Italy …
Now: We are about eight months officially divorced; 2 1/1 years officially separated. I’m not sure how many years this was in the making. I’m ever amazed by the hints and crumbs I find in old letters and diary entries that suggest this break up was years and years in the making. Why didn’t I see the writing on the wall sooner? I was committed to trying, even when trying was about the same as hitting my head against a wall. A. is now in love with a woman he met via me. (Yeah, I know – potentially messy.) She’s down to earth and someone I’m happy for my kids to be around. Selfishly, I also hope that she will keep him here, but I know he could just as easily take her elsewhere. Although there may be love, there’s still no apparent work for him.
Last year: Bea was very anxious for school to start. She was alternately moody and lacking confidence. As I started to see C., she resisted him and us. She was rude. She was abrupt.
Now: She was immediately excited when I asked how she and Thomas would feel about C. moving in last month. She climbs on his back. She holds his hand. She welcomes him with a smile when he comes home. She’s excited and comfortable to start fourth grade tomorrow. She’s moving up to her own bedrooom in the attic and is generally spreading her wings.
A year ago: I was very reliant on this blog as a place to reflect and release. It was a great friend to me, as were the many people who read it (including you!). It was really a crucial tool in figuring out what it meant to be divorced and riding the waves of this maddeningly complex process.
Today: I am more at ease as a divorced person, in part because I see and accept – begrudgingly some days – that the waves never end. Alex will always be in my life with his spaciness and lack of foresight, with his bad money habits and sometimes juvenile habits. But he’s my kids’ dad and in the grand scheme of the divorced partners I’ve encountered lately, I’d take his bad habits over many – just as I think he’d take mine over others. We appreciate each other as the lesser of possible evils, and still enjoy each other enough that the occasional shared meal is more pleasant than painful.
And so, I leave this space as an active spot for reflection. I am writing regularly over at Mothers of Invention (though this blog is currently being attacked by some kind of gremlin who keeps affecting its appearance – maddening; anyone know anything about blogs being broken into and changed?) and would love to have you join me there!








