I feel like I’m in limbo right now, waiting for the elusive email from my lawyer to pop up in my inbox.  I’m fairly certain I’ll get it before Christmas - this notification that I’m legally divorced - but the not knowing is driving me crazy.  Michigan divorce law is different. Philip’s divorce will be final Monday.  There is a date, the lawyers appear, the judge rubber stamps it, and done.  It reminds me of scheduling a C-section as opposed to waiting for natural labor to begin.  You can rally the troops, make sure there’s food in the house, and ensure that you have plenty of support when you know it’s coming. 

In my case, I’m trying to provide my own support.  I’ve lowered the bar in general for the past 8 months.  The house doesn’t stay as clean and organized as I like it to be.  The laundry sometimes sits, unfolded, for 3 days before I get around to taking care of it (usually when Lily complains she is out of long sleeved shirts, and there is a pile of clean ones sitting in the family room).  I still haven’t made specific plans for Christmas, mainly because I don’t want to think too much about it.  My New Year’s Eve plans are not the ones I wanted, but they may be the ones I need.  I’ve lowered the bar on my expectations for what legal divorce is going to feel like.  Someone asked me last night if I’d be crying tears of joy.  I said no.  No matter how you look at it, divorce is still divorce.  The word is ugly because it is the end of something entered into with hope, or faith, or a combination.  Whether you are the one being left or the leaver, no one wins.  I won’t be crying tears of joy, but I will be glad it’s “over” and it’s another mark in the sand.  This means I have to start moving on, no matter how much it scares me.

I think one of the worst side effects of the bitter divorce pill is the huge dent it puts in the ability to trust.  I’ve talked extensively with friends who have gone through it, and most recently Philip.  Divorce pulls the rug out from under you in a few sinister ways.  First, it has made me feel that I have no judgment, that I will always make the wrong decisions and I will hurt others because of my bad decisions.  My therapist says that everyone chooses the person to bond with based on the current needs, so therefore it’s not like we go into marriage thinking it’s short term or that our needs will change.  Yep, I get that.  But how do I guarantee my needs won’t change again?  This is why my off-the-cuff response to whether I’ll ever marry again is “No way in hell.”  I don’t trust myself. 

On the other side of the equation, I don’t trust men in general anymore.  I am hoping this is temporary.  I’ve got a few good ones in my life that give me hope (hi Dan!).  Although people may disagree, dating has been good for me in the sense that I’ve seen how vulnerable I am.  It’s a weird vulnerability.  The few people I’ve cared about have done an odd sort of dance with me.  Most of them were suffering their own splits or divorces, and we would draw close, then freak out, then drop walls just to see how fast they could be erected again.  When one of us dared to trust, the other withdrew; when one of us allowed ourselves to feel happy, the other would close the door. Newly divorced people are almost funny to watch, when you aren’t crying over the personal disaster that is yourself, your self-esteem and your confidence.  It’s important to date because until you work through all your kinks, you’re doomed.  I hate to sound cynical, but my view of dating in the months or even years after divorce is all re-training and practice.  As in sports, practice makes you stronger, but people also get hurt. 

All of this being said, I am facing my first set of holidays without a husband.  I won’t be alone, so I can’t say that, but it feels icky and too large to handle at times.  Putting up the tree was hard.  We collected ornaments, and so many of them were stories of our past.  Lighthouses from numerous trips to the Outer Banks.  An ornament from Vegas.  A sea turtle, purchased during our honeymoon in Kiawah.  I am hit when I least expect it, like yesterday when I unpacked a box looking for a platter.  I collected reindeer plates, buying one or two every Christmas since we were married.  It hurts to look at them, but I still love them. 

Those plates are my life right now.  It’s painful looking at myself, or my life, but I still love my life and my decisions.  Every day I remember how much easier my life used to be, how much happier my kids were, or how I didn’t have to worry about all the things that worry me now.  After I allow those thoughts to run through my head, I let myself feel okay with the decisions I’ve made.  The other side of pain is the pleasure of opportunity or possibility.  I have plenty of both. 

As usual, the weekend was full of fun and crazy and sometimes fun craziness.  Lily and Arden went off to school with stomachaches, so I guess that means another Halloween success was had. 

Friday my mom met me and the girls and we headed out to the Halloween festival their school puts on.  It was a lot of fun, and it was reassuring to see how many new friends both girls have made in less than 2 full months.  Lily enjoys saying that no one likes her, but it’s obviously untrue and Arden knows half the school by name already.  I’m also starting to learn my way around the school and school politics.  Thankfully they are not as fraught with drama and money as the politics in my old school district.  I can only handle so much talk about how much smoked salmon a third grade class needs for a Thanksgiving celebration. 

Saturday, I made poor Windsor show up at 6.30 in the morning so I could pick up my neighbor and hit the road for City Stadium.  The group run was our last big one:  12 miles.  More about the run in a bit. 

After the run was finished, Windsor saved my life by having lunch with me after I iced my legs, then offered up her jacuzzi tub while entertaining the kids with a Harry Potter movie.  Sunday we headed to Yorktown for Nik’s first birthday which was a blast.  It’s hard living where we do because Mia and my girls are very close, and if we lived within a more reasonable distance, it wouldn’t be so rare.  I forgot my camera, which was a bummer because watching Nik smash a cupcake into his face for the better part of 10 minutes was priceless. 

The girls passed out in the car on the way home (truth:  I did too).  We had about half hour before we changed into Halloween finery and headed to Emma’s neighborhood for our traditional group trick or treat.  All three girls, at different times, adopted a poopy attitude but at the end of the night everyone was happy and spastic and working on tooth rot. 

(don’t read if you don’t care about running or laughing about me attempting to run)

I was keyed up all week about the long run, trying to not psyche myself out or worry too much about things I couldn’t control (which was just about everything).  I worried about food, what to eat, what not to eat, what to wear, whether I’d blow up in a cloud of sweat and dirt halfway through it, and other anxieties (what if I have to poop? what if I break my leg?  what if I fall into a gutter and no one notices my body until the smell of my decaying corpse hits the Boulevard and can’t be ignored any longer?)

Turns out only a few things happened, and none of them were those I had preemptively worried about. 

I dressed appropriately - freezing at the start, sweating and removing layers by mile 3.  The pace was perfect but brisker than I usually felt comfortable with.  The great thing about running with others is they remind you when you are being a mental case.  “The pace is fast,” I said.  “Do you feel tired?  Cuz if you don’t you’re fine,” said Meg.  Sure enough we stayed steady all the way through Bryan Park until the SAG at mile 6.  A long hill followed a brief rest break.  I turned to Tara and said, “I can’t believe I feel this good.  My leg isn’t bothering me at all.”  As the words left my mouth, my right calf muscle seized.  At first I though I’d torn my Achilles or a muscle back there.  I let out a howl and started running like my right leg had been removed.  The poetic justice of nursing, massaging, and icing my LEFT leg into submission just to injure the right one was not lost on me.  I’d had a similar experience about 6 weeks ago, running up another hill - and it turned out to be a terrible cramp that left my leg sore for the better part of a week.  I kept running trying to determine if I was hurt or if it was “just” a cramp. 

I’m going to admit that I had a full-on 5 minute panic attack.  All I could think was that I’d ruined my chance of running the half.  My leg HURT.  I wanted to lie down in the middle of the road and let a truck hit me.  It felt that disastrous.  Telling Meg and Sarah to keep running sucked but I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to move, let alone run, at any point in the near future.  I was on the verge of tears - pain, panic, and flat out anger that I was finally having a GOOD LONG RUN and now it was going to be a PAINFUL HEINOUS LONG RUN that might eventually become a PAINFUL HEINOUS RUN FOLLOWED BY WAITING FOR A CAR TO TAKE ME HOME WHERE I WOULD COLLAPSE INTO A SMELLY HEAP OF DEFEAT. 

Help pops up when you least expect it in life.  A woman walking a dog told me to stretch.  I started to tell her that I was “fine”, that I just needed to keep going.  For whatever reason, I didn’t argue with her.  I leaned against a tree and she walked me through a number of stretches to work the cramp out.  It was obvious she had been a runner in her previous life.  Her calm demeanor and steady voice made my panic subside.  I knew logically that I needed to stretch, but I was only focused on staying with my friends and finishing in a reasonable time.  Having her force me to stop, stretch and breathe made the cramp stop seizing.  I was left with an intense soreness from it (I could almost literally hear my muscle say “GOD NOOOOO! when I started running again), but I kept running and as I entered miles 8, 9 and 10 I stopped thinking about it constantly.  My neighbor was running with me and she told me story after story to keep me distracted.  At the end of the 12, I thought, “It wasn’t that bad.” 

And it wasn’t.  All the training has paid off.  Certain people in my life have told me that I’m “crazy”, “anal retentive”, “intent on doing something that isn’t good for me” and any number of other remarks or comments.  In many ways, they may be right.  It does take a certain amount of crazy to tell your brain that your body CAN do this and it’s truly a game you play with yourself.  You win the game by controlling your mind.  For me, checking in with my body and breathing makes my brain shut up.  When I finish 12 miles and recover my breathing and heart rate in just a few short minutes, I know I’ve won the battle.  I AM anal retentive.  I don’t miss a training run for anyone or anything (except my kids).  When it poured rain on the day of my 10 miler, I ran.  The homeless and random people on the bus line heckled me (“Hey!  Didja know it’s raining?  You’re gonna get WET!”).  I had a friend in town.  I still ran.  I run when it hurts, as long as the doctor has told me I won’t do any damage.  I run when I’m cold, when I’m alone, when friends bail at the last minute, or when I just really feel like staying in bed.  I don’t agree about the whole “isn’t good for me” statement.  After reading Born to Run, I stopped viewing running as an extreme sport and something that always equates to bodily damage.  I think it takes a combination of obsession, crazy and risk taking to continue doing something like running over a long period of time.  For me it’s been a year, and the changes to me - both mentally and physically - are quite incredible and I don’t mind tooting this air horn of mine.  If a person like me can do this - well, you know the rest of the sentence. 

From here until November 13, the mileage is decreasing.  I ran 12.2 on Saturday; theoretically, this means I can run 13.1 on the 13th.  For the first time, I got in my car after the run and actually said, “I can do this” - and I meant it. 

This year, due to all the divorce crap and monetary frugality, I eschewed (good word!) the typical Short Pump birthday party.  This was particularly timely since I no longer live in Short Pump (can I get a woot?  Thank you).  The usual far west end party includes ponies or jungle animals, huge fetes with manicures and pedicures, lunches at the Dominion Club, private Cirque du Soleil events and live concerts featuring Disney Princesses on Ice and the Rolling Stones (just kidding) or cooking classes.  Considering I was instructed by Arden’s kindergarten teacher to invite all of the kids in her class (and there are 18 of them), I figured we’d go back to the good ol’ days and have a party at the house. 

I still rented a moonbounce.  Coupled with a badly-designed Hannah Montana pinata, everything worked out.  The kids managed to collapse the moonbounce twice. The second time was the best; Todd and Theresa’s son was trapped at the bottom with two huge boys on top of him and a smattering of girls.  All of them were screaming, so Todd totally hulked out and shoved them up and out of the hole while sternly telling them to knock it off (or some version of that).  Thankfully Todd has a meaner voice than me, because no one listened to me the first time they managed to make the roof cave in. 

Mike showed up for the last portion of it.  It was awkward and weird but at least he knew some people there.  He was polite to the members of my family and dealt with Lily’s meltdown at the end of the party.  He actually dealt with Lily’s meltdown better than I did.  The clutching of my leg and screaming, “I don’t want to go to Daddy’s! I WANT TO STAY WITH YOU!” for a good 15 minutes wore me down and after she left, I had a moment of crying and begging myself, albeit privately.  I feel like such failure when my kids hurt over decisions the adults have made.  This is why so many people stay married - among other, less compelling reasons.  It is unnatural as a parent to willingly hurt your kids.  There are plenty of ways to rationalize what happened at the party, but at that moment all I could feel was that I was hurting my daughter and making her do something she didn’t want to do.

(Rationalizations that came later:  she was overtired.  I was going to Virginia Beach for the Run Like A Girl event, but in her mind, Va Beach equals fun on the sand and in the ocean.  She’d spent two weekends in a row with her father.  She didn’t want to leave the Moonbounce.  She didn’t want to leave Emma.  The list goes on . . . .)

Regardless of how things ended, the girls had a great time and I think Arden was pleased with everything.  It was a huge relief to just do something lower-key and let the kids play outside on a gorgeous day. 

Arden turned 6 today.  We did pedicures, had lunch with my mom and dad, and are doing a small birthday celebration with Windsor tonight.  It’s an odd way to spend her birthday and I wonder if she’s missing her dad (they celebrated over the weekend). 

She wanted a GoGo walking dog thing, and I have to admit it scares me.  It growls, barks and pants - sometimes it does this without any provocation.  It also walks in this creepy lurching way and I know that thing is going to be standing over me in bed, teeth bared, ready to rip out my jugular.  It’s a fuzzy version of Cujo. 

As for the second part, I had about an hour’s window in which to mow the grass. My new mower, used approximately three times this summer due to extreme drought, will not start.  I started to google ways to make it work, but you know what?  I am fed up with it.  I’m fed up with maintaining this stupid house and yard right now.  My kids go through the house spreading mess and chaos and they are getting better about picking up after themselves, but it’s an unending battle.  When we talk about it, they make their eyes big and say “Mommy, this house is just SO small.”  I want to simultaneously hug them and beat them. 

Sometimes I don’t like being a girl. Even though in my previous life I was responsible for most of the small maintenance tasks and figuring out how to make things go, I get tired and cranky when I just want things to work.  I don’t have time for this.  Someone, please come mow the grass.  I surrender. 

I’ve been so slammed since vacation, I’ve been terrible about blogging or even pulling the pictures from the Outer Banks off my camera.  I did it tonight, at the expense of my real work - but hey, I needed a break. 

We journeyed to Kitty Hawk because Theresa (from Allergy Apparel fame) and Gina (famous in her own right for being the hottest pregnant woman on the planet) let me and the girls tag along.  Their husbands put up with us nicely as well, especially when the Great Spider Scare of 2010 forced Lily and Arden (okay, and me) upstairs.  The bottom “section” of the beach house was, um, well.  It was . . .damp.  Theresa and Todd and the burly boys ended up stay down there - in twin bunk beds - while I got to stay upstairs in a slightly warmer but much drier bed while the girls snoozed with Landis.  I can’t thank them enough, even though I kept trying to force them back upstairs.  I think Theresa secretly enjoyed sleeping in a twin bed with her hubby.  Then again, maybe not. 

I loved vacationing with Theresa and Gina’s families because they actually know how to relax.  We sat on the beach.  We packed lunches.  We cooked most nights.  When we weren’t cooking, we were eating pizza.  We flew kites.  We took turns watching the kids so that long bike rides could be completed (I think Mark easily surpassed 100 miles on his bike during the week there), runs could be done (Theresa “ran” with me one night - which meant I was able to keep her ass in sight for all of about 3 minutes).  We took naps.  Todd played surrogate father and uber cool uncle to my girls, playing with them in the waves, dragging them around on their boogie boards, and bandaging random wounds.  He also broke up a lot of fights.  Arden and Blue Sky are quite headstrong.  The two of them together negates any country needing a nuclear weapon - their mixture is potent and all-powerful. 

It was weird.  Since I hadn’t really relaxed, the Homestead prior got me in this sort of sloth-like trance that was hard to shake.  Even watching Theresa frantically work did little to motivate me, and usually one needs a crowbar and threats of death to separate me from my shitty old Dell notebook. 

What was weird, too, was being on my first “single mom” vacation.  Being on duty 24/7 was interesting, to say the least, but having the other families around and all the kids helped dull the major absence of male companionship/help.  There were actually a couple of victorious moments where I said, “YEAH MAN, I can TOTALLY DO THIS!!!”  in sort of a Matthew McConaughey/Jack Johnson surfer voice. 

I’m really glad I went.  Leaving during nap mat season was difficult, but WiFi in the beach house made it do-able, and by Friday of this week I might be sort of caught up.  If not, there’s always next week.