Today, my iGoogle page presented me with this quote:
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it’s just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
-David Sedaris
David Sedaris is an amazing writer, and one I adore, so I am immediately assuming it’s 100% true. It has been for me.
With that in mind, my family will read this post a certain way. If Mike’s family reads here (and I have no idea if they do or don’t), they will read it differently. My friends will read it and either truly agree or disagree, or they won’t be able to help the judgment in their heads. I get it. I’ve been there.
Saturday, some truly wonderful people are going to help me move a few pieces of furniture out of the house. Mike will be in Pennsylvania visiting a friend.
It’s a long story, but I know someone through the Twitterverse (ironically I have completely stopped tweeting, but that’s another story) who has been going through a separation. He has a young son. One afternoon we met up at a play area and let our kids go at it. While they beaned each other in the heads with balls and made the walls vibrate with their loudness (mine, not his), we talked briefly about what we were both going through. Other than a scheduled group ski trip at the end of this month, we haven’t seen each other since and I wouldn’t call us friends. We are acquaintances. However, he was familiar enough with my situation to know that I had tried to lease an apartment near our house, but cannot afford to actually move into it.
He called me a week or two ago and said he was going to be renting a room out in his house. I checked it out - it’s a room. Nothing fancy. But it’s cheap, and he eventually agreed, after meeting Mike, to let us switch off weeks. Mike will stay with the girls one week, I will stay with them the next. Whoever is not in the house will be in the rented room. I’ll still see the girls every day as I am on mom-duty every afternoon, and I can’t imagine going that long without at least a couple of evening visits. As for how Mike will handle it, I don’t know.
We had a very raw counseling session this week. I know that things are going to get worse before they get better, but I have been unwilling to deal with it. I am finally at the point, and I think he is too, where we know we need to face it and separate for real and see what happens. I assume we’ll continue going to marriage counseling, but it’s as fun as getting my bikini line epilated. I look forward to it about that much. I will say that I learn more in that single hour than I do in an entire week. At home, Mike will avoid telling me the full truth about things, but in counseling, they come flying out faster than I can absorb them. Individual therapy is always hard, but I see now why so many couples bail on marriage counseling after a few visits. A root canal (and Mike can vouch for this, having gone through it recently) is faster, cheaper, and a lot more fun.
We sat the girls down tonight. It went the same as it did back in the beginning, when we told them we were separating. I mentioned that during my on weeks, Daddy would still come see them a couple of times, maybe for dinner. True to Arden’s form, she said, “Um, can I pick where we go? Cuz I want to go to McDonald’s.” Lily asked if one of us is moving out permanently (meaning she thought one of us was going to disappear forever), and we reassured her that is not the case. Then she scampered off to make whistling sounds through a straw shaped like a pumpkin.
This is not to say that on Saturday when I begin dismantling our guest room bed, they aren’t going to freak out. They will want to know why, again, they will want to see the place, they will not get it until it actually starts. Having been through this in our earlier stages, I know that the questions are just beginning and we are totally not off the hook.
The guilt I feel is often overwhelming. I want a lobotomy, I want to forget, I want to reverse time. I want to change who I am, what I want, how I think. None of those things seem to be available for purchase, so I am firmly stuck in the present that I have created by speaking the words that have been growing in my brain for a very long time. No one says it directly, but many people want to wish it away. Hell, I do too. This isn’t fun for anyone.
So people will read this in the way they want to. Some will blame it on the big bad wolf, bipolar. Some will say I’m flat out crazy. Others will think that I have everything they want and can’t I just be satisfied, dammit? Others will understand, having walked in my shoes. Some will tell me they are proud that we’ve spent so much time working, and congratulate us for taking the separation step for real so we can get some answers. Some are disappointed with Mike, many are disappointed with me. I’ve never intended to tell both sides of the story. I haven’t even written mine, because it’s not important.
No matter what happens, I will always be able to say I worked hard, I tried everything, and whatever decision we come to, I will eventually be okay with it.
