when bandaids, ice packs and kisses aren't enough

Divorce is difficult.

I realize there is nothing particularly prophetic in that statement, but it is none the less true. And perhaps for idiots like me it’s even more difficult when you try over and over to make it work with the same man because it doesn’t make any sense that you should care about someone so much and not be able to make it work. But sometimes you can’t. and I know that I try not to believe that , as I have protested in other posts, but if the work to keep it alive and to stay in love is not put in, it’s doomed. And the work has to be put in by two people. I always thought I could love enough for two people, but I can’t. I used to think it was just david’s way of loving, but with his new girl I realize it was just that he didn’t love me.

So almost exactly four years after our divorce, david left for the last time. We get along because, well because we do. And so that has made things somewhat easier. But he left only four months ago and has since moved in with his new girl. I want him to be happy, and that is the honest truth. There is a part of me that wants him to be so happy he forgets about me and our little girl and I can run away from this. My flight instinct is very much intact. And I also believe that I am very much done staying in love with him. Yet when he said he wouldn’t appear at a function we were both invited to because he didn’t think I would be comfortable seeing him with the new girl, the sudden pit in my stomach revealed the truth in his statement. I didn't like that. i realized there are just too many emotions associated with even the tiniest part of the obscure relationship between us.

To briefly add to this scenario without delving into self pity, shortly after he left lost my job. And as a result lost the house I was renting. I couldn’t find another job and I couldn’t find a new place to live that would allow me the flexibility to commute to all the districts I had my applications in. in short I found myself unemployed and back at my parents house crowded by boxes and half filled hopes and dying expectations.

And that’s where this post really starts to hit home for me. The betrayal, loneliness, confusion, helplessness, the inability to understand the intensity of the emotions that swirl around in a cloud that is sometimes so dark it’s hard to see. Then the next moment they are opaque, then they disappear which is even more confusing. I think of these things and I think of my little girl. It tears my heart in two knowing that all these grown up feelings are being compressed into such a tiny little body. That when she starts to cry and can’t stop, when she needs to be touching me whenever we are together. Her requests for things I know she doesn’t want but she knows she doesn’t have. the emotions are so real and so encompassing they seem to be beating her from the inside out, finding any outlet to escape her. I hold her, hug her, tell her how amazing she is and what a lucky mommy I am.

But there are no bandaids, no ice packs, and no amount of kisses can fix what has been done to her.

This helpless feeling kills me. I know that I am a good mother, I know that I have done what others may not have to stay that kind of mother. And I know there are things I can do to be a better mother. But there is nothing I can do to keep her from feeling this way. My tools of kisses and soothing words can only be accompanied by patience and helping her cope. I can’t make it go away. How can I be so powerless for her? I’ve always dreamed of being a mother. My sisters had aspirations, and drive and intelligence that I could not compare to. But I knew that motherhood was my truest and deepest desire and that was a happiness for me. I’m very lucky to have the daughter that I have, but I didn’t plan on being a mother like this. Maybe I’m just being given what I can handle, but I have to protest. I cannot handle my little girl being packed so tight with emotions that are too big for body and too old for her age.

I’m sorry for the mood of the post. I don’t think I ever would have written it if it weren’t for a post from Jo who let it be okay to say that things aren’t perfect on blogs. That could be the most truth ever posted. :)

just your average jo

they say parenting is a thankless job...

and in some ways perhaps that's true. and in those ways being a custodial parent is even more thankless. today cecily told me that her daddy was cooler than the fair. high praise. i on the other hand was not. i understood though, if the fair happened every day i'd get tired of it, too.
on the subject of my little one i thought i would address her seemingly tireless endeavor to find out who she really is. as a young child she asked her daddy where we came from. monkeys he told her. simple enough.
later the main competition was whether she was a rock star or a princess. i would call her a goober and she would insist that she wasn't. she was either a princess or a rockstar and you couldn't tell from one moment to the next which one she was. and heaven forbid you got it wrong! sometimes i convinced her that she was both, at the same time. although that seems like it would be easy enough, it didn't always satisfy her.
then it became vastly more complex! we kept rock star and princess, but also added ballerina and astronaut. and there were combinations! sometimes even she would get frustrated that she didn't know which one she was. i would try to be the diplomatic mother and tell her she could be whatever she wanted to be because of how smart, and kind, and wonderful she was. didn't fly.
my favorite was the stage when she started adopting names. she asked if i knew she was a cecily when she was born. i told her that actually we didn't and that we had to decide between several names. i listed them for her and she decided she liked leila. so for a while her full name was cecily gwen leila leisten. although if you catch her in the wrong mood she doesn't want to be anything but cecily.
we are now somewhere inbetween those two stages. she wants to be addressed as princess sometimes, it seems to be the favorite. but other times she wants to be hermione from harry potter. i like that one, honestly. i mean she's brilliant! she wanted to paint a picture for her bedroom wall (when she has one that is, still at the 'rents) and wanted to write hermione on it. she forgot about it while she was painting though so i think we're okay. she has been combining the last two and has become princess hermione as well. whatever works, kid.
while sometimes this can get a little unnerving, just because i never know who she is going to be, i'm very proud of her efforts to understand herself and what she wants to be. i think it takes a lot of skill as a person to put yourself through all of that self examiation and come out on top like she always does. i'm hoping it gives her a head start in her teenage years, or even in her twenties when she's trying to find herself. i'll send her a huge painting for her wall that will say: "i am rockstar, astronaut, ballerina princess hermione cecily gwen leila leisten and i can be whatever i want!"
i ♥ my little girl.