...with two spoons...

Mondays, of late, feel like 'weekend recovery' days.
It's a strange twist on what once was.
Part 'return to schedule and, therefore, to function' and part ' restore order after the invasion'. 

Henri's Papa has a big presence and a tendency to overwhelm.  He's brash and impetuous and loud.  Weekends spent with him 'present in quantity' can feel disruptive to our system and to our systems.

(I wonder if other parents feel this when their mostly-absent partner is suddenly around for longer stretches of time.)

His presence, and his parenting, knock us off balance.  The schedule collapses...the adherence to guidelines and timelines disappears.

There's a sense of urgency around time with him.
A need to 'fit it all in', whether it's outings or chores or household projects or...

Weekends are rushed and chaotic...unraveled and exhausting...

...and when Monday dawns, it's time to reset.

Back to the planner and the clock.  Back to 3 square meals plus snacks.  Back to nursing windows, and nap-times.  Back to homeschooling and mami-led learning.  Back to the 'work in progress'.

Back we go, like automatons, on Monday mornings.

And back we slide into whatever unmanaged mess we left of things the week prior.

Mondays are weekend recovery days.

My eldest and I, diving into the deep end and trying to wrangle the work and the chores and the toddler and the life...back into something recognizable and manageable.

Mondays are work...hard work and long hours and hopeless prayers for a nap-time respite that never comes because the schedule was too mangled by the weekend...

Mondays feel endless.

And by the time evening rolls around, and Henri's Papa arrives home from his own Monday...we're all running on empty and snarling at one another.

Mondays are the recovery, from which we sometimes need to recover.

So last night, my eldest and I took ourselves out to dinner...alone...

(We've made routine of that...once a month...a dinner for two...the original team...)

Nothing fancy. My strawberry salad altogether unfancy...full of those damnable chunks of iceberg lettuce (the heart?) that I cut out at home, and sporting 4 limp slices of strawberry.

But, much like us...perfectly imperfect and imperfectly perfect.

No toddler with his incessant, oppressive need to be the center.

No interruptions or need to pause the natural flow of conversation, in order to explain some insider joke or the historical reference point in the story of us.

Just us.  The originals.

The single mom and single son.

Just us, and the ease of our bond, and the picking up of conversations we'd left off of...

This time is precious to me.

It's a rarity...an endangered species...

It's at risk of being infringed upon...of being rolled over...of being swallowed up...

We sat in our booth, picking over food and picking at conversation threads.

We...consumed...

We...communed...

We...recovered...

Just enough so that when it came time to pay the bill and head back out into the dark, we'd fed ourselves just enough to 'get back to it'.

I love these dinners.  These brief hours where he and I are the way we were.  These falling-backs and leaping-forwards of conversation with a boy turned young man...dreamer turned developer...

I love our ease with one another.  I worked so hard at making it.

I love our friendship.  I built it on purpose.

We laughed over town politics and toddler tempers...oft indistinguishable from one another!

We dreamt a little about future plans and brainstormed workshop ideas.

We unburdened ourselves of those annoyances and grievances and listened to the clarity of the other's perspective...gaining insight and relief.

And when I thought we were done...plates cleared away and settled into silence...

He ordered dessert.

With two spoons.

And borrowed a few minutes more for us both...

...4 (in days gone by)...

In Days Gone By:
12. September.2021

Some among you here reading know the story, in bits and pieces.

Some of you have walked through chapters of it with us.

Others of you know only the result of the early years of our family...know only the team of two that rebuilt atop the ashes of a violent, crushing past.

But all of you today, reading this, can celebrate in your own way as today we step into our freedom...finally!

Today everything new begins.

Yesterday, everything old finally ended. Ended...

was obliterated...

was erased...

was disowned...

was disavowed.

Yesterday, the young man I am so proud to call my son was able to confront the man who came so close to destroying us both and not only put voice to the long-silent emotions of what he endured, but also firmly say "No more!".

Yesterday, Johannes...18 and every inch the young man who has risen so far beyond every challenge he's been presented with, made the decision for us both and for his loved ones...his grandmother and his half-siblings...and, having finally "had his say", permanently excised the excruciating weight that has been his 'deadbeat dad' from our life. Having the opportunity to finally say whatever he wanted, he proved himself the far better man, exercising restraint. Instead of lashing out, he was clear and precise. A declaration of strength...an acknowledgement of the hurt and shame he had felt...a strongly worded demand that he never be contacted again...and that Christian stop using him and his siblings to drum up pity and charity.

(As I have said before, there are some words that exist only for those moments of intense emotion...and, in my opinion, while inappropriate in regular conversation, are the only way to fully communicate absolute rage and disgust.)

His words were forceful...his language carefully chosen to exact the result he wanted. And in the end, after demanding his due, Johannes had the final word.

Some 16+ years after first filing for a restraining order, we are both finally able to walk away cleanly...never again having to acknowledge this wretched creature, or feel dragged down by the burden of his chaos and sickness and threats.

As I typed so joyfully but a few years ago, "they are all safe"...and now it is even more true.

My stepchildren are flourishing in a stable, safe and secure home...surrounded by a family that has chosen to come together to raise them up in love and support. We have built solid bridges to one another. Johannes has safely reached the age of majority...the threat of custody or visitation no longer keeps me from exhaling.

The threat has dissolved into yesterday.

Last night I sat with my eldest son and we breathed in the relief denied to us these many years. We felt our shoulders relax and our senses mute a bit from what had become an all too familiar alert to impending doom. We spoke freely...the words and emotions pouring out...and then let them melt away, with no need to take it all back up again.

I told him, laughingly but earnestly, "You are my hero.", and how I admired his ability to strongly and eloquently say the things that needed to be said. I told him that what I had wanted for him all those years ago, was finally his. Freedom. The ability to walk away. The time to be done carrying the shame of having had Christian for a father (a word Johannes never allowed, but the biological relationship nonetheless) and disavow any tie. Here...now...it was his. It was mine.

Johannes answered back, "I am my mother's son."

And so he is.

But he is so much more. He is who he has chosen to be...he is the product of his own choices: to rise above, to be empathetic, to love. He is the product of bearing witness to what Christian has done and choosing to do the opposite every time. He is my hero.

Yesterday, we cleaned house. We settled our accounts in a way.

Particularly me.

Typing into my final text that I didn't even mind the wasted time~money~energy~etc...because it served as proof to me of my having done all that I could.

Knowing my words wouldn't cut through the haze of drugs and lies and ego, and knowing also that it no longer mattered to me whether or not they did.

I have done all I could.

I have sacrificed all I am willing to.

I am settled.

I am at peace.

Yesterday, we washed our hands. We stopped the infection that is his disgusting life, from spreading any further into ours. We dreamt up the 'what ifs and whens' of moving forward. We marveled at the fact that sweet Henri will never have to know our pain and stress over that man. We cleansed ourselves of all the insidious thoughts and feelings that inviting his damage in had created.

Yesterday, we cut off the rot.

Today, we celebrate.

Today, we are our own.

Today, I am mother to two remarkable boys I've given birth to and step-mother to two equally remarkable children who have grown in my heart.

I am not the ex-wife...

the estranged spouse..

the maligned...

the abused...

the terrified...

the victim.

I am not broken.

I am not even the survivor.

Today I am what I chose all those years ago when I finally got up the courage to save us.

I am one who overcame.

And today? Today Johannes is MY son...100%. Belonging to no one but himself. Worthy and loved and wholly his own man. He is who he chooses to be. He never needs to feel the burden of Christian again. He is safe.

Today, we celebrate. We eat cake...literally...because if ever there was a moment to savor and laugh through and feast over, it is this. We'll sit around the table, our cobbled together family of four, and revel in the lightheartedness. We'll make plans, and tell stories, and crack jokes. We'll make a mess and clean it up.

And in the months to come, I'll set aside the money to hire the lawyer and the process server and pay the fees. I'll come to terms with my own irritation at, having already carried the financial burden all these years, I've to do it one final time. I'll justify it, in time, as the greatest gift I've ever given myself.

We are finally able to turn our backs completely on the monster.

Free.

12. September. 2021

...2 (in days gone by)...

 In Days Gone By:
25.October.2018

The house is quiet.

Warm, and quiet.

Quiet enough that the infernal hum of the refrigerator sounds like a drill inside my skull.

He's home today, downed by a fever and head-cold symptoms. We slept in, miraculously, and I feel wholly refreshed. Sitting across from me here at the table, he has the dark circles and flushed cheeks of his fever and the furrowed brow of his concentration as he works on his engineering homework.

(Yup...That Mom, too. Home sick? Homework. Unless you're comatose!)

We took the morning "off"...sleeping in led to the laziest of breakfasts, still in pjs. Copious amounts of coffee and tea extended our table-sit while we chatted our way round how he was feeling, what was going on in school, etc...

I sat there, engaging in the conversation with most of my brain, while a small portion of it pecked away at the dissonance of what continues to unfold re:my stepchildren.

It's hard. Difficult. Impossible even, to wrap my head around the reality of their experience with their father...and remember how very close we came to being permanently scarred in those same ways.

He is light. Seated across from me. Looking up every few moments to reassure himself of my presence...of my attention. He is light and carefree in the stability-the solidity-the expected. But his half-siblings know nothing of those feelings.

In my head, I liken them to feral cats. All the potential, but none of the rearing...the raising. Acting solely on self-serving instinct, consequences be damned. It is, to me, horrifying to hear each piece, each drip drop drip of information that seeps out of the crumbling walls their father tried to erect around them. It is, to me, horrifying that this man is the primary caregiver-so ill-equipped for the job. So ill-equipped for his own life.

I always say how lucky I am that he is mine. That this glorious, brilliant, challenging young man is mine to raise and be raised up by. Mine to be the plus-one for. Mine to observe and record and be amazed by. But in that part of my brain that's worrying on that dissonance, I know it's not luck at all. He's become what he was meant to be because I did what was needed, no matter the cost...no matter the struggle...no matter the naysayers.

I wonder, often, if it's already too late for those two. If the path has already been set in concrete for them. Or if, perhaps, all the moves we players on the periphery are making....all the barriers and walls we are erecting and pushing in all around them will be enough to spin them off that axis and give them their best chance as well.

He's had the best chance or, at the very least, the best chance I could provide. And he's done wonders with it. Creating from these small pieces a world in which he creates...dominates...advocates...leads...inspires change. I am never not awestruck at where this life has taken us.

But I wonder, day in and day out, if it's too little-too late for those two. And I wonder what that will mean for him. Will he be dragged down by their dysfunction when they are all older? Will he inherit my 'need to rescue-need to help-need to fix' and find himself breaking himself into pieces trying to fill the holes in them?

Will he, as he's doing now, try to line up all the angles and make the picture symmetrical? Will he pour himself out into them?

Oh, I worry.

I worry about him. Of course I do. I worry for him...for who he will have to be when I am gone. For how he will move on from being part of a team of two to being just one.

I worry for them, these children I have chosen to love from afar. I worry for their chances and their outcomes and their day right now.

I worry for their father and his instability...worry that his emotional dysfunction will win out and he will lose himself, his life.

The house is quiet as we both sit here, he at his homework and I at this emptying out of the words in my head. It is quiet and calm and warm and peaceful and I am torn between the tranquility of our life and the chaos of theirs.

...tied up in knots...

Healing.

My word of the year for 2023.

Healing.

The literal and the figurative.

The physical and the abstract.

The body and the mind...or the heart...or the soul...or the lost, lonely inner-child still looking for a soft place to land...

It's more than a word, as I'm coming to realize.  More, even, than a change of lifestyle.

It is painstakingly untangling all the mess of all the intersecting traumas, and the barricades and avoidant/reactive responses that I once thought of as a safety net.

Healing is finding that every time I cautiously pull one on small thread to see if I can loosen it and pull myself free, it snags on something else.

Damage spreads, like a hairline fracture that gradually becomes deeper and longer.   The hits leave behind bruises...flesh and spirit becoming weaker and more sensitive.

And housed within one body...one mind...trauma and pain grow in overlapping layers, each spreading out and attaching to others.

The breaking of you becomes the making of you.

Which means, I'm only just now reconciling...

The making of me, will likely require the breaking of me.

Because some of those knots can't be untangled.  Some of them weren't made by me.

Those knots?

I have to just cut.

Cut, and hope that the whole tangled mess doesn't collapse in on itself.

Those knots are at the center.

~the unwanted child~

~the shattered victim~

The hard part of healing is that it isn't just one thing...one piece...one string at a time.  They all pull on each other and fight for dominance.  And the harder you pull on just the one thing that you think you can tackle today, the more you risk snapping that string and breaking the fragile web of safety knots with which, you've surrounded yourself.

So healing isn't easy.

Okay.

I guess.

I mean, if it was, wouldn't I have already done it?

Healing isn't easy.

Or linear.

You can't cram it into the calendar...one date at a time.

Because every step forward is impeded by a pull-back in some other area you weren't ready to acknowledge yet.

Healing is exhausting.

It's insomnia and panic-attacks.

It's adrenaline-surges and trembling hands.

It's forgetting how to form words and feeling your feet step backwards even as you are willing them to cross the threshold.

It's journaling...daily...taking note of every sensory reaction...the length...the aftershocks...and the recovery time.

It's tripping over strings you might have untangled but haven't yet discarded.

It's celebrating one success, but not being able to move toward the next.

Healing is hurting.

Healing is breaking down.

Healing is trying to break things down into smaller pieces, only to have them multiply and solidify and burrow down even deeper.

My healing, right now, is a repeated circuit of picking at one tangle at a time, to see if there are any loose threads I can pull out.

My healing is an exercise in exorcism...as old, unhealed wounds rise to the surface once again.

I'm tired.

I feel defeated.

I want to give up or give in or just settle, again.

Which is why these words are on this page, today.

To hold me accountable.

To dare me to try again tomorrow.

And hopefully...

to remind me, someday, of how far I've come.

...a single word to guide me...

 The year has almost chimed its farewell, and a new one beckons...full of things to come and dreams yet unrealized and moments that will become part of the story we live.
What a relief.

~~~

As I wrote previously, my intention to thrive in 2022 was thwarted at every turn, and I found the only recourse was to accept the year's demand that I settle instead.  It was a hard lesson.  A bitter defeat of my hope and my desire.  But there, you see...the word above?  Lesson?  Lesson, indeed.  And I, the unwilling student, finally learned it at the 11th hour.

My study of a year's time was that of :
settling with and settling for now and settling in and settling down and settling for always. 

It was a lesson written out in frustrations and disappointments, in discovery and acceptance.

It was...settling.

I settled.

I am settled.

And having done so, I'm ready for...

...rising back up

...breaking back out

...moving forward and moving on

What I'm ready for is what I've learned, by settling, is what I have to do before I can thrive.

I'm ready to heal.

We'll come back to that in a moment.

~~~

My partner's word for 2023 is "teamwork": his earnest hope that he'll learn to become a better team-mate.

For him, the word encompasses:

being open to other opinions or understandings

being supportive

being supported

finding his own strengths and taking the lead in those areas

taking a back seat when others are better equipped

working collaboratively

defining goals and working toward them independently and cooperatively

communicating effectively

My eldest son chose "expand" as his word to manifest in 2023: a challenge in every area.

He's setting out to:

expand his knowledge base

expand his creative output

expand his business

expand his social and support networks

expand his horizons

expand his use of his talents

expand his opportunities

etc...

~~~

I chose "heal".  I'm guiding this year to come, setting my intention and making manifest that which this past year has taught me I need.

Because if ever I want there to be a year in my future in which I truly thrive, first I have to heal the broken pieces and tend to the bits that need extra care.

If you've been here with me on these pages for any length of time, you know my longstanding motto has been "roll with the punches".  It was necessity, you see...the only way forward.  Just barrel on through despite the blows and keep moving to avoid the pain.

But I want to thrive.  I want to flourish.  I want that for my family.  I want that for myself.

I want to write this story with a happy ending.

So, I need to do the healing work.

It's broken down, in my mind, into a series of actionable tasks:

1) Heal the body:

a) I need major dental work.  I've needed major dental work.  All my adult teeth came in with fissures, and I've fought cavities and tooth decay and major dental pain my whole adult life.  But what few know is that a traumatic experience with a dentist years ago in Ohio has prevented me at almost every step, from seeking treatment. It has so debilitated me, that even the thought of scheduling a dental appointment sends me into full-blown panic and hysteria.  But I am writing the words here, to hold myself accountable...to make the appointments and allow myself the grace of having someone hold my hand the whole way through.  

b) I need to make a general appointment, and follow through on referrals, and determine what to do about my neck and shoulder pain and stiffness.  I've done it before...I can do it again.  I need to force myself to accept that PT might not be enough, and that it's not a matter of mind over matter. 

c) This body of mine needs to be allowed to recover, properly...restfully and with gentle care, from a challenging pregnancy and traumatic delivery.  I've asked more of it than I should have, and I've forced myself to push through pain and discomfort instead of listening to those warnings that I was further damaging myself.

2) Heal the heart: 

Kintsugi -that transformation from broken pottery into something precious~unique~and functional..by piecing what remains back together and binding the cracks with gold.  The beauty of highlighting the places in which you were damaged but continued on.

a) embrace, honor, and celebrate the scars that you've stitched yourself back together with

b) reparent that broken little girl who grew up feeling unwanted and unloved and unlovable, and tell her who she really is

c) embrace that devastated wife who tried her best to fix a broken man, and release her from the guilt and shame of having failed, and let her finally let it all go

d) turn the love you give to others back on yourself, and be as gentle and loyal and generous to yourself as you are to others

3) Heal the psyche:

a) silence the negative voice that bellows when you look in the mirror and choose, instead, to see yourself as your sons see you

b) accept that you can't do it all, and you shouldn't do it all, and not doing it all doesn't make you less than enough

c) reinforce your boundaries, stay resolute in your no-contact, and reach out for support when you feel yourself wavering

d) write it out

e) dance it out

f) sing it out

g) allow for tears...of sorrow, rage, humiliation, fear.  allow for the whole human experience, weak and tender, and stop steeling your spine.

h) remember who you are and what you've already overcome

~~~

Yes, this year...this New Year that's almost here...

This is my year to...

HEAL