Author’s Note: Before there can be a happily blended family, there is unimaginable pain and the death of dream. I love my funny, quirky blended life today, but it was not always the peaceful life we have now. There were dark years. This piece is a look back at part of the process of leaving my home and my marriage. I first wrote this in 2001, and I’ve reworked it over the years. This blog entry falls into the Transition portion of the overall work.
My House is Morphing Again
I pulled in the driveway after work, and the change was unmistakable. My house was morphing again. Every so often my house changes like this. Sometimes it happens with the seasons. In winter, the house takes on a cozy look. The warm, yellow light spilling out through the living room blinds always makes me want to be inside. In the summer, the house looks like a fortress of coolness. I know that if I can just manage all the bags from the grocery store in one trip, I can stay inside the cool air and relax.
But this time the house seems to be shrinking. Not in size, but away from me. It knows I am leaving, and the house has begun to pull away in anticipation, a little bit like that second before you pull off a Band-Aid. You shrink back because you know it will hurt.
When I got home, the house didn’t beckon me to work in its garden. It sat silent, and the weeds in my mulch smiled. And when I got inside, I was enveloped by coolness, but it felt like a snub.
The rooms I walk through are suddenly not the same. After five years in this neighborhood, my house has begun to act as if it doesn’t know me. The kitchen has become cold. It has never been the heart and soul of the house, as many kitchens are. Now I look at the dishes and think, “Who gave us that?” I try to remember so I can decide whether it’s appropriate if I take it with me. The saltshakers—from Bob’s great aunt. The bowl—from my Grandma West. The glasses—from Target, and therefore, up for grabs.
The living room, once a place for relaxed Sunday football games and naps on the couch, now looks like a staging area for my possessions. But the flame-stitch sofa and loveseat I picked out have to stay. They are only things, but I will miss them. No one gathers in the living room now anyway. Morgan watches TV there, but there are no long talks. No one admiring my classic Hollywood collectible plates. No one sinking into the couch with a cup of hot coffee saying, “How was your week?”
The dining room is more of an office. Regrettably, the cat has peed in there, perhaps in scorn of the meals that are never served. I will miss the Amish dining table with the beautiful oak claw feet. The dining room doesn’t hold anything but paper, bills, unread magazines and my daughter’s books and puzzles.
I walk upstairs, and there are shoes and insurance forms on the steps, waiting to be put away. They sit like good intentions never realized. But almost all things are in stasis now. The house is in transition, and so am I.
The master bedroom is at the end of the hall. It is full of dust, unread books, and the most gorgeous raspberry-colored carpet. In a perverse ironic twist, I once attended a viewing and noticed that the floral border in the funeral home was the same as in our room. I am not sure whether to compliment the funeral home’s decorating savvy or jump right off the roof. It’s a toss up. Against the far wall the bed waits silently. It is roomier now that my husband has been staying with friends. And while the extra room is a relief, it is also is a reminder that something has gone terribly wrong. Now that the house is morphing, the bed seems to be spewing me out like Jonah from the whale. It will not be my bed in only two weeks. It will be his bed again. This is not how I planned it. This is not what I’d hoped for. But here it is, and I must go forward. I do not trust myself to move back. I cannot. I will not.
The study across the hall has become a foreign land as well. It houses my computer where I sit and type e-mail, my connection to a world still spinning. Nearly a thousand books line the walls, but they are not my books. They were not my choice. The computer that should be my greatest tool for my work, my writing, is used to order sweaters and self-help books about how to make my life better.
My daughter’s room is next to the study. Before we got pregnant with Morgan, it was my own personal library. I loved it. Today it is a soft chick yellow. It has changed since my daughter’s birth three years ago, but some baby trimmings have stayed the same. The bears and bunnies border is still adorable, but too young for an almost-3-year-old. The oak sleigh crib has been replaced by a blue Little Tikes race car bed. Big-girl dresses hang from the still-broken closet door. For me, the room took on a life of its own. It was the altar of my redemption. Here will sleep the child who will always know she is loved. Here will lay the soft head of my hopes as I try to erase my own remembrances of youth. The edges of memory will soften as I love my daughter to womanhood. Now I will put her to bed in my own apartment. What will that be like?
No matter what window I look out, I see decay. My yard, my crabgrass, my driveway with the sinkhole in it. It is all changing now. The pond I dug with a friend, the dry streambed where water once flowed from a waterfall. It is becoming overgrown, and the mulch is dotted with weeds. No fish are alive in the pond anymore.
I am leaving it all. At first I didn’t want to leave the house and all my neighbors, but now a quiet sense of acceptance and a not-so-quiet anticipation has covered me. At the very least, things will be different.
It occurs to me that perhaps the house hasn’t decided to change again. Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps my eyes are a new shade of green. Perhaps I have reached down, way, way down, and found hope for happiness and peace. Elusive peace. Perhaps the energy of a dying man who has hope of heaven has crept into my tired bones and I have changed again. The house is becoming more distant. I do not look at it now and think whether we’ll have the money for that addition. That addition will never be built, like the rest of our lives together. It was a sincere promise, but even sincere promises are made with a certain expectation. Promises are like that.
►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►►
I sit at a massive computer desk and type this. Only tonight I have chosen its replacement. Like my marriage, the computer desk is too heavy to take with me. The chair, on wheels, will go with me.
Already in my mind the house is becoming Daddy’s house, and already I wonder if the neighbors will be home on moving day. Will they come to see me? Will they think kindly of me? Will they remember the coffee and Christmas cards on their front porches as coming from me? Or will they only see a woman who does not forgive?
And as I leave the house as its occupant for the last time, I wonder if the house will forgive me. Will it remember my attempts at making it whole? Or will it only remember my back as I walk away? It has been a good house. Bob and I bought it from friends. But like many other things in my past, I must leave it behind me.
I am moving to an apartment. Something assumed to be temporary. Something not meant forever. I am not so sure I believe in forever anyway. But at least for a while, the apartment is mine, and within its walls, I will find rest. I will carve a new path from the jungle of others’ expectations, and I will breathe deeply. Fresh unfamiliar air with the faint scent of hope.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Creative Solutions
Creative Solutions
The nice thing about agreeing to operate with grace and friendship when it comes to your ex-husband is that you get an extra driver out of the deal, along with greater flexibility. All three of us (Chris, Bob, and I) operate as a team. And even though we only have two children among us, we use the divide and conquer method to handle schedules, errands, oboe lessons, dance class, and theater rehearsals. We also use the divide and conquer method when it comes to events that only two of the three of us really want to attend.
Saturday the 5th was a beautiful day. Blue skies, puffy clouds scattered around like throw pillows, and temperatures that didn’t get above 85 degrees. It would be the perfect night for a stock car race. So Chris kept the kids, and Bob and I drove to Manassas, Virginia, to watch my brother race.
My younger b
rother Paul races in the Mini Modified division at Old Dominion Speedway. This is his fifth year of racing. In the beginning, I went to the races all the time. I’d even pack a cooler and bring food for Paul, Dad, Peter (my other younger brother), and any other friends of Paul’s who had come to work with the team. This practice quickly became cost prohibitive. I would hop around the garage area looking for ways I could help, wishing I knew more so that I could do more. I would take tire pressures or wipe the car clean prior to the race. My favorite thing to do was to scrub tires after a race. While the car sat in line to get weighed by track officials, I’d wear heavy gloves, and with the tires still extremely hot, I’d scrub the balls of rubber, rocks, and as much dirt as I could off the tires. As the tires cool, it becomes very hard to get them clean. (Side note: If my high school had taught science through stock cars, I think I might have enjoyed it more.) I remember the fun I had when someone taught me how to use the air gun to tighten the lug nuts on the wheels. Nice big sound. I loved it.
And where do you think this appreciation for racing came from? Surprisingly, not from my family. I was into racing before they were. Definitely not Chris. It came from Bob. When we were married (9 years total), Bob and I went to stock car races, Indy car races, and watched Formula One nearly every race of the season. And while going to the track with Bob was a grueling experience (he doesn’t seem to need to eat or drink a lot when he’s in camel mode—I, on the other hand, need to do both), I learned a lot and experienced a side of racing only possible in person. Bob is a storyteller in his own right, and he explained a painstaking amount of detail and the nuances of the sport. I paid attention. Only after I learned about racing's intricacy did I really appreciate it.
On a purely sensory level, there’s a lot to love about the track. There’s the smell of racing fuel, which tells you that you aren’t at home in front of the TV. That smell alone sets off the anticipation of a great day. There’s the deep rumble of engines revving, practicing, racing, sometimes blowing up. There are teams devoting countless hours to setting their cars up, only to find adjustments are still needed because of weather, track conditions, or other factors such as slow speeds or worse, crashes in practice. And then there’s grilled sausage and peppers and onions. Something in air makes it taste better at the track than anywhere else. When I was pregnant with Kelsey, I still went to the races, and wondered how good the fumes were for the baby, but she seems normal, so I guess it all turned out OK.
It’s not just a man’s world at the track. There are lots of women. Some as
arm candy, some as team members, some as real fans. I like that. I’m not out of place. I’m accepted.
But guess who is not a race fan? Chris. And to be perfectly honest I wish that he were. C’est la vie. My brothers and dad all love it, so Chris is literally the odd man out on the rare occasions my larger family sees each other. In spite of racing not being his thing, Chris has gone to the track with me before. I love him for doing that. I hopped around the car, and he sat in the race trailer and happily read the newspaper. It was a riot to see him encamped in there like a gentleman scholar who has somehow found himself at a loud dirty event.
Chris’s passion is baseball. And his history with the sport runs deep into his childhood. Baseball was a means for Chris and his father to bond with each other. And even now, when we see his dad, it won’t take long for the conversation to turn to sports. Chris wrote a gorgeous essay when we were in graduate school about baseball and what it meant to his family. How going to games provided a vehicle for conversation, a point of connection. As a kid, family vacations were often to various baseball stadiums around the country. He has great memories of these trips. And while I’m not a fan of baseball myself, it’s hard to argue with more than 140 years of history. (I could possibly be a fan if the gods of baseball would speed up the game a little. It all seems very inefficient to me.) Today Chris participates in a fantasy league that requires live, in-person drafts a few times a year. And he absorbs and retains the stats and rosters as if they were oxygen.
So now it's the end of the raci
ng season. My brother has won six times so far this year, and I haven’t seen any of his wins. The track is an hour and a half away. Normally, I wouldn’t want to sacrifice that kind of time on the weekend with my family. But I really wanted to support my little brother. The natural choice for a race buddy? Bob, of course. And the crazy nice thing is that our arrangement worked for everyone.
Chris and I and the kids were at a kiddie birthday party last Saturday, and Bob came and picked me up there. Chris stayed until the end of the party with the kids and then brought them home and made them Car Hoppin’ Chicken Strips, a recipe out of one of Morgan’s cookbooks that they all love. And they watched a few episodes of Alf on DVD. (Embarrassing, but true. Alf-viewing is frequently reserved for times Mom is out of the house.) Bob and I left at 2:30 and got home at 11:30 Saturday night. And it was a great time. Bob drove, which was nice for me. The race was fantastic. Paul finished second, but just seeing him on the track was exciting.The nice thing about agreeing to operate with grace and friendship when it comes to your ex-husband is that you get an extra driver out of the deal, along with greater flexibility. All three of us (Chris, Bob, and I) operate as a team. And even though we only have two children among us, we use the divide and conquer method to handle schedules, errands, oboe lessons, dance class, and theater rehearsals. We also use the divide and conquer method when it comes to events that only two of the three of us really want to attend.
Saturday the 5th was a beautiful day. Blue skies, puffy clouds scattered around like throw pillows, and temperatures that didn’t get above 85 degrees. It would be the perfect night for a stock car race. So Chris kept the kids, and Bob and I drove to Manassas, Virginia, to watch my brother race.
My younger b
rother Paul races in the Mini Modified division at Old Dominion Speedway. This is his fifth year of racing. In the beginning, I went to the races all the time. I’d even pack a cooler and bring food for Paul, Dad, Peter (my other younger brother), and any other friends of Paul’s who had come to work with the team. This practice quickly became cost prohibitive. I would hop around the garage area looking for ways I could help, wishing I knew more so that I could do more. I would take tire pressures or wipe the car clean prior to the race. My favorite thing to do was to scrub tires after a race. While the car sat in line to get weighed by track officials, I’d wear heavy gloves, and with the tires still extremely hot, I’d scrub the balls of rubber, rocks, and as much dirt as I could off the tires. As the tires cool, it becomes very hard to get them clean. (Side note: If my high school had taught science through stock cars, I think I might have enjoyed it more.) I remember the fun I had when someone taught me how to use the air gun to tighten the lug nuts on the wheels. Nice big sound. I loved it.And where do you think this appreciation for racing came from? Surprisingly, not from my family. I was into racing before they were. Definitely not Chris. It came from Bob. When we were married (9 years total), Bob and I went to stock car races, Indy car races, and watched Formula One nearly every race of the season. And while going to the track with Bob was a grueling experience (he doesn’t seem to need to eat or drink a lot when he’s in camel mode—I, on the other hand, need to do both), I learned a lot and experienced a side of racing only possible in person. Bob is a storyteller in his own right, and he explained a painstaking amount of detail and the nuances of the sport. I paid attention. Only after I learned about racing's intricacy did I really appreciate it.
On a purely sensory level, there’s a lot to love about the track. There’s the smell of racing fuel, which tells you that you aren’t at home in front of the TV. That smell alone sets off the anticipation of a great day. There’s the deep rumble of engines revving, practicing, racing, sometimes blowing up. There are teams devoting countless hours to setting their cars up, only to find adjustments are still needed because of weather, track conditions, or other factors such as slow speeds or worse, crashes in practice. And then there’s grilled sausage and peppers and onions. Something in air makes it taste better at the track than anywhere else. When I was pregnant with Kelsey, I still went to the races, and wondered how good the fumes were for the baby, but she seems normal, so I guess it all turned out OK.
It’s not just a man’s world at the track. There are lots of women. Some as
arm candy, some as team members, some as real fans. I like that. I’m not out of place. I’m accepted.But guess who is not a race fan? Chris. And to be perfectly honest I wish that he were. C’est la vie. My brothers and dad all love it, so Chris is literally the odd man out on the rare occasions my larger family sees each other. In spite of racing not being his thing, Chris has gone to the track with me before. I love him for doing that. I hopped around the car, and he sat in the race trailer and happily read the newspaper. It was a riot to see him encamped in there like a gentleman scholar who has somehow found himself at a loud dirty event.
Chris’s passion is baseball. And his history with the sport runs deep into his childhood. Baseball was a means for Chris and his father to bond with each other. And even now, when we see his dad, it won’t take long for the conversation to turn to sports. Chris wrote a gorgeous essay when we were in graduate school about baseball and what it meant to his family. How going to games provided a vehicle for conversation, a point of connection. As a kid, family vacations were often to various baseball stadiums around the country. He has great memories of these trips. And while I’m not a fan of baseball myself, it’s hard to argue with more than 140 years of history. (I could possibly be a fan if the gods of baseball would speed up the game a little. It all seems very inefficient to me.) Today Chris participates in a fantasy league that requires live, in-person drafts a few times a year. And he absorbs and retains the stats and rosters as if they were oxygen.
So now it's the end of the raci
ng season. My brother has won six times so far this year, and I haven’t seen any of his wins. The track is an hour and a half away. Normally, I wouldn’t want to sacrifice that kind of time on the weekend with my family. But I really wanted to support my little brother. The natural choice for a race buddy? Bob, of course. And the crazy nice thing is that our arrangement worked for everyone.On the way home, Bob and I got to talk about our daughter Morgan. We talked about her oboe lessons, school, community theater, whether she should have voice lessons, how she’s adjusting to middle school, how much worse the homework can get. There are three of us raising Morgan. But Bob and I rarely get the chance to talk without the kids around.
What I haven’t mentioned yet is that I’m not the only one going to sporting events with Bob. Last month he and Chris went to Camden Yards to see the O’s battle the A’s. Bob has been wanting to see the game when the A’s were in town. He’d mentioned it for months, and really, he wanted us all to go. But it’s not inexpensive to take the family to the ball park, so I suggested that Chris and Bob go together. It would save a few dollars, I wouldn’t be wandering the stadium with my four-year-old when she got bored, and Chris and Bob could have a completely different level of conversation about the game since Bob is a huge baseball fan, too. It worked perfectly. And after the kids were in bed, I got to sit on the couch in a quiet living room and watch part of a movie only I would be interested in. Bliss. Bob and Chris have been to the movies together before. Why not a baseball game?
The point of all of this is that Chris and I operate in freedom, and I'm so grateful we do. Bob is truly part of our family, not a fifth-person add-on. I think when that is your perspective, it is perfectly normal to go to a race or a baseball game with that person. And operating that way spared Chris a night at the track and me an evening at Camden Yards. Everyone wins. It is a precious and unusual place to be when you can look at your husband whom you adore, your ex-husband who is your friend, and say everyone wins.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Dinner Conversation
The crinkled yellow Post-It note is in my monthly planner. The small note bears five words—happy, humorous, unique, loving, close.
These are the words my family, which includes my ex-husband, used to describe itself in May of this year.
We were playing a game I’d purchased for use at the dinner table. So often dinner is chaotic. I’m probably stuck in a Norman Rockwell painting, but I had visions of good conversation at the table. Silly me. There’s wriggling around, spills, two kids talking over one another, bathroom breaks, occasional burping. Fie on the statistics about families having dinner together. I started thinking that I should take dinner in my room.
The five of us, Bob, Morgan, Chris, Kelsey and I, are seated around an old rectangular dining table that my husband had as a bachelor. I love this old table. The legs are clearly marked by time, chairs, and little feet, but the top has been treated with something so that it still gleams.
In an attempt to make dinner time more meaningful and less martini inducing, I bought a game called The Family Dinner Box of Questions. I’d found it at Cracker Barrel way back in the sale corner. Fifty-two circular cards, each with a picture of a lattice-topped pie on the front and a conversation starter on the back. Every time you play, you choose a card, and then everyone at the table gets a chance to answer. Some of my favorite questions have been, “What is the best job in the world and why? What job would you never want?” Or, “What accomplishment are you most proud of?” I love this game, partially because it feeds my goal-oriented personality. There’s a clear beginning and end. And even my four-year-old can play. But it also has made for some special moments. Real conversation. And lots of fun.
This time the question was, “Using one word, how would you describe your family?”
Kelsey (age 4) said happy.
Morgan (age 11) said humorous.
Bob (ex-husband, age 48) said unique.
Christian (husband, age 37) said loving.
Kathy (that’s me, age 40) said close.
I wrote down the words almost immediately. They are precious to me. Proof that it is possible to recover from divorce and blend a family. Ours happens to include my ex-husband. He doesn’t live with us. But he can usually be found here in the evenings having dinner, playing with the kids, and helping out. It’s odd, I know. Part of the fun of being friends with your ex is the shock value when you mention that he changes the oil in your husband’s car. Of course, it was not always this way. But today, my family is complete. In this blog I will tell the stories of the past and present, a mosaic of small broken pieces that form one picture. One family.
We are happy. We are humorous. We are unique. We are loving. We are close.
And I am grateful.
These are the words my family, which includes my ex-husband, used to describe itself in May of this year.
We were playing a game I’d purchased for use at the dinner table. So often dinner is chaotic. I’m probably stuck in a Norman Rockwell painting, but I had visions of good conversation at the table. Silly me. There’s wriggling around, spills, two kids talking over one another, bathroom breaks, occasional burping. Fie on the statistics about families having dinner together. I started thinking that I should take dinner in my room.
The five of us, Bob, Morgan, Chris, Kelsey and I, are seated around an old rectangular dining table that my husband had as a bachelor. I love this old table. The legs are clearly marked by time, chairs, and little feet, but the top has been treated with something so that it still gleams.
In an attempt to make dinner time more meaningful and less martini inducing, I bought a game called The Family Dinner Box of Questions. I’d found it at Cracker Barrel way back in the sale corner. Fifty-two circular cards, each with a picture of a lattice-topped pie on the front and a conversation starter on the back. Every time you play, you choose a card, and then everyone at the table gets a chance to answer. Some of my favorite questions have been, “What is the best job in the world and why? What job would you never want?” Or, “What accomplishment are you most proud of?” I love this game, partially because it feeds my goal-oriented personality. There’s a clear beginning and end. And even my four-year-old can play. But it also has made for some special moments. Real conversation. And lots of fun.
This time the question was, “Using one word, how would you describe your family?”
Kelsey (age 4) said happy.
Morgan (age 11) said humorous.
Bob (ex-husband, age 48) said unique.
Christian (husband, age 37) said loving.
Kathy (that’s me, age 40) said close.
I wrote down the words almost immediately. They are precious to me. Proof that it is possible to recover from divorce and blend a family. Ours happens to include my ex-husband. He doesn’t live with us. But he can usually be found here in the evenings having dinner, playing with the kids, and helping out. It’s odd, I know. Part of the fun of being friends with your ex is the shock value when you mention that he changes the oil in your husband’s car. Of course, it was not always this way. But today, my family is complete. In this blog I will tell the stories of the past and present, a mosaic of small broken pieces that form one picture. One family.
We are happy. We are humorous. We are unique. We are loving. We are close.
And I am grateful.
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