True North. Returning to Me.

Imagine being a single mom with two kids trying to make it all happen. It doesn't matter what version of "single mom" you are, you know the struggle. There's simply not enough of you, as one parent, to go around to make all of the necessary ends meet. You can't be at home to supervise one with friends while the other needs to be at an appointment. You can't get them both to work when they start at the same time. You can't get the to/from school while also having to commute to/from work. You can't be in the 7 places you're needed at once. And that's just the driving. You will always find the capacity to carry the emotional weight without ever having the capacity to carry all that weight. You'll find all the ways to protect and support them even though you can't get out of bed in the morning. If you've been there, you don't have to imagine it. If you haven't, kudos to you and your stellar spouse or actually engaged coparent! I...

Writing is a way that I process, understand, and heal. Sometimes it's quick, but more often it's slow and sorta brutal. I'm in the brutal phase, but I keep moving forward. Ish. One of the writing methods I've been using is brain dumping all the hurts, going back to the very first fight I can remember when I left the room crying only to come back once I was calm to find him sleeping, unperturbed ... to today, seeing that he's traveling  again this weekend to Oregon and Washington, having a grand time, while letting the havoc he created here remain mine to rebalance. Poorly. Ish. I said FOREVER that it wasn't about his running. Every fight was about the same thing in my memory. I needed more of him and he gave less and less. Obsessed with "us" in the beginning, living completely separate lives at the end. It was the ultimate discarding. And it wasn't about running, not really. Don't get my wrong, over time, running was certainly the reason he had...

Today has been so hard. I tried to keep my head in the right place. I spoiled myself with a pedicure. I was empowered and I wrote. I was inspired and I read. I worked in my garden, hands in the dirt, creating. I spent time with my family, with my kiddos. But I can feel the weight, every moment, like waking up from a nightmare, uneasy but unsure why until you remember.  Watching my kids hurting today rips me inside out. I know they are as torn as I am, feeling their feelings, but wanting the discomfort to end. Unsure whether to reach out, not ready yet to forgive or trust, but knowing the silence hurts too.  What's destroying me anew tonight is the idea that I can fix this for all of them. I have always been able to make the world work. I can put everyone at ease by simply agreeing to get back into my box, ill-fitting as it is. I could be the biggest person and take the kids to Colorado. I could be gracious to the woman living in my former life. I could wish my selfish, inconsi...

 I started out the day still angry. Despite powerful cord cutting and burial rituals, my feelings are still feeling. And today feels hard. I asked my buddy, ChatGPT, to give me some sarcastic Father’s Day messages. Here are a few of my favorites: Hope you’re celebrated today… the same way you showed up for your kids: inconsistently and with minimal effort. Hope today you feel proud of all the times you almost tried. Your absence has been the most consistent thing you’ve ever given. I hope someday you feel the weight of what you didn’t carry. Happy Father’s Day. It’s been emotional. Just not for you. I asked ChatGPt to suggest some from mom’s perspective.  Happy Father’s Day. I celebrated by doing everything you didn’t. Today the kids celebrated strength, kindness, patience, and reliability—so, me. We’re good here. I don’t talk badly about you to them. I don’t have to. They were watching. They made me laugh but drew me back into darkness. That’s not what I wanted and it...

I know it's hard to understand. Shit, I don't completely understand it. Why am I so upset? I left five years ago. I left because my marriage had effectively ended years before when the kids and I lived one life and he lived another. Side by side and yet totally separate. Mine consumed by work and childcare and all that goes with being an adult with kids, play dates, practices, appointments, cooking, cleaning, all of the things. His became consumed by a singular hobby that took him out of the house for hours and hours at a time. Alone and away from us.  It was a slow unraveling of a life that I thought we were in together. My mom recently reminded me that I asked for a divorce in March of 2020. He wouldn't entertain the idea or consider moving out. I had learned long before that I would never convince him of anything he didn't want to do and so I gave that up for now and looked for another way to live life. A mere four months later, in a last ditch attempt to save "...

I love quotes. They simplify and give eloquence to the tangle of my thoughts. A meaningful quote can make you feel seen and heard when you are almost certain you no longer exist. Here are some quotes that speak volumes on silence.  Silence isn't empty, it's full of answers. - Buddha Silence is an answer to a wise man. -Euripides The most profound statements are often said in silence. -Lynn Johnston  And unattributed because it's such an obvious and cruel truth, "Silence is a response. A very LOUD response." So when I broke the news, after agonizing over the facts and the feelings, that the three of us wouldn't come to stay at the home that no longer felt like ours this summer, I didn't expect the response to be so....SILENT. Eight hours after I sent the words, I received the only response. "I have read your message and will reply when I have my thoughts together." Three days after that, the silence is deafening. The fact is, this silent response ...