True North. Returning to Me.

For my children, when they are ready to receive it without malice.  From Your Father You were given life, half of your biological body. Resilience, having learned you can suffer exceptional disappointment and continue on. Self-acceptance, a knowing that it is not the value others assign you that defines your worth. Independence, proof that you can master as much with fewer guides. Wisdom, as you have developed a profound emotional intelligence for your age. Discernment. You learned to surround yourselves with people who choose you. Loyalty, ferociously supporting your people because you chose each other. A deep yearning for love and acceptance that will make you deeply love and accept. Gratitude. Attuned to what you are blessed to have because you are aware of what you don’t. Hope, because you get to do the choosing in your future. These are not "gifts" I would have chosen for you. This is not the version of "family" I would have chosen for you. This is not the stru...

  I bet you think your life is peaceful and beautiful  Because you’re not the one managing the therapy and med check appointments  Because you’re not the one sitting in the dark with a sick teenager who just needs you close by until they fall asleep Because they don’t wake you up with 2:00 am texts because they’re hurting in the night    and I’m here and you’re not Because you’re not the one wringing your hands over the hurt and the betrayal you’ve caused. That’s me too.  Because you think you can show up for a few days at a time, buy furniture for a room they may never visit, make empty promises and maintain relationships Because you’re not the one juggling work schedules, activities, social engagements, while figuring out how to get them fed, get the dogs some exercise, do the dishes, live life Because you’re not the one who’s been sick for three weeks and exhausted from the nonstop running, with no end in sight But I promise you it is your life, not mine...

I spent the last several months equal parts angry and empty. It took nearly four months to burn through the rage that would flare each time some new injustice was uncovered. It took another two to accept the nothingness that all that fury earned me. Somewhere in there, I have started to build peace. Peace with the realization that my tribe is small and the people I trust are few, but fiercely loved and loyal. Peace with the realization that one day he turned his switch to someone new and my children and I ceased to exist in his world. Peace because I am learning to let go. Peace because I trust my children to know who I am and know their value. Peace that the balance of everyone's needs is no longer mine to maintain. And perhaps some satisfaction in knowing the balance doesn't exist in my absence. And so, to release that which is no longer mine to carry (the harsh and the anger) and to call back that which fills me, tonight I honored myself by the light of the moon and the heat...

No, not mine. He lacks empathy and consideration for others (other than the  singular person  in his orbit at  any given  time in his life), but  I’m not calling him crazy. Well, maybe. But I bet he’s desperately paint ing  the picture that I am  right now , just like his last two (only two) long-term girlfriends ,  who he moved in with as fast as possible and had or raised children alongside ,  were “crazy”. This blog post isn’t about those women, but I believe they both deserve a deep and humble apology. Because, knowing what I know now? I  am  pretty certain  they’re not crazy either. Did I hear stories that made them sound unhinged? Yes. Threats, desperate behavior like throwing his belongings from their shared home on the lawn or destroying a dozen  gifted  roses in anger, fights that lodged children squarely in the middle…  Did he tell me those stories to explain away what might have otherwise been perceive...

Below are some of the words that have been on my mind and their meanings.... Entitlement: The belief that ones is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment Entitlement might look like assuming your child is obligated to speak to you, visit you, or meet your new love interest just because you're their parent. It ignores the fact that you are largely absent in their actual day-to-day life, that you haven't previously taken into consideration how your actions might make that child feel, and that the effort you have decided to start making isn't yet reliable. Entitlement might also look like believing that because you do something that lots of people don't do as well as you, that everyone should celebrate you, give you money, and let you bypass the rules that apply to everyone else because you're special . Entitlement might also look like a "grandiose sense of self-importance" and "belief in being special".  Performative behavior: actio...

There are some upsides and some downsides to your ex-husband's secret girlfriend being a pseudo public figure. Upside: You found out your ex-husband HAS a girlfriend AND that she lives in the house you own together. Upside: You learn a lot about your now very secretive and uncommunicative ex-husband's financial choices, including said girlfriend living rent-free in that home, feeling very lucky that her "partner" is financially established (even though he's really not because he's borrowing money and paying the mortgage late) so that she has a free house to live in, the constant traveling that costs money, and that she is an unemployed stay-at-home...runner? that he apparently now supports (while telling me he cannot meet his financial obligations to his children).  There are some downsides too though, like Downside: learning your ex-husband moved his girlfriend into your co-owned home 7 months before you found out on Instagram. Downside: Getting to watch your...

 I've found it harder and harder to write lately. When I was raging, the feelings and therefore the words were easy. Because it was justified rage and that's all it was in the moment. I always say that anger is nearly always a mask for other emotions. As rage does, it started to fade into more honest, and far more complicated emotions.  I found myself in an alternating loop of writings that felt like petty drags on someone who doesn't care and baring deep wounds to my core, inflicted by someone who doesn't care. Maybe he cares, you say. Maybe he too is struggling to navigate this new normal (that he created by pretending he didn't have his girlfriend living in our house with him until I figured it out via texts to my kids, Instagram feeds, and kissy videos)!  I say nah. If he cared, he would have kept up with the two weeks where he texted our daughter daily (though not our son because that's not as satisfying because he isn't as interested in the brag photos...

 In the beginning it all felt very intense, like betrayal and lies and drama. This new information made me feel unsafe. How could someone I considered part of my circle have a whole life we were told nothing about? And how could it be SO public without us having known? How did we not notice? Looking back, I did notice. There were small things. I just couldn’t imagine it any other way than I had always seen it. As the weeks pass, I realize that for our lives here at home, it’s just the same old normal with a bit of new information. We’re back to once a week texts, if that. The kids are done talking about it. I’m the only one still checking in to see if they’re okay. They are and they aren’t, but since no one with any ability to make it better is trying, we’re where we are going to get. In the meantime, it’s back to out of sight, out of mind. I suppose it will flare at Christmas when their dad will resurface and expect them to have “processed” and they will have to decide what they w...

After I knew I was leaving my marriage, after I had told him, but before I figured out what the coming weeks and years would look like, I tried to start to heal. Healing when you're living in the thing that broke you is...challenging. I kept two jars on my desk, one tied with twine, open at the top, and labeled "truths," the other covered in dark tape so I couldn't see inside it, with just a narrow opening at the top, labeled "lies." I spent the weeks quickly filling those jars with tiny folded pieces of paper that told the story of how utterly broken I was by the emptiness that was my marriage. Truths "I deserve to be happy." "My children will understand one day." "We will be okay." "I am loveable." Lies "This is all my fault." "I am destroying my children." "I am unlovable."  Sometime around this time, I began reading Glennon Doyle's book "Untamed." I had no idea how much I...

Today is one of those days.  My children's 46 year old father is posting pictures of his 34 year old girlfriend posing on a bed, the bed my16 year old points out she used to sleep in as a child. It's not nefarious, no. Just her surrounded by some running shit I presume she got for free or that they're using to try and get other shit for free. Or money. Whatever. It honestly doesn't matter to me anymore. I see him for who he is choosing to be. Mostly, I'm embarrassed for him that he's acting like someone who doesn't have children, property to pay for and maintain, responsibilities, a job, etc. All of the things he's apparently turned his back on to play house like a teenager.  I saw it, I made fun, rolled my eyes, and moved on. Until I saw my (actual teenager) daughter's post today. Despite his claims that he will do better when he's "back home" in Colorado, where he's lived this blissful new existence for a whole 2% of his life, and...

Home means so many things. Home is, of course, the building where your stuff lives and where you lay your head most nights. It's where your children live and come back to someday. It's where you return to rest, reset, feel safe. It's your people. It is a feeling of peace and calm, and a sense of identity and a place you can most gently exist. And it's a thing you can lose and mourn and rebuild.  "Outside" has always felt like home to me. I grew up in the woods, building forts, following game trails, sitting on the banks of ponds and rivers. Outside still feels most like home to me. It's the only place I breathe deeply, where time slows, and worries eventually drift away on the breeze instead of trapped inside my head.  But like nothing else, I love the mountains! The mountains stole my heart from the first moments I spent in New Hampshire's Whites to my solo time deep in the rugged Montana Rocky Mountain range and every mountain trail and peak I've...

Time doesn't heal. People don't need it to process. That doesn't actually make anything better. In fact, like a thousand cuts, time without care, action, effort, and changed behavior just allows a thing to fester.  I'm straddling the chasm that time without effort has created and on one side, I'm leaning toward gratitude. I have spent the last four years living behind glass. I couldn't take a deep breath and my vision was cloudy. I lived within boundaries that I felt I had no choice but to accept because, when I made an unbearable choice, said the hard words, moved my entire life for the second time in six months completely alone with two hurting kids in tow, it took less than a month for the encroachment to start. It was less than a month before my house was no longer just mine, where my kids' vacations were no longer ours to plan, where the lines I had drawn where stomped on and ignored. I was still trapped.  So I made the best of things. I chose acceptanc...

 I've had a week. Well, honestly I've had 45 days. And if you really want to get into it, I've had 156 days. But wowie have I had a day. You know when you think you can't POSSIBLY survive one. more. thing.? And then the Universe decides to show you just how strong you are? Yeah, it was that kind of day.  Work is a nightmare. My girl is traveling without me and a piece of my soul is absent. There are seven million things to do and only one me to do them all. Today, my boss laughed when he approved my overtime request and admitted that he wondered how I was gonna get it all done. There were some fun new personal developments. Something new every day! I had to take the dog to the vet, mow the lawn, feed my boy child, do laundry, wash dishes, and about 87 more things in the 3 hours I'm home and awake before I drop into bed utterly exhausted and completely raw. In addition to proving to me that I really can do it all, the Universe gave me some pretty great moments to ref...

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 "...