The Mayans mights have been wrong about last week... but my world came to an untimely, shocking, horrifying and catastrophic end nine months ago.
I'm not sure what's better - to see the end coming.... or just let it fall on top of you, flatten you, crush you, destroy you? No planets aligned..... just my husband passing through a 22 year old leaving behind his personal calling card.
I checked though, and they don't sell 'gas masks' that protect you, or your marriage, from the inviting aroma of a certain Yoga Girl..... still, that's what ended my world, ended my children's sense of security... their inevitable climatic finish.... also became mine, just in a different, not so sweaty, kind of way.
sigh.
The goods news is that I've made it through the season - and I wasn't entirely sure that I would. So many first's I've looked forward to for the last eleven years - first kisses (which I still remember like yesterday) - apartments, first fights, first vacations, first kid, first home, first new car... first everything.
I did not expect 2012 to be the year of Our First... Father's Day, Mother's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas.... living as one broken family in two homes. Needless to say... those are 'first's I really could have lived without. As the end of the year draws to a close... I'm a bit worried that someone is working on my first 'Trip to Court' for me.
For the last five weeks my daily numbers have more than doubled - the blog has more than doubled in "readership" according to google analytics. On the one hand - I'm rather thrilled by the thought... on the other, I begin to worry that the numbers reflect an attorney of some kind reading the blog, studying the blog for things to take me to court for.....
double sigh.
What will be will be I suppose..... I know that I am open and raw with my emotion - but I have also kept people's identities secret, and..... I have written permission to do both the blog and the book from El Capitan - so.... now I just wait and see.
triple sigh.
To that end - my only thoughts on that are this: my *words* do not carry the weight of the emotion and the damage that have been done by people's *actions*.
The last few days have been .... relaxing. The kids and I have been running errands and playing with their new Christmas toys.... The Girl has been very clingy, always wanting to sit in my lap and cuddle and snuggle - even while we're eating dinner. I think she's sad, but at three, she's not able to fully articulate and communicate why. The Boy finally asked me where their Dad is..... i didn't have an answer.
There's another "First" I never dreamed that I would have to face..... answering for *where* El Capitan is. The El Capitan I knew was a great guy - and the greatest Father I had ever seen... attentive, kind, and fun..... this new version of El Capitan - the one intoxicated by the a certain aroma - allowing it to sink into in his skin, changing him, altering his view on the world -- and most importantly on his family -- .... *that* is an El Capitan I don't know how to explain because I'm at a loss for why he's done any of this......
So. I paused and waited to see if The Boy had theories of his own - but he didn't. So then he asked again - and so I said, "I don't know where Daddy is, I haven't heard from him, so I can't tell you where he is."
There was silence and then The Boy said, "Yeah..... okay."
Conversation over.
I think that El Capitan and his friends want to think that conversations like that go differently - that I take moments like that to tell The Boy his father is a douche who never calls, and only comes around when it works for him - when he's not otherwise occupied with his hands down a certain someone's pants...... But I don't.
For my opinion.... it's likely to be the truth, however.... The Boy already see's the truth, he feels the truth - there's no need to share with him it's gory details.
At the same time, I wish I could shield him from that truth. I wish I could make it different and better... but I can't. Which.... I have to say, makes me feel a bit like I'm failing him: because I can't protect him.
As we enter day 10 of non-communicato from El Capitan - it's easy to let my head and my heart get caught up in the anger of it all. I'm sure he has friends in town - I'm sure he's busy celebrating the new sights of the season and unwrapping alllllll kinds of new presents from Yoga Girl. I'm sure that, in the end, when he fainlly does call he'll say, "I stayed away because I thought it woudl be easier for you.... I'm just trying to make this easier for us all... bl I'm plenty effing pissed. Believe that. However... being angry never solved anything, and it certainly never *healed* anything.
2013 has *got* to be the year of healing - both for myself *and* for the children. No doubt we - and certainly *I* - will still be dealing with situations like the one we've been in with El Capitan as of late - but the focus has to be on all of us learning tools to deal with these kinds of situations and heal from them.
I don't want my children to grow up just writing people off.... I don't want them growing up in absolutes of love and hate. Life just isn't like that - life is muddy and mixed up and a little bit of everything. And, so are the people in our lives. Sometimes it's the people who are closest to us, who mean the most to us, who are capable to hurt the most; and do. It's not a life lesson I would wish on anyone - and in fact, I think it's the kind of life lesson we, as parents, are always trying to shield our children from. In my case... there is no choice.
It simply is what it is.
If we merely accept our circumstances, then we are cheating ourselves out of truly *living*. I don't want to half-ass this life..... at least not at any more. I want them to grow up realizing that sometimes people do bad, stupid sh*t and sometimes you have to take the good with the bad and move forward. You have accept that sometimes people are going to fail you because they are too busy failing themselves to see the fallout and collateral damage from their actions. It's not that they won't see or feel those mistakes, to their very soft-centered cores.... but I have teach them how to love anyway. Isn't that was 'unconditional' love is?
sigh.
Now, let me be clear, that doesn't mean that we don't have to process and provide the appropriate weight to the things that people might do that hurt our feelings or are wrong - we don't wipe the slate clean and sign up to be hurt again... but I have to start finding a middle ground for them..... I guess that'll be my "First" resolution of 2013.
The next thing I have to do is start piecing things back together... I have to start making us a 'whole' unit of three instead of allowing my heart to hurt for lack of being a four. I have to start celebrating the three - so that they will celebrate the three of us together. Jenny-Jen-Jen is a big ole' scrapbooker. I swear - she has scrapbooks for everything: years, birthday's, Christmas's, trips, vacations. She told me about this scrapbook that you do everyday - Becky Higgins something..... so I went online and bought a digital version of it today. Each day you take a photograph and write down things - funny things the kids say, things we did together... just our family life.
One day at a time.... one week at a time - and our first official year as a new family will be done before I know it - and hopefully it won't have just passed us by. Hopefully I will have spent the year celebrating.
Celebrating and living...... so here's to End of The [my] World As We Know It.... and I for one - will be very glad when the clock ticks over to a new year and a new day..... a new dawn.