Posted by leeran on May 22, 2003, at 1:33:24
i can't believe that i'm typing this. telling people i don't even "know" about this complete and utter pain.
in less than an hour, with one phone call, my life went over the guardrail. that's the only way i can describe it. another metaphor/simile. i want to fill this blank space with every obscenity but i can't because i must be civil. and that extends to this situation. but i don't want to be civil. i want to yell and beat my head against something.
i want to know why the other shoe always has to drop.
most of all - i just want to wake up and have my husband standing there in his towel, turning on the today show . . . and telling me this was all some ambien-induced dream. but i know it isn't. i've already pinched myself five times. at least.
and i can feel the ocean air coming in through the open window by my desk and i know this is real but i don't want it to be real.
today - on a day that i felt so weary. weary with a touch of impending doom because i had visited (too often) a website about the "planet x" conspiracy and the pole shifts. a day i wondered if lexapro was the answer. wondered why i ate three donuts. wondered if i would ever get it back together enough to enjoy working again.
a day when the sun came out after two days of what we call june gloom (but it's early this year - mid-may).
this day.
the day my poles shifted. my world turned upside down.
my ex-husband calls to talk to me and even after twenty two years of knowing him - i sense that he has a shoe he wants to drop. i thought perhaps he and his wife were divorcing - after all, she had held the proverbial "divorce threat" gun to his head back in the early fall.
the fall.
a time when my son didn't even want to go back to visit at christmas because he didn't feel welcomed by his own father. when we stayed up talking until 3:30 on a school night and he cried so hard about a relationship he has never had with his father. bitter tears. like the ones i cry tonight. the night when i defended a man that at that moment i despised with every cell in my body. defended him because i know that my son is part "him" and that to do otherwise might damage his self-esteem in some way. after all, i am a dutiful "girl." i have tried to follow every instruction from the "divorce" seminar i attended years ago.
that night last fall that turned into morning. a morning i could barely greet because of the pain of knowing that my son was hurting so much - and i couldn't "fix it."
but it's not fall tonight.
and the only thing that has fallen is the shoe - and the shoe has survived the fall but my heart has not.
one minute. life changes.
spins out of control and you're sure you've never let go of the steering wheel. your hands hurt from holding on so tight.
and the voice on the other end of the line. the voice of the past. the voice of the button pusher. the voice that lent the DNA to create my son. the son that was born after twelve hours of labor - by c-section. the son and mother that the father left the day after coming home from the hospital - to go on a "business" trip to florida that was more golf than business.
that voice.
the voice that has never helped with homework, who left it all for me to supervise every other sunday night at the last minute for years. the voice that told me he had been unfaithful with someone whose last name he didn't even know. the voice of the man that my son resembles so strongly.
the voice that my fifteen year old son has decided he wants to live with after all these years. the voice that leaves my body weak. closer to fainting than i've ever felt.
a decision that was born during christmas break. the christmas break he didn't even want to spend with his father back in november.
but he's changed. not my son. the voice. the father. the same "change" he would make during the years i knew him. the "gun to the head" change, but this time the finger on the trigger was a new wife. same story/different gun.
so, for one day - when this voice says (over christmas break) "n., this day is all about you - whatever you want to do - it's your day." yes, a day when it was too cold to golf and the clubhouse was closed . . . one day with the utterance "this day is all yours n. - it's all about you today."
one day.
traded in for fourteen years and ten months.
one frigging day.
this is how desperately my son wants his father's attention. his mother's day card to me said it all - little did i know a plan was in the works and i was, as usual, the last to know. that's the way it always was with my ex. the shoe-dropper.
the mother's day card that said - in his own writing - mom, you have always been there for me and i will never forget that. i've always known how much you loved me.
and the voice of the shoe-dropper tells me what a level-headed, mature young man i have raised - and it's 99% my doing. i hear that from everyone. "he is so special, you have done such a good job."
such a good job . . . despite two divorces? i don't know. i don't know.
i know i have loved him like there was no tomorrow. but i always thought there was a tomorrow.
but tonight, tomorrow seems impossible to face.
but i will. but i don't know how.
and i know i can't make this "all about me" because that's what my mother would do. and i know that when she hears this, i will feel like a failure.
and even the voice said "i know you, lee, and i know you feel like a failure right now, but that's the farthest thing from the truth."
but is it?
the voice who says "i can't change enough for n. when he comes a few weeks here and there, so it will be easier if he's here all the time."
yes.
so n. can get more of the "leftovers" this way.
because there never is very much left over with the ex. not after he gets done doing everything he wants to do.
and the voice on the other end says "stop crying and get a hold of yourself, after all - maybe this will be good for you - maybe you can relax and enjoy life for a change."
i have enjoyed my life. i haven't wanted to go to movies, hire babysitters, take up hobbies. i have enjoyed (beyond belief) the last four years of finally being able to be a semi-stay-at-home mom.
but there is always that other shoe that lurks in the background.
and for me, it just doesn't work - pretending it isn't there.
i had to write this tonight. i had to feel my fingers against the keyboard because i thought it would lend some degree of reality to what has become my worst nightmare.
and i know when i wake up tomorrow morning it will be simply the first in one endless series of mornings when, in that weird moment before reality hits, i query "what is wrong, something feels wrong . . . what is it?" and then it will come to me all over again. one morning after another. because there will never be a morning that will ever be the same again.
thanks, you guys, for letting me spill my heart and my guts all over the place tonight. it's 11:00 on the west coast and i feel so disconnected. my husband is, i'm sure, at a loss as to what to do or say. my son is working on a project and i feel like he's already gone. and i know i shouldn't feel that way.
and what i prayed for and ached for last november - - - that my ex-husband would finally open his eyes to this visual clone of himself who so desperately craves his attention . . . well, it has happened.
be careful of what you wish for.
and yes.
i know.
it's for the good of my son. but i know his father. and i know he hasn't changed because no one says "i can't change my life for the few weeks he is here" and actually change enough to accomodate a life i have so carefully nourished/nurtured and LOVED.
there aren't enough obscenities to fill this white space. and there will never be enough of anything to fill what i know is the coming void.
poster:leeran
thread:228259
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030517/msgs/228259.html