tomorrow, tomorrow, i love ya tomorrow...

Patience is a virtue and good things do come from it. Tomorrow my divorce papers are being filed. And within two to six weeks, it will all be final. F.I.N.A.L. For absolutely freaking real! It's not that I'm thrilled to have a failed marriage behind me. As long as I have these four beautiful children and seventeen years of wisdom to show for it, I refuse to consider it a failure.

But I am so very much looking forward to being free as an individual to embrace this new phase of my life. I'm getting control of my life back, heck I'm getting my name that I loved back. I am woman hear me roar and all that sh*t. I am taking a moment to be free of the guilt and just feel the joy of something I have worked steadfastly toward for three years now.

Life is good.

good is good

I know I've been scarce. I'm sure you all noticed. Admit you noticed people, gosh!

So the update. My children are still amazing and wonderful and you couldn't pry them from my warm loving arms. They are all adjusting to this crazy life and they deserve so much credit for their maturity, their flexibility, their ability to do well in their every day life while functioning amongst commotion and the love they share for one another (though they hide it well at times.) I will never regret the marriage to their father because they are blessings so great I am humbled each and every day.

And their father, oh where to begin? After a bumpy, painful week, we have made such progress in the formation of our new relationship. I do love him and he is well on his way to becoming the man I always knew he could be. I am proud to watch him parent now. I am proud to watch him taking responsibility in his life. And though I need to preface this next part with the very true statement imo that it is NEVER one person who fails to keep two halves of a marriage together, and I accept full responsibility for my personal failings in that marriage, something miraculous happened over the past week. G apologized to me. It wasn't a blanket, "I'm sorry," that was meant to be a cya for the past seventeen years. He took the time to go into detail about very particular and painful things and he apologized separately for each and every one. And I was moved, so moved I cannot explain it. He got it. And it's not going to change the course of marriage, but it changes the frame of it as we move forward. This will shape our friendship and our role as parents for our children. I still tear up thinking about it. He said he was sorry, he knows what he is saying sorry for, and I am touched and forever grateful. Oh and did I mention the papers he had yet to provide so that we could very cordially and jointly file this divorce have now been provided and we are going to be officially filed by October 30th? Then, according to the fine courts of our great state, a full year later, we should be offically d-i-v-o-r-c-e-d in two to six weeks. I don't mean to sound so giddy, it's just such a huge relief after all this time.

Um, what else. Oh yeah, dating. Let's see. I tried match dot not for me for about twenty three official hours. I don't think I can do things that way, at least not now. I did get enough responses to boost my ego, so I suppose it served some purpose. I also went on a couple of dates with coffee guy. We spent several, literally, hours on the phone, several hours of conversation in person, several hours hiking up the side of the mountain that he just bought 19 acres and a cabin on, several hours looking at the sky and the mountains and drinking wine and eating the picnic he brought. Life has it's very nice side. I took the first leap and it was good.

To be continued...

we are family

I am oh so ever happy to report that EHTB and I are making this family thing work. Granted we haven't made it through any holidays or high school graduations or planning of their weddings, but I've just got this feeling in my gut we are headed for continued good family times. You know, sometimes we might not pick the right people to spend the rest of our lives with, but that doesn't mean we didn't pick the right person to have children with.

This weekend we all spent the majority of our time together. There was the elementary school fall fair, our town's little fall celebration and today our annual family apple and pumpkin picking day. Of course the kids were thrilled but the two of us were also happy as well. We do genuinely like and love one another and the new boundaries we have established as a result of the separation and impending divorce have allowed us to begin creating a new co-parenting relationship that is so positive. Yeah, yeah, I know there are gonna be bumps. But I will go to sleep tonight thanking the heavens above my children still have their amazing family.

the real slim shady

I am happy to report the bulk of my divorce guilt has evaporated with the news that EXTB has been dating someone since at least August. (He told me today since I had told him about the coffee guy and he felt less than honest for keeping it from me.)

I'm happy for him, which I see as affirming this split is the right decision. And I'm happy for me because I feel like I've just been set free in a way I just didn't feel before. Awwww...

Really, eventually every single post will NOT be about this d thing.

done, i'm done

You know what I am tired of? Really, truly, endlessly tired of? Other than ending two sentences with prepositions and then following that up with a compound fragment? I am so very tired of this separation and divorce process defining my every living moment. I'm honestly consumed by the whole of it. Everything I do every day is under the umbrella of "the divorce." Every thought I have is filtered through "the divorce." Admittedly, this is a huge life transition, one made even larger because of the four children involved in the process, but for goodness sake, I'm done. I want to breathe and not have it be air full of guilt. I want to wake up and not think, "Oh gosh, what do I have to do to deal with the divorce today?" I want to be able to just plain go to sleep at night and have normal happy thoughts instead of tortured images of how my particular divorce is going to bring down civilization.

I am the first to admit I don't know what the heck I'm doing or what the heck I want out of life most days. But this process of wallowing in the what ifs is not getting me any closer to answering the big questions for myself. For better or worse - what an appropriate way to say it - this divorce needs to be put behind me so I can try to start finding out who I am.

I am just as guilty of not getting those papers filed as he is. If there is information I need from him, then there are ways of getting it if asking politely isn't working. And let's be honest here, if this is still dragging on, there is some part of me that is encouraging or enabling that. So. New deadline for myself. Get whatever needs to be filled out, filled out. Answer whatever questions need to be answered or find someone who can. File whatever needs to be filed. Attend whatever classes that need to be attended. Get through this already so we can all begin to live our life out from under this cloud.

The good news is the one area I've been very proactive with has been helping the kids to adjust. We've talked endlessly and they know I'm available to them. I've bought every book out there for every age group on dealing with divorce. We've read them together and I've left them casually thrown around so they can read them on their own. I have one little in individual therapy and am scheduling some group sessions for the rest of us to attend as a family. Huh, as is the custom with everything in life, I manage to prioritize the mothering part above all else. I suppose I need to imagine the paperwork as my children and I would have it taken care of immediately.

So here's to a real live deadline, or can I call it a real live lifeline. Paperwork people, it just needs to get done. Halloween sounds like a good as time as any to me.

in our italian restaurant

I had coffee this morning. With a friend. The friend was a he and it was sort of pre-date like, but it was really just coffee with a friend. He's a new friend. And darn it, where did all of my male friends go? :::sigh::: I used to have so many male friends, as many as my girlfriends or probably more. I miss just talking to guys. I'm stuck here in small town couple-ville where having guy friends to go hang with just doesn't seem to happen if you're married. Why is that? I totally don't buy that guys and girls can't be friends thing. I do buy that sexual tension thing - yeah, that's always a possibility, but I think it's just another form of energy out there and I don't at all think it makes male/female friendship impossible.

So yeah, I had coffee with a boy. We talked for three hours and I loved the conversation even though I spent the better part of the last hour trying to convince him he has "got" to go find his fiance' of ten years ago and tell her he's still in love with her. And though it wasn't actually a love connection, it was a really great friend connection. Neither of us was really done, but I had a preschool little who needed picking up so I'll have to wait for my next free of child time to make any more "friend" connections. Could it actually be that dating/pre-dating/finding new friends might not be hopelessly painful? Or did I just get lucky?

i've got a friend (or two)

You know, sometimes it all just comes together. You take your littles to CCD and have beautiful spiritual talk that feeds your soul with two older women and you actually feel God sitting at the table with you as if he has nothing better to do. You walk outside and discover He's given you a clear, crisp gorgeous fall day that touches your heart in a way that makes you certain this is what Heaven is like. Your children can't stop talking about how wonderful their classes were and how "awesome" God is. Then you drop your beauties with their Dad feeling good they will enjoy their picnic and the day together and thank the Lord he's a good dad most days, especially these days.

You park yourself and your laptop at the office - hey, they're open on Sunday. And you order a mocha and thank the Lord for making chocolate. You sit down and hear Norah Jones playing in the background. You thank the Lord for making Norah Jones. But the day that couldn't get better does. One of your favorite people in the world - the one you should always be calling, but don't- walks in with her amazing five children and the two of you get an hour to catch up while her gracious children sit quietly and let us. You make plans to keep in touch this time around and you know you're going to. Your soul is filled with joy and beauty and the smiles of possibilities.

What goes down must come up. Life if beautiful, even when it sucks, but especially when it doesn't. Happy Sunday to you all. :)

the cat's in the cradle

I've discovered an ugly truth about myself. I don't always want to be around people and I'm not always nice. To some it might not seem so ugly, just an okay thing to know about oneself. But to me, it's hard to swallow. You see, I imagine myself to be a whole lot nicer than I probably - okay, really - am.

Like just this week I'm riding along in my automobile with my littles. I live in a very small town and yet there are times when something sort of like a traffic issue comes up. For example, more than one car might come up to a three way stop at the exact same time and none of us can recall exactly what the driving test manual we all studied forty years ago says to do in a situation such as this. I personally have always held to the notion that if there is a tie, the one on the right of me goes first. But if there are more than two of us and someone else holds the same notion, I guess that could get confusing. In reality, my strategy for *any* traffic situation is to *always* default to those around me. I am the one letting people go ahead of me. I am the one stopping dead in a nice moving line of traffic to let some sucker who's been waiting three whole minutes to pop in front of me and join the rest of us. And you better believe I will never speed through a crosswalk and leave pedestrians stranded at the edge of those white lines! (Believe it or not though, I have received unkind hand gestures from those behind me for this behavior. ::::sigh::: Civility is a lost art.)

Apparently our actions as parents do get noticed by our children. As I was letting someone ahead of me the other day, all bright and cheerful like because that's how I do it, mouthing the words, "No, no go right ahead," in their direction with a huge smile, my seven year old commented on my actions.

"You are such a nice person, Mama," she said, " You are very polite and always let others go ahead of you. I'm nice like you too, Mama." Then she sat back with a very big *my mom is so polite!* content smile on her face. She noticed and she was proud. I thought this was some break through moment. Look, I had gotten that thing we parents hardly ever get - validation that our children see our fine actions, appreciate our fine actions, and lo and behold aspire to copy them. I tell you, that day, driving down our little street I was elated. I mean heck, if you add that to the comment I once received from my little convenience store clerk that the room just lights up whenever I walk in, I'm just about the best person in the world to be around. And that day driving with my daughter, letting people go ahead of me left and right, I was pretty much the nicest person on the planet and a darn good mother to boot. Life was good. I'm telling you, it was good.

Then came this morning. I wasn't in the general generic public being nice to people I don't even know. I was waking up between two of my own beautiful children. The argument starts like this: Seven year old little who is notorious for having trouble getting up on time but has made real progress says, "Hey mom, I was the first one up!" She's proud to have woken up before noon on her own and has every right to be.

And yet I hear this from the other side of me from the four year old little to whom rising early comes naturally and who has actually been nursing for at least an hour, "No, you were not the first one up, I was." She then returns to nursing but for the next five minutes she pops off every two seconds to mumble, "No, I WAS!" while she and the seven year old argue across my body about this really stupid deal. I crawl out of bed not liking my own people very much and wondering how much time I will actually have to spend with them today. As I'm leaving my own bed, they are yelling louder.

I venture out into the living area and hear screaming from the garage. The voice of ex-husband- to- be is the loudest, but there is obviously someone else involved and that can only mean one of the other littles. I'm already not feeling like being nice to anyone today. I go into the freaking freezing garage and witness a scene that is being made over recylcing and sorting and goodness knows what else. Ten year old female little is crying but defiant and not speaking at all anymore. EHTB is doing a fair amount of hand gesturing and looking angry and defeated at the same time. Ten year old little comes into the house with me but then proceeds straight to her closet and won't come out. Forty five year old EHTB cannot give me a clear explanation.

Strangely, suspiciously strangely, the eleven year old male little is willingly helping with the recycling and garbage. I make a mental note to come back to that later, he's up to something.

Nothing much changes for the rest of the morning. The two tasks of getting my entire garage cleaned of the recycling and garbage that has been building up for the past two months so I can park my gigantic car in there before it snows - because it's NH people and it could snow any minute now! - and getting all four littles to a soccer event seems to drain every ounce of nice out of me. I begin to think I'm not really that nice.

Finally, as I am counting the seconds until the four littles (whom I've had 24/7 for the past week and who have been just this pleasant the whole time while I was being Miss Nice of the Universe despite their behavior) the EHTB announces to the ten year old he wants her to make him coffee. Um, I've already made my coffee and there it sits. It contains no caffeine and is in fact flavored, his coffee has neither quality. And he darn well knows my coffee is in the coffee maker because coffee doesn't exactly make itself without smelling up the whole place. He gets all passive-aggressive-poor me, "I guess I don't need coffee," and walks away.

I get all passive-aggressive-oh by gosh you're having coffee because I'm not listening to how I kept you from having coffee this morning and I pour my coffee into a carafe and teach the ten year old how to make his coffee. Not to be outdone by me, he then makes a comment about how I only made him one cup of coffee - in fact it was four cups and that amount fills two of his travel mugs. Okay, well, then he wants to know if I take cream in my coffee. Um, duh, how many times have you ordered it for me over the years, YES I take cream in my coffee. "Oh," he says, "because I just used the last of it and threw the carton away. What do you want me to do now?"

Huh, I'm confused, what the heck can you do now? I don't care, I'll use milk for goodness sake, why is everyone so pissy this morning? And why are you all still here? Leave, I tell you, the lot of you need to leave! He then asks the ten year old if she is going to his lacrosse game he's playing in later this afternoon. She says no way, it's too cold. So, EXTB announces he will be just taking eleven year old male little to his game because he's not taking the younger two also known as "those who like to argue and occasionally punch and kick" with him. This announcement of his is met with one from me along these lines, "Um, well, you most certainly would be taking them with you if this was officially 'your weekend' with them or you would be getting a sitter. That's how things are going to work when we actually begin using this custody aggreement of ours, you know. I will not be available 24/7 like I have traditionally been if you don't feel like dealing with them." I made him very happy with this nice, polite announcement of mine. See, I'm all nice like that.

From here we see two things. One, I may be nice as pie to perfect strangers I don't know, go me! But two, I can be not so nice at all to those I know best, boo me.

I suppose the morale of the story is to make sure you never get to know me well.

Gosh, I hope the seven year old was not watching this morning...

EDIT: The problem the ten year old was having in the garage with the recycling and her father? The bins are lined up against the back wall so to make her chore of recycling sorting rather easy. When EHTB brings them back from the recycling center he leaves them all packed together and she can't get them apart so she didn't have the recycling properly sorted. The two of them could not communicate that from one to the other. She is out of her closet now.

The suspicious behavior of the eleven year old? He wanted to go hang out with his friend this afternoon and that is what he did instead of going to his dad's lacrosse game. In fact, all the kids stayed here. With me, their very nice mother who loves the crap out of them. :)

And the two littles? Along with punching and kicking, one of them can now add hitting her sister over the head with a ski pole and drawing blood to their resume.

it ain't easy being green

There are a million and one downsides that come with the prospect of being a single parent to four children. Lately the one that is getting me the most is the shear amount of work it is to be everything to four other real live human beings that have actual social lives. I mean, this is nothing like taking care of four hamsters. (Not that I do that because it would be way too much work for me!)

My littles consist of a pre-k, second, fifth and sixth grader. A window into this week shows that we have four pint sized doctor appointments, four dance classes, five soccer games, two cross country meets, two cross country practices, one lunch date, two play dates, one birthday party, one family party and I have a couple of meetings for moi. And did I forget to mention bedtime routines, squabble control, homework, lunches, snacks and the shear amount of paperwork these little people generate?? (I'm not even going to discuss laundry and cleaning because it makes my head hurt until it explodes and every time that happens I have to buy a new laptop and four children also go through money like water so I can't afford a new laptop.) All this and we don't even have school on Friday. This is not an unusual week, it's just how it is around here.

I know everyone and their brother are going to say it's just a matter of simplifying our schedule and cutting a whole lotta stuff out. But it's really not that *simple.* Each child really only has one or two regular things they actually do outside of school, but multiply that by four and we're quickly in deep. And I guess I'm just a permissive as heck parent, but I want my kids to feel like they have an enriching life outside of home, I think they deserve that. They reap all sorts of positive benefits physically and socially from their activities and I happen to think that's important. So I'm in in for the long haul and I'm not even complaining. Not really.

But, but, but...sometimes I'm tired as heck from all this schlepping around. And more than that, I'm thinking to myself that this is not how life is meant to be. Kids are meant to have two parents to do the schlepping. Admittedly, even when I was in a full fledged married arrangement, I was still the keeper of all things children. The littles' dad has a long commute to work and travels and they just didn't ever see much of him during the week. But somewhere in my mind I knew I had back-up. Now I just feel like things are often backed-up all over me. I know I feel overwhelmed by this for me. I know I feel sad about this for my kids. I know I feel an overall injustice in it all. And though I try not to, in a self-absorbed way I feel like it is way different to parent one or two kids in a single parent world than it is to single parent a larger family, but I could just be feeling sorry for myself. In the end it doesn't matter. I've got to find a way to work with what I have because I wouldn't take even one less of these amazing (and busy) kids. And oh yeah, I suppose I could accept some help every little once in a while, but the thought of it is so painful for me I'll certainly have to work my way up to it.