Teh Awesome

Truly. I thought that I’d finally fully lost my marbles, as I sat having Sunday brunch with my kids and their dad. On his weekend. Yeah. Insane is the thing that made sense to me.

He’d texted me early in the morning. The kids and I are going to (insert name of our favorite brunch restaurant here) and wondered if you’d like to join us. I considered ignoring the text. I considered replying no thank you, see you at 4pm when you bring the kids home. Instead, I said yes. In that moment, my reasoning on saying yes, was mostly my wanting to see my kids….and wanting french toast. They do make some amazing french toast.

After brunch I took myself to a movie, then went to the grocery store and went home to do laundry. (I lead a very exciting life, yo.)

It wasn’t until I got home and said on Facebook that I’d gone to brunch with my ex and saw some of the responses, that I started thinking about what I’d really done. Not that I was insane, although I still fully support this theory. No, it was the, I just did something for my kids, that I’ve wanted for 25 years and will never get. I acted like an adult. Logan acted like an adult. We put aside our issues and hurt feeling, for our kids. For an hour and a half, we sat in a restaurant. Together. With our kids.

I have two pictures of my parents together. One from their wedding (people, always hire a wedding photographer, serious) and the other is a real shitty picture of me with them, when I was about two years old. That’s it. They were married eleven years (yes, I see the similarities, trust me) and those are the only two pictures. To be fair, there are tons of pictures of my first few years of life. Tons with my mom, some with my dad, boxes of me doing exciting things like spitting up. No others of them together. If I close my eyes and think really hard, I remember them together. Only in a few memories though. Honestly? I’m not sure those are real, they may be memories I made up. Most of my memories of childhood, even from the time they were together, is with one of them. I’ve separated them in my mind. Life with mom, life with dad. No crossovers.

At my wedding they sat at separate tables. At my graduation they sat rows apart. Nothing they’ve ever said about each other, in my life time, has been nice. Nothing.

I think that if it weren’t for my step-mom this would be different. She’s an evil-hose-beast. However, I have no way of knowing for sure.

I’ll be 30 years old in April and I’ve long since given up hope of my parents every acting like they once loved each other. My only proof is a picture of them cutting their wedding cake. Her in a violet colored dress, him with long hippie hair. It’s the way they are touching each others hands; the way he is smiling at her; the way her eyes are sparkling. My proof, that once, thirty-seven years ago, they did love each other.

I don’t want that for my kids. As much as it pains me to be around Logan right now, especially after last week being what it was, I will continue to on occasion, still do things with him. Small doses, yes. Because I’m hurt and I’ve not figured out how not to love him. But I’ll do things  anyway. Because my kids are worth it.

I don’t want Bailey to have to close her eyes and think hard to find a memory with us both in it. She, at five years old, is the exact age I was when my parents divorced. I don’t want Morgan to wonder which of us to invite to dinner with her first love or in her first home one day. Or to wonder where to have to seat us at her wedding, because she knows we won’t speak at all, if placed at the same table. I don’t want Harrison to ever have to wonder if we loved each other when he was born, to wonder if we ever were happy together.

Maybe I’m insane, maybe I’m deluding myself. However, I have this hope that I can save my kids a tiny bit of the drama I’ve lived through. We’ll see.

Yesterday though? I choose to put aside my feelings for an hour and a half. For them.

Say you meet a great guy in high school. He quickly becomes one of your best friends and your boyfriend, all at once. You have fun together, you can tell him anything. A few years go by. Mostly fun times, some crappy ones. But your constant is each other. Always, you have each other. You get engaged and get married all in your first year of college. You lose a friend to suicide, gain a spouse and a condo, all in one very crazy year.

A few years after that, you have your first baby; a ridiculously adorable little girl. You work your ass off. Nine, ten, sometimes twelve or fourteen hour days. To make a better life for your family. You finish college, go on vacations. You celebrate holidays, watch your baby girl grow. You do this together.

Everything is better because you have that person. The person you joke with in tense times. The person who makes you happy. The person who lets you cry and stress out. You have inside jokes, you play air hockey, you stay up after your daughter goes to bed, just laughing and watching TV. You start to plan farther ahead in life. You dream out your life together.

One day, a couple years later, you have another, ridiculously adorable little girl. You’re happy; happy with your life, happy with your spouse, happy with your crazy baby girls. You upgrade your life a bit: sell your condo and buy a house, buy new cars. Nothing you can’t handle. None of that really matters though. What matters are that man and little girls you come home too every night. Everything you do, is to make a better life for them.

You start to get burned out on the hours of work. You see your husband and girls very little and you literally can watch them age before your eyes. You miss out on the small things. Things like your baby’s first steps. The first time your oldest rides a tricycle without training wheels. The first time your four year old uses crap correctly in a sentence. The time your baby “warshes” your camera in the toilet. (What? It’s not all good stuff.) You start to live for your vacation time.

One day, your husband comes to you and says that he has a dream of something better. A better life. A great career for him, less of one for you. A move halfway across the country. You look at this man, this man you adore, your best friend and you say hell no. You see the hurt in his eyes. You look around and you think about the life you are living. The crazy schedules, the hours spent in an office of a high rise, the outrageous amount of money you are about to plop down for private kindergarten, what you are missing out on and you say yes. Let’s do it. You move.

Then life gets a little tricky. Bad things happen. Loss, depression, crappy times. You tell yourself it will get better. You will get better. Things will be okay, because you have him, your love, your best friend, your constant. You get a unexpected surprise in the form an amazing baby boy. Unexpected, but none the less, adored. You start to think, hey maybe somehow this will work; this move, this dream, this new life.

One day you wake up to find that you lost everything while you weren’t looking. That you are loosing your husband and it’s too late to change it. That you maybe lost him years ago, even though he’s been next to you that whole time. Somehow you blinked and missed it. The sad part is, you are not just loosing a spouse. You are loosing your very best friend in this world. You have lost that life you thought you had. The happy home, the happy family, the dream. In one fell swoop, your life, the one you helped build? Is gone. Pieces of it are still there, but it’s different. Broken. Shattered even. You then start to pick up the pieces, because in reality, life moves on. It’s the only thing that can be done.

But inside? You are still shattered. You’ve lost. The promise of forever is gone. The dreams of one more baby, watching your kids grow together, vacations around the world, renewing vows at twenty years, buying an RV and traveling the US after the kids go to college? Dreams that no longer exist.

That life is gone. What’s left now is heartache. Pain. Shattered dreams. Unknowing. And three little kids who still have to be raised.

On March 3rd, 11 years ago, we said forever. We stood together in front of our friends and family and together, we promised forever. 11 years. That was our forever.

Forever? I suppose it’s just something that people say. Just a word we throw out there. Something we think we mean, until we don’t.

Forever.