Ben asked me if it was quieter than usual after the kids did the switch from our house to their mom’s this weekend. I told him it wasn’t - at least not to the ear - and, to the best of my knowledge, that’s true. But in all honesty, it’s not like I had taken any readings.
For the last 8 years, my boys have gone back and forth, each week, from my house to their mom’s house. It was a difficult routine to get used to, only having them in half my life, but we adapted and all came to find aspects of it to appreciate. This last Friday, though, marks a new era. The boys are going to be with their mom for most of the summer. They’ll spend a few weeks with me and Julie - mostly spread out over weekends, and with a 2-week stretch toward the end of August - but it’s a huge departure from the past, and it doesn’t stop there. In an effort to create more after-school and academic consistency, we’re working out a schedule for the school year that would have the boys with their mom Mondays-Thursdays and half the Fridays to boot. And up to half the weekends per month. Leaving us with the boys two-to-three weekends per month and for some holidays.
This means that, last Friday, when we dropped them off at school, we might as well have been dropping them off at the pier and waving goodbye. It’s all happened too fast, and yet, it didn’t exactly sneak up on me. My new job is more demanding on my schedule than my old one was, and I’ve largely lost my ability to be there for the boys after school. That ability might return, but it very well might not. Is it really better for them to spend half their school-days with a sitter (or alone) in order to spend the frazzled ends of those days with me? Maybe you have an unequivocal answer; I do not.
It’s taken me unusually long to get in touch with my feelings about this change. And considering how at-odds my heart and head are on this thing, I suppose that should not be surprising, but I’m normally way more in touch with my emotions than I have been lately. Last week, it all finally hit me, and I know how to articulate it: I feel gutted- desperately sad and afraid. I feel like I’ve lost my children, all three at once, to some capricious minor god with whom I basically have no quarrel but who’s intent on sucking the life out of me just the same.
So I need to write this down and stick it here, so I can come back to it. Maybe the change turns out for the best, and I’ll need to remember that it didn’t feel very good in the beginning. Maybe it’ll go poorly and I’ll want the reminder to be more ruled by my heart than head in the future. Nothing’s permanent, after all, and now is always as good of a time as ever to remember as much.
Soon, the migraines will subside. My yearning for intimacy won’t keep feeling this insatiable. I’ll relearn how to sleep through the night, how to dream. Eventually, I’ll figure out how not to romanticize some imperfections over others.
Eventually, either life or I will be have to start being gentler.