Sunday, March 30, 2008

A Somewhat Different Week

Got back in town late Monday night. (The trip was nice and the kids always have a great time, but trips are tiring and I was thrilled to be home.) Hit the ground running first thing Tuesday morning. Got home from dropping Molly off at school to find Andre (my foster son who left my house last year) in a police cruiser in cuffs. Six police cars had responded when his adopted "mother" and he got into a fist fight outside my house. I talked to the sergeant and spilled the whole story of him being removed from her custody and her violent tendencies, my restraining order against her. The police took Andre out of custody and out of cuffs thank God. They then asked ME if he could stay at my house. Did I not mention the RESTRAINING ORDER?
WTF????????
No, I'm sorry, but I don't think so. Evidently my number is the only one listed under L.A. County Children Protective Services because criminally, they sent him home with her. He ran away immediately.
That was Tuesday.
Wednesday was my writing day which went very well. Very productive.
When I came home, Andre's "mother" was outside my house again and yelled at me in front of my kids, breaking her restraining order. More calls to the police. Then I had mediation with the dh.
I was a half hour late due to terrible traffic. That's 100 bucks down the drain. On the way there I was panicing as I was so late but also because something terrible was starting to happen in my gut.
Cramping. Cold sweats. Must. Keep. Driving.

If you take something huge and horrible, like, mmmm...my marriage say, and you force this huge, horrible thing through a small space, like a coffee grinder, and it's so huge and the space so small that only a thin and vicious liquid can escape...that was what was happening inside my body.
I barely got into the mediator's office where they were waiting for me. I had to immediately excuse myself to the tiny bathroom.
That feeling is unlike any other. My insides were suddenly trying to escape through the southern route. I only wanted to be alone with my God, begging for mercy, but instead I was at mediation. I was late. They were waiting for me. It was like hurrying through labor with someone you're divorcing on the other side of the door asking, "Are you alright?"
Oh, the humanity!
I rolled my sweaty, tear-drenched face along the cool tile on the sink in front of me, one cheek and then the other, trying to comfort my soul. What is it with bathrooms and breakdowns?
I get myself in the room only to have my life, my marriage, reduced to a printout from a divorce software program. I hear my dh say he wants the kids half the time and I see myself fired from my job as mother. I keep crying and they stop and look at me.
"Are you alright?"
I continually excuse myself to allow a few more innards to grind into acid in the bathroom.
I do my trick where I picture my Jesus there. I see him sitting at the mediator's desk chair, playing solitaire on his computer, giving me the thumbs up. I'm here, he says. Always here. And you're doing fine.
When I hear the dismal financial picture, I envision huge piles of money falling all over the table.
My dh and the mediator view me skeptically. I'm not following along on the printouts...which I couldn't understand anyway under the best of circumstances. I'm checked out, praying for this meeting to end.
Thursday.
I'm so tired. I still haven't finished un-packing. I'm also a little depressed. JH invites me to the park with BC and then lunch and it's nice to be out of the house and in their company.
BLT pizza at CPK. Life's good.
I return home and see some stuff out of place in my bedroom. Weird stuff Ray doesn't usually get into but that's how kids are. One day they do something they've never done before. So I pick up the bedroom a little and since Ray's napping I go into the office to work on my computer. Only thing is my computer's not there.
It's been stolen.
Someone has broken into my house.
I call the police. I call JH. I call AL. I wait for help.
I wait to breathe.
In the end, I lost my laptop (a month's worth of writing), a couple diamond rings (my first ex's wedding rings - how ironic considering I've posted about those, and a promise ring my present dh got me on our first year dating anniversary), two digital cameras and a stereo speaker...couple small things too. It's all too weird to get into but the situation is all the more insane because the break-in was most likely at the hands of Andre or his "mother." Freaky. Crazy. Not cool.
I must shout out to SV who dropped off a spare computer that very night so I could have e-mail and blog. Thanks chica. Thanks also to JH who babysat my daughter AGAIN (you are officially up for canonization) and for AL for giving up valuable super-hero party-planning hours sitting and drinking wine with me.

I feel on one side like this stuff is gone forever and there are huge inconveniences and financial issues with that.
Then on the other side, there are the desperate emotional implications. My computer was a friend. A lifeline. My ticket to freedom. My rings were important to me. The digital cameras held pictures from Christmas we'll never have back.
Then there is the third side, the rarely viewed side, the metaphysical side, where I question my whole fucking life. What am I doing? Am I doing something wrong? I don't feel like I am but, man, the present situation seems to be reflecting some messedupness. And it could be residual, maybe...but was I that messed up even a year ago? Or do things happen randomly and without meaning? If so why do look for meaning in anything??? Because that very night I found that my grandmother's precious rosary was missing from my luggage. Most likely lost during an airport luggage search. There just can't be meaning in that. And if there is, I don't want to know it. I want the rosary back. I've slept with that thing for two years and I want it back.
But no.
These are the questions, this third side, this fucking doubt, that sticks in my craw the most.
Cause I feel alright. I feel okay. I feel taken care of and blessed and grateful. Now don't get me wrong. I cry all the time. All the time. I rush sometimes to get myself alone. Be it in the car or at home in the back yard or in the shower just so I can break down for a minute.
But I still maintain that I'm on the right track.
Am I kidding myself? Can I trust myself? Is this an aneurysm I feel coming on??????

Friday.
JH and HL and I go to UCLA and hear Annie Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert be their totally hilarious, smart, crazy, cranky, alive selves and all is alright. There is a God. Annie said so. Faith is alive. Prayer is the best course. Crazy is a normal state of affairs for most of us alive enough to realize it.

I ride this razor edge between joy and a little shy of devestated every day. It's been like this since December. Every day.
But joy wins out by a landslide.
And many of my tears feel like strangely happy tears. I laugh a lot when I get to reframe this shit with my friends (that includes you) and then it's reframed forever. It gets posted on the joyful side of the ledger (my printout if you will) and there's one more less thing on the side of devestation.
Maybe devestation is just a little pissed about that.
It will never win. I know that. And it can just keep falling short of its mission.
Because I'm unfazed and less than impressed with sadness and depression, shock, agression, resistance, self-consciousness and despair.
In fact, they can all just take a hike.
Might as well.
Cause I'm going to drive to the beach.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It gets easier. It sounds so lame to say, but it does. So many people that went through divorce told me this. It did not help when I was in the muck. It probably does not help you now. But you know I am in this with you and I love you. Every single time life would present itself in such a devestating way, I would find myself going to "I must deserve this. This must be my punishment for getting divorced. It was all my fault. I am the screwup after all." But guess what? I knew it wasnt really true. LIfe is getting better after only three months of pure hell. I am turning a corner. It feels really good and you will feel really good really soon. I promise.