I have been asked recently - and frequently - where have you been? How are you? What's going on?
The answer seems simple enough. I've been hiding a bit. Hibernating. Recharging. Avoiding. I'm fine really. No, really I am. I've just been stuck in my own head for a while. It's a weird and scary place sometimes and has been filled with more than I can process as of late. So I just don't. I go through the motions. I hide. I clean. I talk to those closest and that's about it. I call my mom. Going through the motions of normalcy helps me bring it back.
Krysty has a boyfriend. A real one. A comes over and hangs out and they hold hands and cuddle on the couch and are as close as can be accomplished with parents in the house. This rattles me. Not only because I am somehow old enough to find myself with a teenage daughter that is going through this new phase of her life but because it was not that long ago that I was going through it all myself. It terrifies me. It causes me to have conversations I don't want to have. She's not supposed to be here yet. I'm not supposed to be here yet. EJ's a nice kid. He's polite and well mannered. Of course I make him nervous. Which I take great pride in. As a mom it is my job to make the little bastards that come sniffing around my daughters nervous. It's a fun game for me really. So I'm processing. Trying to move forward without muddying the waters too terribly and trying to keep my daughter from making the bad choices I did. So very cliche but true.
Last week would have been my 15th anniversary had Kraig and I stayed married. While I don't long for the "good ol' days" it did send me in to a reminiscent tail-spin. I have always had regret when it came to my divorce. Not because I think that we could have somehow made it - we were toxic to each other - but because I have always viewed it as my biggest personal failure. I can, with complete honesty, say that I was just as much to blame as he was for our relationship. I can go back and point to specifics and generalities equally and say "This Is Where I Went Wrong". I was not a good wife. I was not a good partner. I wasn't working with the cream of the crop either but I can not place blame on someone else when there is so much blame to put on myself. It was as it was but that doesn't change it. Fifteen years ago I had made a promise. A blind, stupid, naive promise that I did not understand. But that does not take away the responsibility that I felt and the failure to meet that promise I still feel. We are both better off. We both know it. Our spouses know it. And because of what my marriage to Kraig was I strive EVERY DAY to be a better wife to Doug. I love him beyond words. But it was my marriage to Kraig that allows me to appreciate what I have now and hold it so delicately so I don't fuck this up, too. We all have our hairshirts to wear. This is mine.
The other girls are fine. I can't get Allie to practice her trombone for God or Country. Jane tested the waters of not turning in homework and decided she is not that good of a swimmer. Fiona is growing like a weed. An opinionated, independent, stubborn little weed that has this entire house at her command.
Doug managed to miss being cut in a mass re-organization of Wal-Mart's upper management system. It means more work, longer hours and travel. But it also means a little more money and a great sigh of relief.
So that's it folks. Life came in fast and quick and knocked me on my ass for a bit. Nothing traumatic. Nothing broken, scratched or bruised. I just needed to sit here and catch my breath for a moment.
