Has it been nine months already since we split?
The mind boggles.
I’ve lost my anchor. The King of Everything is on a grand adventure with his grammy to Richmond and points south. He doesn’t want to talk to me when I call, he’s so busy playing with his cousins and going to the petting zoo, the water park, the science museum. My mother is enjoying this time, too, surrounded by her nieces and their little ones. No one misses me.
“I’m with him here, and he is so much a part of you, that it’s as if you’re here with us. I see you everywhere,” my mother told me on the phone the other night. And so I’ve lost my anchors, my mother and my son. The KoE is so lucky–he’s got his grammy and grandpa, who are extensions of his own small self, and so much a part of me, that he is never lost when he is with them. They are his touchstones when I am not there to be his solid rock. He still gets up and goes to my mother in the middle of the night, missing me– but there is so little separation anxiety when he is with them. With other people who are not so tightly bonded to him, he can’t go as long without his mama. Then he gets cranky, and whiny, and difficult, because he’s a boy, and boys would never just say, “I miss my mama”. But with my parents? He’s a star.
I think back to that day, just two days more than nine months ago, when we arrived in the U.S…. exhausted from our long flight, both the actual flight and the mental and emotional one… I look back at the frightened, broken-hearted woman I was on that day. I am amazed. I think I know how I did it. It never once occurred to me that I might fail at this. You see, my child is my rock. I could not bear to fail him. Focussed with a single-minded intensity on securing what he needed to survive (food.clothes.shelter) I put all my resources into securing those necessities. The next step was financial security, so we could live well, if not extravagantly. Now that this milestone has passed, with the boy enrolled in what I hope will be an excellent school, me with a job that keeps us afloat, furniture and friends and free time every once in a while… there’s a vacuum. The fierce clench of do or die has loosened its grip somewhat, but there’s still that adrenaline rush to combat. I find myself worrying. My confidence is shaken, now that my immediate goals have been reached. Once again, I have to take baby steps, tread gently around myself. I’m beginning to think beyond tomorrow: what do I want? What do I need? Even as I consider the next phase of my life, my child centers me, requiring me to make better choices, own a higher degree of responsibility than I might have chosen as a single, childless woman.
This week, then, without him, I’m a bit unmoored. My boy, my sun and moon, lingers in every corner of the empty house that I return to as late as I dare. I don’t eat. I don’t go to bed at a reasonable hour. I wander lost in the mornings, looking for whatever it is I should be doing. A friend asked what bus I was going to take home, and I said, “Oh, the 8:30, the 9PM… it doesn’t matter. They’re all the same.” They take me back to where I live, but my home and heart is roaming this week, lodged in the hearts of my mother and my son.
Tags: nine-months-after-separation, surviving-the-split, travelling-with-childrenRelated Stories
POSTED IN: wisdom
12 opinions for Has it been nine months already since we split?
ratphooey
Jul 27, 2007 at 8:03 am
What a wonderful post.
I feel just the same way with #1 away with his beloved grandma.
Christina
Jul 27, 2007 at 8:23 am
Hey, S., when do you get the budley back? Mine comes back to me tonight or tomorrow I can’t wait. We’ll go to the park and play.
At least you have #2 to snoogle and nibble on. Because you know, he is delicious.
Kathy
Jul 27, 2007 at 9:14 am
It’s funny; I like to think that I’m the heart, the center, the sun of our home and the kids are sort of little satellites in a lopsided, silly sort of orbit around me.
And then they go to their four hours of supervised visitation with my ex-stupidhead, and I’m here, in this quiet house, by myself, and I feel much more like a black hole than a sun. It becomes obvious who is orbiting who. I think I need them more than they need me, and that is always scary, because I know, even if they don’t, that they will all grow up and get lives and leave me here in my own little universe alone.
Ugh. Sad thoughts for Friday. I’m going to stop now.
ratphooey
Jul 27, 2007 at 9:23 am
He returns this evening!
I brought Mr. Delicious into work with me this morning - it’s a half day, with no deadlines. He’s presently being passed around from colleague to colleague. I may not see him til noon!
Liz
Jul 27, 2007 at 3:59 pm
I know it’s hard being separated from the center of your universe, but try to see this time as a chance for you to get some well-deserved rest and discover the new parts of you that have developed since you began your journey as a single mother.
When I look back to the person I was before I had Max, I can’t really remember what I thought was so interesting about my life.
christina
Jul 27, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Kathy, my four year old says at least once a day (when he’s here) “I’ll never leave you, Mama, I want to be with you all the time, even when I’m grown up.” I always reply, “Oh, you can leave me, sweets. Just promise you’ll always come back. I’ll always be there when you do.”
Makes the whole growing up and moving out thing a bit easier to bear.
christina
Jul 27, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Liz, I didn’t rest. I worked my Bleepity bleep off.
Sigh. We’re going to the park tomorrow. We’re going to play all day and snuggle and read books and do movie night. Maybe even go out to eat. He’s my best date yet.
Ike
Jul 28, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Just think how you’ll feel when he returns …. he’ll be overjoyed to see you, and you’ll have had a chance to take a breath while he was away. I think many of us mothers don’t take enough time for ourselves, whether we’re single or not.
Kelly
Jul 30, 2007 at 2:57 pm
I know how you feel. I used to kind of scoff at moms who hated when their kids were away. My philosophy has always been the more quiet time, the better. Even though my daughter and I have always shared a really tight bond, I was happy to have a little break when she went away, even if I missed her a little. But lately we’ve become closer than ever, maybe because she’s older (11) and we can do more things together. I’m not sure why. She calls me all the time for no real reason when I’m at work, and I know it’s just because she wants to hear my voice. I’m dropping her off at camp tonight and she won’t be home for 5 days, and my heart already hurts a little.
I’m glad your got you lil’ man back! Enjoy him!
christina
Jul 30, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Kelly, how wonderful to hear that you and your daughter grew closer as she grew older. So often it’s the other way around. I hope you two survive your five nights away from each other. Get yourself a good book!
angel
Jul 30, 2007 at 5:11 pm
wonderful post christina!!!
Rebecca
Aug 2, 2007 at 10:59 am
Has it really been 9 months already? Wow - and look how far you’ve come!
I love all of my kids the same - but they mean different things to me too. When the 15 year old actually says “thanks mom”, the 12 year old wants to cuddle, the 3 year old says “I can do it myself, then tuns around and says Mommy do it…” and the 1 year old is in the middle of a temper fit-then throws himself at me to be picked up.
And when they are all out of the house, I think “Yes! This is going to be great!” Then I find myself walking around wondering “what am I going to do now?”.
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