Today it’s been a year since the divorce. I don’t feel any different than last week, but if you compare where I am now with where I was then, you’ll see the difference. I look over it all and try to sum up my year, as Robinson Cruieson said, “Like debtor and creditor.”
Friends and Enemies
I’ve found out who my friends and who my enemies are. In addition to the obvious, there is my mother. And then there are others. For example, those people I was working for in the fall. I still shudder when I remember my stint at the prep school. Horrible people. And yet they wouldn’t have thought that about themselves. If you asked them, they were the best people, an exclusive group of people, that only people like them could associate with. The very epitome of the un-inclusive. I am embarrassed I was working there. But I learned quite a bit by watching the things they did with kids, that were so different than what I would do.
Teaching is like a dance, not like breaking rocks, I would tell them if there were a line of communication open … but then again, there would be no point. They would not believe me.
What else?
Haven’t Run Out of Money Yet …
I haven’t run out of money. I didn’t really come close. Yet. The expectation was that I would struggle. But so far, I’ve been okay. I don’t know why. Meanwhile, at work, it was just announced that we will have a ten percent raise next year. So for me, next year should be easier.
I have a better social life now. My meetup group, my support group, my driving to work with Karen, and doing things with the grandkids, not to mention seeing Tiara and yoga and biking, etc., keep me pretty busy. Of course, I haven’t *met* anyone. I’m beginning to wonder if anyone is actually out there! But … that’s not unusual is it? You always feel like there’s no one until there’s some one. That’s just the nature of the single life beast. It’s a zero sum game. Or maybe that’s not the right idiom. It’s like being pregnant, you either are or you aren’t. You’re single or your attached. I guess there’s “its complicated.” But I haven’t experienced that too much so far.
I redecorated my house, bought new furniture; I rearranged my rooms a bit, changed a few wall hangings and I replaced the bedroom set.
All good, right? So why do I have so much ennui?
Apparently, Losing My Mother is Part of the Collateral Damage
Well, there are a few negatives. First of all, I have at least for the moment lost my mother. She went over to the dark side, or, I mean, she went over to Leo’s side of the dispute. She was always going places with him and then telling me about it, inviting him to things and excluding me, and finally she had him stay at her house last week. This had been very painful in the last few months.
I have had to deal not only with the pragmatic realities of not being around her, but with the feelings that I have been running from the truth since I was born: my mother’s affection for me was not really affection, it was moments of pride in her own achievement in being my mother. At other times, she ignored me or was unhelpful. The fact that she prefers Leo to me makes sense in this context. But it also hurts.
Day to day, it’s weird being alone. I come home and put my backpack down and run water for tea and wait for something to happen, but nothing happens, Andrew is at work or school and I am the only one here. I cook dinner and do a few small activities … and that’s it. Unless I go out, pretty much it’s just me.
And Some Days it Seems that Everyone Except Me is Married
A year since the divorce, and everyone else seems to be married. When women at work talk about their husbands, I have two responses. One is, thank God I don’t have to worry about Leo’s shortcomings and troubles which he caused. Generally the woman are talking about good things which their husbands do, and which, of course, Leo didn’t do. But sometimes I feel sad. You don’t have to be very smart to notice you’re alone. And a woman alone is at a disadvantage.
That said, I am still me and I still have the mental resources that got us out of the practical troubles we used to get into regularly. This morning the assistant principal, noting the number of roles he can safely assign to me, called me “the Swiss army knife of teaching.” I take that as a compliment. When the summer roster of classes from the city came available last night, I managed to get online at the precise moment that classes opened up and got Ella registered for pony lessons. Fifteen minutes later, there were no spots. Go me!
I’ve Clearly Got Skills, But There’s Still that Ennui …
I signed on a loan so that Andrew could buy a car, and the car didn’t work correctly. He took it to the shop, and they didn’t fix it right. I wrote them a respectful email asking if they would please look at it again and not charge him for the recheck as, to be honest, he had no money left. They said yes, of course.
He took it back to the shop and discussed the highly technical diagnosis of the car with them, something about the “overhead lifters” (this cracked me up because I well remember John Travolta singing about “overhead lifters” in the song Greased Lighting) and apparently Andrew’s analysis of what was wrong with the car impressed the manager because this week they called Andrew up and he got a job at the shop. I feel I helped him here. And that is a good thing. One thing I do know is I want to be helpful to other people. And I guess I do a lot of that. I should be happy.
And yet still … a year since the divorce, that loneliness and ennui.