What If

August 17, 2020

What if I decided not to worry about things I should have said or done or thought or considered or worked on?  What if I decided that I didn't need to consider whether I had regrets?  What if I just moved forward rather than looking back?  Just this once, just for a while.

What if?

What if I decided that I did work hard enough at marriage and that I don't have to debate that point any more?  What if I decided that I wasn't a failure -- in my eyes or my children's or my husband's or my in-laws' or my family's or friends' or those of people I don't even know -- to get separated and maybe divorced?  What if I decided that I am doing everything right rather than waiting for assurance from someone else?  (I don't ask for the assurance, but not doing so is an act of restraint, hard-nosed determined restraint, when I talk with those closest to me.)

So let me try this now.

I was right to separate from my husband.  I have worked hard enough at my marriage over the last eighteen years (tomorrow, our actual eighteenth anniversary).  I am not a failure.  I am a success in finally emerging from this marriage with every truth that I need to say, not just to myself, but out loud to my husband and even to others.

This is the right thing to do.  I have faith that it is the right thing to do.  And as with right steps, good will follow.  There will be challenges, but the rewards will be great.  We moved our family to Italy for a year, confident that it was the right thing to do, knowing that we would encounter challenges both for ourselves and for our children.  And there were challenges: being the outsiders for a long while at their new school; not knowing the language; having only each other to play with for months; no outside space to play in each afternoon and weekend; an apartment in the city for four kids; missing people from home.  But not once did I think that we were doing the wrong thing, even amidst the fights of four siblings in our living room.

So I'm going to decide to have that kind of confidence, that kind of fearlessness.  

Good will follow.  As with Italy, the immediate good may not be obvious, but it's there, under the surface, taking root, growing in me, and maybe growing in my husband and kids, too.

This separation is the best thing for this moment in time.  I don't know what's next, but I know that my not living with my husband is ultimately good.  I will come out of this stronger and happier in ways I cannot know yet.  Our kids will come out of this stronger -- I can't guarantee happier, but I do think that there is potential there.  My husband will come through this ultimately stronger and maybe even happier.  Like me, he won't be able to blame his problems in life on a spouse, on someone else.  He'll have to figure out how to get what he needs in life to be happy.  I even believe that our relationship will be stronger and happier because of the steps we are taking now.

When I imagine that relationship, I struggle a bit.  

Sometimes I imagine us together again, happier, healthier, growing older together.  But that picture makes me feel like I'm getting smaller, pushing myself to the side of the frame, not keeping myself right in the center with my husband.  I imagine that I would be or we would be in the center together for a while, but over time, I would be closer to the margins, morphing into a self that is fluid, flexible, accommodating again.  

Other times I imagine us happily divorced, living in separate houses, the kids splitting time between our homes.  We help each other out with pick-ups and drop-offs, and we coordinate the kids' schedules amicably.  The six of us still do family dinner together every Sunday, at either house, with one of us cooking.  We do the kids' birthdays and holidays together, even if we're getting together with extended family.  We enjoy and respect each other, really value the other one, but don't depend on the other one for our emotional, physical, spiritual, social needs.  Eventually we both find other partners, and they are welcome at birthdays and holidays, too.  We co-exist with peace.

We are ourselves, and each of us shines with joy.  And our kids are happy.  And he can have the other women relationships he needs and the social life he needs, and I can feel grounded and secure in myself and not trapped, and grounded and secure and excited in perhaps another relationship.  We are friends, real friends, and we are happy for each other in our successes and compassionate towards each other during difficulties.

We are not married, but we support each other.

Could we have that joy and light and happy and stay together?

Perhaps.

But too much has passed now.  Too much light has gone out, too much joy diminished, too much trust lost.  I have worked hard enough.  I am open to communication, I am.  But I don't actually want to work to understand better, to make friends together, to forgive and let go.  

And I am going to allow myself this.

No regrets.  I was clear in my mind when I chose to separate, as clear as I have ever been about anything in my life -- having babies, moving to Italy for a year.  Some decisions I've made and been almost shocked that I'm doing them, that people believe me and my decisions become reality, e.g. moving to California with no job; getting married.  But I never doubted getting pregnant or moving to Italy; once I'd made these decisions, I never looked back.

No looking back at this moment either.

No need to look forward either.

This is a space I needed, and now I'm in it, a good space, a space to breathe.  

Stay here for a while.

Breathe.

See the light.

anniversary

 August 18, 2020

Today is our eighteenth anniversary.  I am at the beach for the week with the kids, and Daniel has asked to come down to see me and the kids, to deliver a gift, to make and eat dinner as a family.  I say yes.  He's supposed to arrive at 1pm, revised to 2:30pm, revised to 4pm.

A girlfriend with the day off sits by the ocean with me and we chat about various ted talks we like and the surf and my kids in the water.  I ask her the question that I have been holding in for weeks.

"How do I know if I am doing the right thing with this separation?"

Looking a little shocked, she asks why I am wondering this now.  And I tell her, "Because there were a lot of good times, because we have these four kids, because we've been together for eighteen years, and it's easier to imagine us together than apart."

I get teary.  Cry a little.

She asks a variation of her question again.

I say, "I have no regrets about separating in June.  It felt like the only thing left to do.  Even now I feel like it was the only thing I could do."

She says, "Well, you just answered your question."

Then she reminds me that I had told her a month before Daniel moved out that I would never split with him, that I would have to consider how to make our marriage work, maybe have an open marriage for the long haul.  And then, a month later, I was certain that I wanted him to move out.  

I tell her the other question that has been gnawing at me, "Have I worked hard enough at this marriage?  And I know that I'm the only one who can really answer that question, but I need to ask anyway."

I've known Tara for forty-three years.  She sits beside me on this beach and she nods her head yes.  Yes.

The tears come.  I tell her, "It's our eighteenth anniversary, and I didn't even know I was sad.  I've been having a good day and felt happy.  I don't know how all that just came out.  It just did."

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I fell in love with Daniel almost upon meeting him.  He opened the door of the house where a friend was living, and I felt instantly attracted to and intrigued by him.  I wanted to be near him.  My friend gave me a tour of the house, and my heart beat hard, and I wondered where in the house he had gone.  That afternoon, instead of sitting with tea and looking at my friend's Italy pictures from the summer, I agreed to go to a local pool with her and her housemates, Daniel included.  He lapped me, and I laughed.  That night we all made dinner and sat outside in the summer evening.  He served me eggplant that he had dyed with a fun color (orange?) just for me.  When we went dancing, he took my hand and led me over to the salad bar to teach me the steps to the dance.  Oh, he could dance.  Dance as in lead with actual steps of whichever dance was suitable for each song.  I was smitten.

But my friend was smitten, too.  They had dated for a month a while back, and she'd not yet gotten over him.  I knew this.  I knew this, and I still held on to my feelings for him.  

A month later when he was driving through California, we took a hike together, and the night after that we went for Ethiopian food and Ben and Jerry's and stayed up until 5am at my apartment.  A week later he told me that he loved me.  I said, "But you can't love me.  You don't even know me."

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We dated long-distance between New Mexico (him) and California (me) starting then, around Labor Day.  Flights back and forth, long phone calls, letters and letters, emails.  He met me in Boston to come to my family's for Thanksgiving.  I bought a ticket to visit him and his family in New Mexico right after Christmas.

By New Year's, we were engaged.

In the next eight months we argued about the number of invitations to be sent out, money, birth control, hobbies, love.  Once we were engaged, the bliss of those first four months was less bright; real life crept in as we planned a move East and I looked for a new job and he studied for the bar exam.  

He was romantic and funny and smart and clever.  We played with words and talked books and went to church and met each other's friends and kayaked and hiked and registered for china and kitchen dishes.  I took the GRE, but never completed an application for an MFA program.  I packed.  We planned our road trip across the country to Massachusetts.

I went to graduate school for the summer, and we saw each other every few weekends.  I graduated, went home to my parents, and got ready for the wedding the next weekend.

It was a fast, romantic, whirlwind courtship that ended in marriage within a year.  I loved his confidence and different way of looking at things and his letters and his expressiveness and smarts and reading and sureness in loving me and his adventurousness.  I loved that he could cook, that he cared about food, that he liked to do stuff like hike or play tennis.  I liked that he had direction, having just finished law school and preparing for bar exams in New Mexico and now Massachusetts.

We got married.

So now it's eighteen years ago today.  What do I remember from that wedding day?  I remember my aunt Margo looking directly at me when she read a passage from Philippians that I had chosen because I loved its saying something like, "Whatever is good, whatever is true....celebrate these things..."  I remember the priest's talking about our meeting at the Sheraton Commander Hotel and his mentioning a shared appreciation of Cicero.  I remember Daniel's telling me to "give [him] some lip" when I gave him my cheek after our vows.  I remember Daniel's locking his arm into mine rather than mine into his as we walked out.  I remember one of my parents looking really relieved after the ceremony and before the reception, saying, "That was really nice."

I remember looking around the reception for him whenever he wasn't with me, wanting him to be with me.

These are not the fondest memories.  I may have had a better time at my sister's wedding, when Daniel and I danced and laughed for hours.  But they are our wedding and the beginnings of our relationship.

Our anniversary is still something to acknowledge, even if celebrate may be too strong a word.  We have enjoyed a lot about each other and worked together on projects and enjoyed our kids tremendously.  We have had romantic days and silly days and fun days and hard talks and good talks and meaningful talks.

And now we're separated.

It's okay.

Eighteen years ago we made one decision, and this year we made another.  And we made so many small decisions over the years that got us to where we are now.  It's okay.

Multiple drafts

 August 12, 2020

In the past three weeks I have heard two writers whose books I liked a bunch -- The Dutch House and Untamed -- say that they wrote these books twice.  Ann Patchett said that she wrote The Dutch House and then got to the end, realized it was horrible, and started over.  The interviewer (Gretchen Rubin) asked her, “What was good in the book in that first draft?”  

“The best thing in the book,” said Patchett, “was that no one had to read such a horrible book.”

Then she rewrote the entire novel and got it published to rave reviews.

Today I heard Glennon Doyle talking about her book Untamed with Brene Brown.  Brene Brown admired the structure of the book, acknowledging the cleverness of the structure that was still somewhat untamed, matching the structure to the main idea.  Glennon Doyle told her something like this, “Actually, I wrote Untamed twice.  I wrote it once and thought that it was good enough. Then Elizabeth Gilbert read it. She pointed out that I was writing something untamed in a tame structure.  It wouldn’t fit.”  

She sat down and reworked the entire book.

I’m reading Waking Up White this week.  In the Acknowledgements at the end, Debby Irving thanks one person, who offered to read the book right before Irving sent it to the publisher.  She writes something like, “Two years and eighty-two one-hour phone calls later, the book was ready.”

I don’t know how many times I’ll need to rewrite my story.

That’s okay.

In the end, I’ll be able to laugh like these women, getting a kick out of the process no matter how many drafts it takes.

Anne Lamott reminds me that there is no end, that publishing a book is not the end-all, be-all, crowing triumph of writing that writers expect. I've changed my goal of publishing a book: my goal now is to write a book. Write it for myself. A whole book. One that I like and that I think is even better than good enough. (When I'm honest with myself, I know the difference between my work that is good enough and good.) I'll complete it, draft after draft after draft. I'll have a completed version and feel good that I did it, that I actually finished writing an entire book.

If I feel so motivated, I'll find a way to submit it to a publisher or a hundred publishers. And maybe something else will happen then. Maybe. But if it doesn't, that's okay. I will have fulfilled my dream to myself, to write a book.

In the past I've felt envious of people I know who have published books -- I've felt excited, thrilled, proud for them, yes, but truthfully, envious, too. A friend recently sent me a link to a memoir published by someone that graduated from college with us. Pangs of jealousy: The Austen Years. I looked it up, read part of it online.

Two weeks later a different friend dropped off a book for me for my week of beach vacation. (This friend routinely purchases books from independent sellers and lends them to me before she has even read them herself, her generosity and spirit astounding.) I ran downstairs to see what book she had left on the dining room table: The Austen Years. I couldn't believe it. She knows I like Austen, and she has encouraged me to write a book about my own experiences: hence her sharing The Austen Years. I laugh on the phone to her about this coincidence.

She says, "Will it be too hard for you to read?"

"I don't know," I tell her. "It looks good, so I'll probably read it. Or maybe it will get me to write."

I bring the book on the vacation. I haven't started it. But I've made a pact with myself: for every day that I do not read this book, this book that I'm 95% sure is solidly good and interesting and smart, I must write for at least one hour.

Getting the butt in the chair by any means necessary.

Declaring Itself

 July 30, 2020

Declaring Itself

I've got glass in my foot, some tiny shard from a measuring cup or drinking glass dropped on the tile floor at my parents' beach house.  I used to get frustrated when the kids spilled milk at dinner, dropped a plate as they cleared, let fall a bowl when baking.  And sometimes I still do.  But most of the time in the past few years, I've relaxed about spilled drinks and broken glasses and plates and umbrellas.  We break things.  We are tough on houses.  We're not a rambunctious crew, but nearly nightly there is a spilled drink; nearly every summer we destroy an item at the beach house -- a lamp, a table umbrella (that was Connor and I together this year), the finish on the sideboard in the dining room (think: slime).  Over the course of our year in an Italy apartment, we needed to get fixed or replace the following: a mirror that a child tried to pull off the wall to see whether there was a medicine cabinet; the ceiling where one child had thrown up slime, which took the paint off the ceiling with it when it fell back to the ground; a hallway light fixture (playing soccer in the house -- or was it football?); a few dishes and wine glasses.

So when Mary knocked over a measuring cup on Saturday morning and Sebastian knocked over a glass on Saturday evening, we talked about wearing shoes in the house to be careful. I'd gotten a shard of glass in my foot the week before when Sebastian broke a pane of glass in our back door at home, so the routine was fresh: sweep and vacuum, put the pieces in a paper bag rather than just the plastic trash bag. 

Having just extracted with tweezers the shard from the broken pane at home, I was feeling great.  Until I stepped on a new piece that Saturday evening.  It hurt.  A lot.  I have a high tolerance for pain (not proud to say that I drove almost thirty miles home from work as my appendix was rupturing a year ago -- not safe for me or for the other people on the road; I just couldn't see an alternative in my state).

I tried extracting the newest shard of glass with tweezers there on the front porch.  I soaked my foot in hot water and salt, just like the internet said to.  I didn't see the glass, but I felt pretty sure that I got it out.  For four days I hobbled around the house, hobbled on my walk each morning, hobbled down to the beach with my chair and books and iced tea.  Eventually I would feel better, I thought.  But feeling better and having less pain had to wait: these were four solo days at the beach house, three blocks from the beach, with hours upon hours to read and write and watch tv or movies and talk with girlfriends.  I figured that the foot would improve or I would go to the doctor once I returned home.

One day on the phone with a friend who's a doctor, I asked her what to do about the foot.

"Is it swollen?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Put some bacitracin on it before you go to sleep, and if something is really wrong, it will declare itself," she said.

"What do you mean, declare itself?" I asked.

"Something will happen so that you'll know that you're not okay. You'll see swelling or pus or something like that.  You won't be able to walk," she said.

I rubbed bacitracin on, wore shoes even around the house since that felt better, and convinced myself that it was getting better even though the pain persisted.  Three nights later when I went to sleep I looked at my foot: completely swollen. By the next morning, my toes couldn't touch the ground, raised up by the swollen ball of my foot.  As I overcompensated with my right leg, my right knee started hurting every time I walked on it.  I had waited long enough: I had gotten in lots of reading and visiting and relaxing and walking.  It was time to leave the beach a day early and go back home to a doctor.

I cleaned and packed, taking at least double the time as I limped and over-compensated and caused more damage to the left foot with the glass in it and the right leg that was trying to give the left foot a break.  I cried because it hurt and laughed because I was talking to my sister on the phone.  

When I finally got to Urgent Care hours later, they identified a definite infection and anesthesized the bottom of the foot, and dug in.  No glass found.  More scraped tissue now and a bigger incision, but no glass.  We think that you actually did already get the glass out, they told me. It's the infection that's causing all pain and swelling.

They started me on antibiotics.

I called my friend again for more advice: go to the ER?  go to a podiatrist?  just rest?  I had assured her those days before that everything was okay, that there was no swelling and I felt fine.  I was telling the truth.  Until it was no longer the truth.  I had had some pain, but the foot looked fine.  

Until it didn't.

My friend, "Well, it certainly declared itself eventually!"

I think now, Maybe everything is like this, declaring itself eventually, and we have to decide finally what to do with the declaration.  Sit with the pain or discomfort since it's tolerable for a while; let the pain settle under the skin until the declaration is huge and unavoidable.  Is this what I did with the pain in my marriage?  Maybe.  Maybe it had to sit that long.  Sit until the pain declared itself so powerfully that the only possible step was separation.

"Do the next right thing," I read somewhere, maybe in a Glennon Doyle book.  

That's what I've been saying since the end of April, just the next right thing.

I don't know the next step.  And when people ask, I tell them that I don't know.  I tell them that I am waiting, living, being, waiting until the next step declares itself.  Or more accurately, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to stop the thoughts of the what next what next what next -- divorce or get back together or keep the family together or live separately forever? It's hard to wait.

But I'm trying to trust that the next stone will appear above the water and I'll be able to step on it, feet freed from glass, simple and sure for that moment.

And really, I don't have to be sure that the stone or step is right.

If it's not, it will declare itself.

Loud Counting

"One and a two and a, one and a two and a, one and a two and a, one and a two and a."

Eight-year-old Hannah is counting loud and clear at the piano in our living room.  She is sitting with Shinichi, her piano teacher, a reserved yet talkative man, who, Hannah has told me, says that he has two rules that she must obey for playing piano: 1.  You must count when you play; 2. Don't look at your hands.

When Hannah's three older siblings hear Hannah, they look at me, and we share a smile, a little giggle, at how sweet, how carina, how cute her counting is.  Two of the kids have taken piano, and we have never heard them count, and certainly not count like this, with a loud clear confident voice.  I don't want Hannah to get self-conscious and not count, so I tell them, "Shhhhh, she is doing so well!  Don't laugh or tease her about it."  They comply, delighted to be part of this, I think, in the same way that they go along with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy for her.

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When I'm on Christmas vacation, I decide that I will try to learn piano again, for the second or third time in my life.  The first time I was in sixth grade, and those lessons lasted for three years.  I had that big red book, John Thompson's Modern Book for the Piano (okay, I'm not sure that it said Modern then, but when I google this book now, I see that this is the title now), and from 1984-1986, this series was my learning.  I plopped it up on the piano to practice whichever songs Mr. Hashim assigned me for the week.  I know I practiced because it was homework, and I completed homework; I couldn't imagine another option.  I likely practiced exactly what was assigned, made it good enough, and called it done (much like science homework for me through elementary, middle, high school, and college).   I remember practicing my scales and having a hard time keeping my fingers from not all flying up off the keys, as I tried to press down just one at a time.  While I pressed my index finger down, the middle finger, the ring finger, and the pinkie immediately reacted by going in the opposite direction: up.  

I walked up two flights of stairs in a stairwell to get to Mr. Hashim's office, what I guess we'd call now a studio.  I pictured him -- even then -- as smoking a cigar while I played, but even then I wasn't sure whether I was making that up.  My mom complained that we had to pay if we cancelled, but when he cancelled -- which he did when he was called to play the organ at the Bruins' games at the Boston Garden -- there was no penalty for him or bonus for us.  

On weekday mornings, I got up early and sat at the kitchen table while my mom made breakfast for my dad and he ate.  After he left at 6:30am, I ate Toaster Strudel, drizzling the frosting in squiggles, or a bowl of Cocoa Krispies or Captain Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch, or, if I was feeling like being healthy, Corn Flakes with a spoon of sugar.  I sat and watched her clean up the kitchen or do chores, and I played Wingo and other games in The Boston Herald that morning.  

One day she said to me, "You sit here every morning.  You have plenty of time.  You should be practicing piano."

I'd never considered that.  She hadn't made me take piano as she had the two oldest kids (I was number four of five kids); I asked to take lessons.  I wanted to learn.  I wanted to be able to move my hands along those keys and make sounds, make songs.  My oldest sister could play "Jingle Bells" and "Joy to the World", and even Debby Boone. ("You light up my life...you bring me whole...to carry on..." My mom used to tell me that I asked my kindergarten teacher, Miss Campbell to learn "You Light Up My Life" on the guitar, and I would teach the kids all the words.  And indeed, guitar-playing Miss Campbell, amidst the play that used to be kindergarten in the 1970s, used our circle music time to do just that that winter right as the blizzard of '78 hit.)  So I wanted to learn the piano, and I wanted to get better and be really good.  I just hadn't thought about practicing beyond my mandated homework.  Maybe I practiced more then, I don't really remember.  My younger brother picked out a short -- two lines -- song he liked from that red book, and I used to play that one a lot.  I still wonder which one it was.  If I got the John Thompson red books again -- perhaps books 1 and 2? -- I would know it when I played it.  I got to playing Christmas carols, too, eventually.  So I was fine, not great, but good enough.

When high school started, my mom said, "Choose one: soccer or piano.  You don't have time to do both."

She knew that I'd choose soccer: I'd been playing since I was five, I was trying out for the high school team, and not playing was never a consideration.  It was just what my sister Christine and I did every fall, every spring, and sometimes every winter and summer, too.

That was the end of Mr. Hashim, his possibly imagined cigar and smoke, and piano for me.

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Nine years later I was teaching and living at a private school.   I was an intern, teaching just two classes, at a day school with twenty boarders.  In the evenings, I could do whatever I wanted.    I decided that I wanted to try piano again.  I took my school keys, went down to the music building a couple evenings a week, and sat at the piano, starting over with my book, song by song, page by page.

I don't know for how many months I did this.  Likely I stopped when I started dating a boy and having plans more nights of the week.

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I married a guy who plays the piano.  I cannot even understand the papers he puts up to play on the piano.  Not having a piano is painful for him.  When we first bought a condo, we got a used piano (possibly for free, because most people will be happy for you to take their pianos because they don't want to pay to get rid of their piano -- moving a piano can easily cost $1000), paid to move it and get it via crane up to our second floor condo.  When his grandmother's piano became available, we got rid of our piano, paid to ship out his grandmother's piano from New Mexico, and again paid to have a crane hoist the New Mexico piano up to our condo.  And when we moved to our own house, the crane and movers came again, the  piano hanging in the air, in the sky, high up, wonderfully unreal.

His mom teaches piano, too.  And when she plays the piano in our living room, the sound is richer than I've ever heard in our house, a deep, resonant, full sound that stops me.  Daniel's playing is beautiful, yes, but likely I've just gotten used to it.  And yet.  Years ago, when I knocked on the door of his grandmother's house, to see a girlfriend who was living there, I could hear a piano back then, and then, too, years ago, I was awed, enjoying the sound before I knocked, before he came to the door, before I saw him and fell almost immediately in love with him.  And when I commented on his playing, asking what it was, he said something self-deprecating like, "Oh, I always play the same song, the same notes, just something I like."

So we have a piano.

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In December I start on page one of Hannah's book, this time not the John Thompson, but the Alfred Basic Piano Library Course, Part 1.  I know my G clef scale for the right hand pretty well: empty garbage before dad flips or every good boy deserves fudge for the lines on the scale: E G B D F.  And dface for the spaces between the lines: D F A C E.  The bass clef scale has always been harder for me to remember, so I'll have to relearn that.  But for now my goal over December break is to catch up with our eight-year-old.  Her teacher Shinichi has marked in pencil which songs she has done ("v. good" they say) and which ones she is working on ("practice").  Often Hannah sits with me, teaching me as Shinichi has taught her, insisting on my out loud and not looking down at my hands.

Once school starts up again, I have a hard time keeping up with Hannah's weekly progress -- grading and prepping and email and daily house and kid upkeep  don't take me back to the piano bench much.  But then COVID-19 arrives and spring break and extended quarantine, and there I am, back at the piano, practicing Hannah's songs by myself on the bench.

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The kids aren't home.  My husband is in the basement on his computer.  I sit at the piano, cautious, not wanting to make mistakes.  Usually I practice with Hannah, but today I'm on my own.  I hit the keys in the right order, in the wrong order, in an order I make up.  I don't like making mistakes, hitting the wrong keys -- it doesn't sound good, and I think, How annoying to hear this.  I play quietly, not wanting to draw attention to myself or bother others with my errors.

I'm by myself in the living room.  Mistakes don't matter.  I am not going to bother anyone.  I realize, I don't know why, that I can hit these keys as hard as I want.  I don't mean that I am going to abuse the piano and make noise banging away.  But when I hit a key with my finger, I can push it down hard, loud, confidently.  I can enjoy the feeling and the sound, whether it's right or wrong.  I can make mistakes big if I feel like it, and it doesn't matter.

I play loud now.  Hitting slow and loud the keys that make up the songs in Hannah's Alfred Basic Piano Library Course, Part 2.  I've made progress.  I love the slow and loud.  I love not being apologetic for mistakes.  I love not making myself small even if I am the worst piano player in the house, even if I grew up in a culture that disdained people's drawing attention to themselves, even if my loudness could be construed as showing off.  Showing off what, I think -- my learning piano?  hitting keys loud, both correct ones and incorrect ones?  I am going to play Hannah's songs and Mary's "Amazing Grace" and Sebastian's "Sonatina," too.  Loud and right and loud and wrong.  I am just going to play play play.  And I am going to be loud loud loud.

I play and play, and my husband comes upstairs and compliments my playing.  A kindness on his part.  "I didn't know it was you!  I thought you were one of the kids playing," he says.  "You sound good."

This is high praise for me: I am trying to catch those kids.

I get quiet again with him there.  I'm ready for him to go so I can play loud and confident again.  But he's never asked me to play quiet.  My errors don't bother him, and he's a musician, so he's not worried about my bringing attention to myself with my playing.  

It's me: it's me who has somehow understood somewhere somehow that I should be quiet.  When I was a kid sitting on the front porch, my parents gently chided me, "Careful: your voice carries.  I could hear it when I was walking down the street."

I don't fault them: they were right, and I certainly didn't need the neighborhood to hear me.  But it wasn't just the front porch voice carrying that shushed me.  Somewhere I learned not to disagree loudly, not to contradict, not to speak up.  I did learn how to keep people comfortable, how to make peace, how to avoid topics that made other people angry.  At work, in my marriage, in my family of origin.  

I don't feeling like I'm finding my voice now, but I do feel like I'm uncovering it.  I want to speak words the way I hit the keys that afternoon, slow and clear and confident and not worried about making mistakes.  

notes to self

June 30, 2020

Two days.  Eight interviews.   Zoom from my children's bedroom, on the wall behind me a puzzle of favorite children books.

Day one.

Our first interview is a man.  Our second interview is a man.  I can easily see either one of them as our next head of school.  I come downstairs to the kitchen and tell my husband, "We could be done now.  The first two were outstanding."

Third interview is a woman.  Fourth interview is another woman.

I am so bummed: I wanted to like these women.  I want a woman head.  I want more women in positions of influence at my school (grades 5-8 and 9-12).  But they do not touch the men from the morning.  Both men exuded confidence and passion and expertise.  One woman was in what looked like a wood cabin, the internet connection wasn't entirely steady, she spoke with ease, but I didn't see her as our next head.  The noteworthy detail was that she asked us more questions than any other candidate -- smart questions.  The other woman, our last of the day, expresses appreciation for being there, is eager, enthusiastic, uses many hand gestures.

My votes for the day haven't changed: the first two were the strongest.  In our debrief zoom meeting at the end of the day, people give their impressions of the day and the candidates.  When it's my turn, I go honest: I say, "I wanted to like these women, but I actually didn't!  And I'm really bummed about that, but I didn't get excited about them as heads of our school."  It's a comment that may not sound smart or rational or backed-up by evidence, but I go with my gut and say what I think.  The chair of the board says, "Same!" and I appreciate her honesty as we share that feeling.

Later that night, though, thinking about the interviews, I catch myself and my own biases: in the last twenty five years I have taught at three private schools and had four different heads.  They were all white males.  Is that why these women don't seem head-like enough for me?  because they are not men?  because I don't know what a woman head really looks like?

Day two.  Four more interviews to go, and again it's two men and two women.  As I watch one of the women, I again notice how exuberant and excited and appreciative she is.  She gestures a lot, moves forward a lot to look at us, rarely sits entirely still on the other end of my screen.  

I have paid attention scrupulously for these two days, never checking email or the weather or the news or texts as we interview on zoom.  But during the final hour, as I think about which candidates I want to see move on to the next round, I write myself some notes.  I am thinking about what to say in our debrief meeting at the end of the day.  I want to be taken seriously.  I want my opinion to hold some weight.  I am aware that I am a teacher, not a board member, and on this committee of eleven, there are only three faculty members, two of us teachers.  I can't not speak up when I feel passionately, but I know that I need to speak with more than passion.  I'm sitting on this committee with two colleagues, yes, but also with CEO's and CFO's and lawyers and accomplished corporate folks.  So yes, I feel intimidated and so thrilled and lucky to be part of this process.

---------------------------------------------

On a piece of paper, I write the following:

(typed here)

note to self:

• say what is true
• speak clearly and with evidence
• do not worry about being liked, lovely, or agreed with
• don't be emotional -- use rationale -- be clear with reasons -- cite answers and info from interviews
• don't laugh or gesture...be calm and clear and smart

I read this paper over a few times, and then I look back at my notes from the interviews, especially for the few people that I want to see move on to the next round.

When the committee chair asks faculty for their thoughts, I wait until the other two faculty have spoken.  In the past meetings, I've jumped in.  I want to be patient here, calm, not over-eager.  

I've now watched four women interview for this job, and three of them showed me what not to do, what struck me as less than convincing or confident.  The fourth was calm and brilliant and competent, but she also did not promote herself as the men did even though she can do big, hard things.  But it's the three women that I felt critical of that are giving me my notes to self on how to speak and now not to speak.  I am a woman -- how can I be so critical of other women?  The thing is, I didn't feel so much critical of them so much as seeing myself in them: this is me, appreciative of being considered, happy to be there, eager to have everyone like me and not think, Who does she think she is, applying for this job?  does she really think that she's this good?  

I am these women.  I am the woman who asked the most questions at the end and engaged the interviewers more than anyone else did.  I am the woman who didn't say the obvious and didn't self-promote.  I am the women that were excited and appreciative and enthusiastic, gesturing and telling stories and winning us over with their loveliness, but not persuading us that they were right for the job.  I am all of these women.  And I know that, in order to get the candidates I want for round two, I need to be a different version of myself.

-------------------------------------------------------------

After the first day of interviews, I wrote myself a note to contact the consulting company after all this to share with them my observations about the women who interviewed and to tell them that it would be good for them to give a special training to women applying for heads of school.  At the end of day one, I felt like I had the interview approach figured out, seeing what these women should have done.

After the second day of interviews, I realized that I needed the same advice that these women did.  I wasn't applying to be head of a school, but it doesn't matter.  

I want to be taken seriously.  I want to be heard.  I want not to need that list.

Apology

I never understood how to apologize to Jennifer.  I could say, "I'm sorry you're hurt," or "I'm sorry that I hurt you," but I couldn't get much further than that.  She wanted more, and I didn't have more for her.  She felt that I had betrayed her.  She had loved Daniel before I did, and I knew this.  

I didn't want to apologize for falling in love with Daniel.

I didn't want to apologize for kissing him after I told her that I had feelings for him, and she had said, Okay.  That's okay.

I didn't want to apologize for getting together with him because their own romantic relationship was over when I got together with him.

I didn't want to apologize for betraying our friendship because I felt that our friendship had been lacking.

I didn't want to apologize because I wasn't planning to break up with Daniel, so the apology felt insincere.

I didn't want to apologize because I was going to marry Daniel, so the apology would be empty.

But now.  It's nineteen years later.  Daniel and I have been married for eighteen years.

We are now separated.

His apologies are not enough.  He sees that he has hurt me, and feels bad that he has hurt me, but his apologies are not enough.

My apologies to Jenn were not enough.

What would have happened if I had given her the apology she needed?

What would have happened if I had put her and our friendship ahead of myself and Daniel and our relationship?

I would have spared myself the pain I'm in now.  Maybe.

I would have spared myself some of the pain I've experienced in the past nineteen years.  Maybe.

I wouldn't have our four children.

For years I have thought of What If's.  With the many hurdles and struggles in our marriage, I have gotten after myself for getting married, for not waiting longer, for not looking more carefully at the situation and stopped that fiery rolling ball that was headed towards marriage.  It's a hard ball to stop.  My mom hinted at stopping that ball nine months and then three months before the wedding.  A month before the wedding, I said to him over the phone during an argument over birth control, "Well, we can always get divorced."  But I didn't call off the wedding.   My dad advised me two nights before the wedding to stop that rolling ball.  I wouldn't do it.  I couldn't do it.  I'm not sure why.  Part of me knew that there was trouble.  I was also too in love with Daniel and this big, romantic, passionate, quick relationship.  Perhaps I felt like I couldn't stop a wedding that was already announced and being planned and then planned and then happening.  Or perhaps I just loved Daniel and believed that it would all work out.  

I wasn't sure then, and I'm not sure now.

But finally, in our separating, I have let go of regret.  I fell in love with him within minutes of meeting him.  Eleven months later I loved him.  I was in love with him.  Even with all the difficulties we had in that one courting year, I loved him and wanted to spend more time with him.  I forgive myself now.  I accept that that's where I was nineteen years ago and eighteen years ago, wanting to marry Daniel.  I realize, The heart wants what the heart wants.  The head did not cast as big a vote in the end.

I have watched countless movies and read books where I have not understood the woman protagonist who keeps going for the wrong guy.  It's so obvious that, even if he makes her feel so special and excited and wonderful, he'll put himself and what he wants before her eventually, and she'll be left devastated by him again.  I've never understood this character, never identified with her.  I've thought, Go for the good guy!  or You'll be okay on your own -- trust me!  What was Bridget Jones thinking when she got together again and again with the Hugh Grant character?

Unknowingly, I became that character in my marriage.  The semi-apology, the rationale, the romance, the talking, the sweetness, the kind gestures, the family -- I got sucked in each time, convinced or hopeful that things would get better.  And they did.  For a while.  Just like in any movie or any book.

I can't be that person anymore.  And this is okay.  

-----------------------------------------

Jenn and I have stayed in touch sporadically over the years.  I recently sent her an email with the simple sentence, "I'm sorry."  No qualifiers, no explanations.  It may still not be enough.  But I am sorry.

I am sorry that I betrayed her friendship.  Our friendship.  Her.

I am sorry that I moved forward in my romantic relationship without working through our friendship and seeing where that led, too.

I am sorry that I was impatient in starting and building that romantic relationship.

I don't have to apologize for falling in love.  And I can't change my actions now.  I no longer want to.  I do not regret a love that gave me our our beautiful sensitive children.  I cannot regret how I was so enamored of Daniel.  I cannot regret that love.  And I have no need to.

I'm not sure what the rules of friendship are, but I've gotten increasingly clear on what the rules of betrayal in marriage are.

And I want more than an apology.

Conversations with a fourteen-year-old

One night, it is only he and I and his younger brother who has headphones on and is playing a video game in the same room, but paying no attention to us at all.  His two sisters have gone to spend the night at my husband's rented room, a room in the house of a family.  The fourteen-year-old feels a little bad that he doesn't want to go, that he wants to stay home, that he doesn't want to give up any play time or home time to be elsewhere with his dad.

I tell him that it's okay.

We look up an Italian movie on netflix because I want to hear and read and improve Italian.  We talk.  He asks me, "I just don't get it.  I don't get what could have been so bad between you and dad that you would break up the family for it."

I tell him that it is just adult stuff, that it is not about the family, that it wasn't a family problem.  It was an adult problem, a relationship problem.

He says, "I mean, I know.  But to split up the family?  We were fine.  I don't want to know what happened."

He has always been curious, always wanting to know details and names and stories.  Like most kids, he does not hear when I call him to do a chore, but he hears some story or gossip that I try to share quietly on the phone to my sister.  This is the first time I can think of that he has said that he does not want to know the details.

He asks, "So how long do you think this separation will last?  When do you think that dad will move back in?"

I tell him, "I don't know.  But he might not ever move back in.  I just don't know.  I don't want to give you false hope."

As we get the movie started, sitting on the floor with the basket of laundry between us, he says, "So do [marriage]vows not matter?  Do they not mean anything if people just break them, just don't stay together?

I tell him, "Well, it depends on how you look at it.  Which vows were broken first.  Was it the one to stay together or the ones to love, honor, cherish?  It depends."

We watch our movie.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I thought that, of our four kids, Sebastian and Mary would be the least surprised, that they would get pretty quickly how our marriage hadn't been working.  But they were surprised, shocked just like their younger siblings.  They hadn't seen us fight in a long time.  They hadn't seen me upset or crying or exchanging tense words with Daniel.  We hadn't fought in front of them in years.  But still, I thought that Sebastian would get it since he has his own challenges in working through things with his dad.

But no.

He just wanted our family unit back.  And he didn't want more information about the why or how.  He wanted our family as it was.

How could I tell him that our family as it was was causing me incredible pain, a desperate, raw, vulnerable hurt that I couldn't patch over one more time?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's weeks later.  Sebastian comes out to the porch to talk.  Seven weeks after Daniel moved out.  Today, for the first time, Sebastian has told someone outside our house -- other than the doctor who did his physical.  Even this was shocking to me: when I walk into Mary's exam room, the doctor/MA says hello, and in her I'm-talking-to-children voice, says, "So, I hear that there is a big change at home, and that there is a separation."  I am now the one in shock.  I've not heard these words come from someone else's mouth, these words about my own life.  I think, How does she know?  Which kid actually told her when none of them speaks about it outside the house -- not because we forbid them; in fact, we encourage them, but because they just don't seem to talk about it.  She tells the girls about the counselor that they have at the pediatrician's office, tells them that it can be good to have someone to talk to, that he's a nice man, and they can come in any time.  I shake my head in agreement, but my eyes have teared up: this is a reality now.  We are separated, and this news is no longer in only our own hands and mouths.  I follow her out to go to the boys' exam room, but when she points me to their door, I follow her to her office and say, "Michelle, do you have a second?"  She says sure, and we head to her office.  I ask her which kid told her, not because I'm upset, but because I am surprised.  I'm thinking that it must have been Mary.

"Sebastian," she says.

"Good," I tell her.  "I'm glad that he actually got the words out.  He hasn't told anyone, not even the neighborhood friend that he plays with every day."

She is kind, sharing with me that she got divorced some years ago, that now she is happy, that unexpected love found her again.  She hands me tissues that I wipe my eyes with above my mask.

When she tells our ten-year-old about the counselor, a counselor that he has actually seen before, instead of saying, "Okay," like the other kids did, Connor says, "I don't think so," in such a way as to reveal not a debating so much as a certainty, the way an adult would say, "I don't think so," to a child who has requested staying up til 1am or having ice cream for breakfast.

Back in the car, Sebastian tells us (me and his three siblings -- Daniel preferred not to take the kids to physicals; I rather like getting all the news first-hand) that Michelle asked him directly, "Any changes at home?" So he felt like, well, this is a change, and told her.  And then, as she spoke, he said that he knew exactly where she was going with this information: we have a counselor here if you want to talk.  We laughed in the car at the predictability, at his knowing what was coming next, at Connor's "I don't think so."  And then I told them that I actually really like that counselor and I think he'd be great to talk to, and I am so glad that I have a therapy appointment every week with Peggy.  Peggy is a household name at this point.  I've been seeing her on and off since 2005 when my mom died.  Sebastian says, "I think I remember her.  I remember that she had a puzzle toy that I liked to play with when you took me there."

So now, outside the medical provider, Sebastian has told his best friend in the neighborhood, Gus.  When I walk in the door from blueberry picking with the others, he tells me, "I talked to Gus again.  It was good.  He asked me why you were separated and whether you were getting divorced.  I told him that things weren't going well and I didn't know."

 Good answers, I tell him.  He also says that Gus is angry because his parents acted like they didn't already know or didn't tell him when they knew.  Sebastian tells him, No, don't be mad at them.  My parents asked them not to tell you, to let us kids tell you when we were ready.

I go out to the back porch with some iced tea.  Sebastian follows with the tea I made him in the morning.  He reviews a difficult conversation that he had with Daniel the night before.  He sees that Daniel tried to get it, but that he couldn't totally see the situation from Sebastian's point of view, that he didn't totally get the problem and Sebastian's frustration.  He just couldn't get it, Sebastian says.  I tell Sebastian gently, "Multiply your relationship with your dad by ten, and that's me."  Sebastian says, "Yeah, I can see that that would be hard."

Two nights before, as I hung towels on the upstairs banister and Sebastian did dishes in the kitchen, he hollered up, "Do you still miss your mom a lot?"

"Yes," I told him, "not like I did in the beginning when I cried all the time.  Mostly I miss her and it's okay, like even happy, because we talk about her a lot.  Or because you kids bring things up, like today when Hannah asked me to buy you kids the treats that my mom bought me when we were in Scituate.  But sometimes, like on a big occasion for you kids, I feel a bit sad, wishing she could see it, see you.  She would have adored you all so much.  She would have just gotten so much joy out of you."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sebastian is dishes this week (rotating chores among four kids: dishes; trash and recycling; running laundry; folding laundry), so we get some visiting time after dinner each night.  Tonight he asks, "So how is it for you with single parenting?"

Daniel moved out about seven weeks ago.  He has the kids two days and two evenings a week, though all at our house.  I am at home with the kids for the rest of the time.  I think about the question, and I think about whether to answer honestly.

"Really, it doesn't feel much different," I tell him.

"Oof," he says.  Then, "But dad cooked a lot.  But you don't actually mind cooking."

I agree with him.  "Yes, your dad is a great cook.  And I miss your dad and talking with him and laughing and joking around or reading or watching movies or walking with him.  I really do.  But in terms of parenting, not much has changed for me."

He asks something else, and I tell him, "Do you know that there was at least one or maybe two weeks in May when your dad and I spoke to each other only to be polite?  We exchanged nothing else, just politeness and logistical information.  That was it."

"I didn't notice," he says.

It's good he didn't notice: kids are supposed to be kids, paying attention to themselves.  But I want him to know that the big happy family that we split up wasn't a big happy family before Daniel moved out.  For those six weeks before Daniel moved out, there was extreme turmoil in our house, so much tension and sadness and grief and pain and anger in the air.  I don't say all this -- he's fourteen, and he doesn't need to know it.  He's already told me that we're doing a good job and that he doesn't feel like there are sides.  I want to keep it this way.  But I also want him to know that things weren't as good as he thought when we all lived together.  Daniel's not living with us is not what is causing the problems: it is a result of the problems.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

There will be more questions, more concerns, and likely more anger, too.  Sebastian has made it clear that he does not want to spend half his time at our house and half his time at Daniel's.  He doesn't think that it is fair if our problems affect his personal life.  I can see what he's saying.  I haven't figured out what to do about it, but I get it.

I don't have more answers for Sebastian.  

Mostly I hope that he keeps talking.

Confession

I am a good girl.  I am polite.  I don't speak out of turn.  I raise my hand to speak.  After Confession, as a kid, I thought, How can I get down to fewer sins next time?  Confession started like this: Bless me Father for I have sinned it has been six months since my last confession these are my sins.

(Last night I asked Connor, age ten to say grace before dinner.  One of the six of us always says grace before dinner.  It's usually something like, "Dear God, Thank you for this food.  Thank you for ultimate frisbee today.  Thank you for the walk in the woods and our friends.  Thank you for my not having homework tonight."  In other words, relaxed, personalized, low-key.  During the pandemic, we add a sentence about those suffering from covid and their families; after the death of George Floyd, we add a sentence about those suffering because of racial injustice.  Connor shakes his head no.  He hasn't said grace in a while.  Amidst the hubbub in getting everyone to the table and hollering at the setters for forgetting napkins and forks, I don't pay attention to who said grace last and who needs a turn.  But I'm realizing now that Connor hasn't said grace in a long time, has bowed out even when asked directly.  We give him some prompts, "You can just say, Dear God, Thank you for this food...or thank you for the sun today."  Connor shook his head no.  I remember Connor's telling me recently that he doesn't believe in God; that he thinks that people just make God up to have something to believe in.  I tell him, "You can say thank you without saying dear God."  He considers this, but then decides no.  Another kid picks up grace.  We return to the God talk.  We talk about the Greeks and Romans -- I teach Latin -- and how their religion seems so made-up, mythical to us.  Connor says, "Yeah, that's how they are going to talk about us, too.  I don't believe in God.  People just decide to believe in God."  

I went to Catholic school from kindergarten through twelfth grade.  When my mom suggested Catholic colleges, I applied to two, but went to neither.  It wasn't that I was rejecting Catholicism.  It was more that I wanted a broader view of the world, of life.  I tell the kids, "I went to Catholic school K-12.  It never crossed my mind at your age to consider that there might not be a god.  That God wasn't real.  The only reality I knew was that God was."  I didn't question whether God existed until I was in my twenties.)

At confession, I keep up the script:

These are my sins:

I stole (my sister's socks, my mom's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the freezer).

I lied (about taking the socks and about pushing Christine's clothes to the other side of the closet).

I fought with my brothers and sisters.

I disobeyed (by not doing what my parents asked or by fighting with my brothers and sisters).

I'm not sure the fifth, but there was always a fifth.  After I'd said my Act of Contrition (Oh my God I am sorry for my sins please forgive me i know you love me i want to love you and to be good to everyone.  help me to make up for my sins I will try to do better from now on.  Amen.), I thought, "Okay, so I had five sins to confess today.  Next time I can make it four.  Then three the next time.  Then two.  Then one.  And then what will I have left to say when I have to go to Confession and I have no more sins left to confess?"

Not kidding.

Catholic.  Dutiful.  Goal-oriented.  Sin-improving.  Guilt high.

When I did well in school and captained sports and was president of my class senior year of high school, my mom worried for me.  She said to me more than once, "You're lucky the kids like you."

And I thought, "But why shouldn't they like me?  I'm fine.  I'm not mean.  I'm nice."

As a mom now, I understand that she was looking out for me, reminding me to be humble and appreciative because really, kids are tough (actually, adults are, too, I've learned), and jealousy rears high and can bring out meanness, and she didn't want me to get hurt.

As a kid, I was frustrated that she kept telling me how lucky I was that the other kids liked me.  There was no reason that they shouldn't like me: I was just a kid who did well in school and with sports.  I wasn't mean.  Why shouldn't they like me?

In ancient Rome, when a general or emperor came back triumphant from a big conquering, they would hold a Triumph in Rome.  Julius Caesar got to have four (Gaul, Spain, Africa, Asia).  There were senators and prisoners of war and animals and mimes.  The general was on a chariot, and behind him (always a him, of course) was a slave who repeated through the entire parade, "Remember that you are only a mortal."  

Humility.  Always humility.

Always more to work on.

the other side of the line

July 5, 2020

Why is there pain and loneliness and grief?

Why do the tears come again and again?

Why do I feel free and paralyzed at the same time?

I feel like there is no room for complaints, for feeling sad, for crying.  I mean, there is room, but I don't want these feelings.  I want those other feelings of freedom and relief and happiness and lightness and joy.  Some days those come, too.  

I do crave adult conversation.  It's not like conversation with Daniel makes me so excited and connected that I yearn for more.  If I ask, he'll tell me about the Charles River and a bench in Watertown, about walking to Panera to meet his cousin, about feeling tired, about practicing Italian, about meditating, about talking with someone from his family.  And I am greedy for details sometimes, greedy to know stuff about how he is doing and the lives of people that we know in common.  No one tells you, Yes, you are doing what you need to do, and my goodness, even if it is totally the right thing, it will be so ridiculously hard.  You might be doing what you need to do, and what is ultimately healthiest and happiest for you, but you are also upending your entire life.  You are removing the person you have been married to and lived with for the past eighteen years.  You are seeing that person not even half of the time that you used to see that person.  You are barely speaking to that person.  You will feel loss even if you know that it is a loss that you can handle and that you will be better for over time.  It is a loss, such a loss.

I asked Daniel tonight, "Could you look at the Lake Umbagog website and help me to see whether we can switch the dates of your trip?"

"No," he said at first.

I looked at him, curious.  I wondered, Is this where the trouble is, in simple things like this, where he cannot help me out?  He knows how sad I am that the Scituate dates are not working out, that I feel overwhelmingly down that we can't go next week, and he won't look at the camp dates with me?  I don't know what he is thinking.  But he says, "I can look at it tomorrow."

Okay.  It's okay.

Mary is doing such a good job just being at home.  The other kids are, too.  I want to be that way, too.  An outing here and there, but just hanging out is good and good practice for life.  I can do it....just sometimes I feel daunted by the current situation -- separated, covid, summer.  My 48th birthday in two days.

Daniel asked, "Do you know what you want to do on your birthday?  am I part of it?"

"No," I told him, "you're not."

I wasn't being mean.  It's too much, figuring out my feelings for Daniel.  I need a break.  I do better when he's not here at all, I think.  I didn't want to hurt his feelings, and I don't want my birthday to be strange for the kids if Daniel's not here, but also, well, also, I don't really want him here.  I want my own day where I do everything I want, by myself or with the kids or with a girlfriend.  

Would I rather Daniel be here, making it complete?  Perhaps...but really, if I'm honest, I have to say that only occasionally has Daniel made me feel special on my birthday.  There was the disaster Vermont birthday.  The used books of his grandfather's and a book stand and a dinner I cleaned up in Scituate.  The North End dinner where he was grouchy and I spent a lot of the dinner in line with children for the bathroom.  A few with my family that were fine, just fine.  The one the summer of Gabby when we hiked into Prospect Hill and had his taco salad, and then he had to leave when we had dessert because he had work.

I will buy myself flowers and nail polish tomorrow.  I'll take a hike around Ponkapoag Pond.  I'll do yoga.  I'll make myself good meals -- or at least plan them -- for Tuesday.  I'll do some really nice self-care, including good sleep and reading and writing.  Maybe a chocolate cake.  I'll make a gratitude list, because really, I have so much for which to be grateful.  So so much.

Cry.

Self-care.

Exercise.

Vent.

Sleep.

Write.

Play.

Take care of things.  It feels good to feel like I have some things in order.

Make a plan or two.  Nothing overwhelming, just a plan or two.

Maine next week for a few days?

Maybe.

The rain the rain the rain.

This, too, shall pass.

Do I want to see anyone on my birthday?

Coffee with Chrissie and Cathy?  Invite over a friend?...but who?...strange time strange time...covid makes me pause.

Make a chocolate cake?  Chocolate cake and ice cream?  or a fruit tart?  

Pilates starts the day well.  Maybe start the day with pilates. 

But now, sleep.  Sleep.  This writing is helpful.

The rain the rain the rain.

Torrents.

I didn't take down the umbrella.  I didn't cover the grill.  We didn't protect the ping pong table.

So many tears.  But I think that I'll be okay, too.  I really do.  It's hard now, and it's so tempting to go back to the familiar, the comfortable...but the truth is that it's not that comforting, that Daniel can't give me the comfort or reassurance that I need...I am left feeling still unsure of him and of us.  I need so much more.  But he gave me something, more than something.  

Julie asked, "What will you miss most about marriage?"

I told her, "I'll miss just talking with Daniel."  Because really, that's been my favorite thing, it was, just talking and reading and walking and watching movies.  But those weren't enough for him, and he wasn't smart enough to realize how lucky he was to share those with me.  He faced other ways.  And I was here, trying to hold on as tight as I could, wanting him to tell me that I was the most important person in his life, that I was the reason for him to get up in the morning, that I was the love of his life forever and ever.  But no, he couldn't.  And I couldn't live like that.  So now I'm here, alone.  This is hard.  It is, perhaps, easier to rail against a negligent spouse you live with than to live without the negligent spouse.  This is harder than any of us imagined.  We shared stories and complaints about our husbands, but being on the other side of this line is entirely different; it's a different category.  It is indeed lonely and painful and just plain sad.  But I can't be second to his relationships with other women.  It is so hard for me to let go, and yet I know that I need to let go.  For my own health.  For my own happiness.

July 9, 2020

Another realization: I was holding on tight, so tight, asking for reassurance, giving more attention, being more affectionate, expressing love, having more sex, thinking, This and this and this.  This is marriage.  This is life.  This is okay.  We are together.  He is mine.  I am the most important person to him.  He is the most important to me.  We are together.  We will be married forever.  We will grow old together.  He loves me most.

But then.  But now.  Much has changed, and much has not.  I became, in a matter of days, less afraid -- when was that moment? -- of losing him, or maybe more determined to take care of myself and my happiness, and less afraid of how separating would be for our kids.  And that was it.  I didn't try to hold on any longer.  I didn't try to learn more about him.  I didn't feel more curiosity about what was happening for him.  I wanted myself back rather than him.  I wanted to hold onto myself and to let him go.

I went from holding tight with embracing hands to letting go with open hands.

Embracing myself instead.

And now I can't really go back.  Rubicon and all.

"What a jerk."

I've just walked out of Panera with my sandwich, and because I'm holding the tray with an iced chai latte in one hand and the phone in the other and near my ear, on the phone with the doctor's office to get a referral for a therapist, the tea has fallen off the tray, splat! onto the pavement in front of the door.  

I confess, I actually think for a moment about whose fault it is.  The server who gave me the tray?  the woman from the doctor's office on the other end of the phone?  someone who forced me to stay on the phone and carry out the tray at that exact moment?

Oh, right, it's my fault, and it's totally okay.  I could have put the tray down inside while I finished the call with the doctor's office (the referral is important to me).  I laugh.

"What a jerk."

My mom used to say this occasionally and with humor -- I feel like I should make that more parallel, but I like it that way.  She was talking about something she'd done, and she wasn't being too hard on herself, more acknowledging that she'd made a bad choice or a mistake, and she was getting after herself mildly for it.  The one I remember most was her wanting to get the best deal at Burger King one day, so she got the whopper for 99 cents.  Later she heard something about the calories and sodium in a whopper and said, "What a jerk -- I almost killed myself for 99 cents!"

I didn't worry that my mom was giving herself a hard time.  Mostly I thought that she had a good sense of humor about herself, and her sharing her self-deprecating stories let me see lightness and humor in mishaps.  

It takes me maybe ten seconds to see that I am the jerk here, trying to justify being on the phone (because I have insurance and a primary care person who wants to follow up on why I need a referral rather than to just put it through?) and walking out of Panera with my sandwich and drink (because I love this drink and sitting outside and have some hours to myself?) at the same time.

The woman on the other end of the phone waits a moment -- did she hear the splat! or my gasp of annoyance? -- and says, "Are you okay?"  I tell her I'm fine, and we keep talking insurance and make an appointment for the next day.  Yes, my primary insists on talking with me.  No, my insurance is not correct in the system.

Back in line, I order another chai tea latte.  After I pay, I feel the need to explain my second order, "I dropped my first one," I tell the server.  She says, "Oh, I'll give you another!  You don't have to pay for it!"

I've already run my card, and really, I cannot let Panera pay for this one.  She tells me that she'll bring the new drink out to me when it's ready.

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Hours later I call back the doctor's office with insurance information.  Yep, I had it right: it's an HMO not a Connector plan even though the computer tells Noelle that I have the Connector plan (and no, I don't know what the difference is).  Noelle, the assistant, tells me, "Okay, now you need to call Newton-Wellesley and tell them to change it in their system."  

I express disbelief, "So now, after talking with you twice, I need to call them and then I need to call you back again?"

She stays calm.  "You have to ask them to change your information yourself.  I can't do it.  But then it will be automatically updated in the system, and I'll see it, so you won't need to call me back."

"Can you please give me the number?"

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The guy who picks up at Newton-Wellesley says, "Your information is fine."

"But it's not what my card says.  My primary says that it's wrong in the system, that you need to change it."

"Yeah.  Okay."

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I call back the primary and ask to speak with Noelle.  She immediately says, "I see it in my system: you're all set!"

I thank her for helping and I tell her, "And thank you for being so patient.  I was such a pill."

"No, no you weren't," she says and chuckles.

We both know I was.

We laugh.