On Mothering, On Lovering

ON MOTHERING

There are only two things you can do when someone misrepresents/defames you. You can either go inward and try and ignore it and hope one day that truth wins out and that all slanderers tongues go silent as if cursed and all listeners of such things become keenly aware that they’ve been had–or you confront the lies and misrepresentations of your character head on.

That’s where I’m at. I’m too scared to throw chanclas these days; I fear they will boomerang back and hit me in the face.

On the micro level, I’m one day away from my divorce being final. I will be unmarried and 49 with two children who I thought I was doing a great job raising because of course I would because I gave it my all and all would be perfect.

I’m just as clueless as the next parent.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a science experiment. I fed my kid organic food I couldn’t afford and was overly involved in so many aspects of their lives and they are fairing no better or worse than the controlled experiment group that subsisted on kraft mac n cheese and the tv for a babysitter.

I raised them to think for themselves. I raised them to be aware of social conditioning, consumerism, and patriarchal expectations. So naturally my daughter hates feminism and my son’s bedroom looks like a Hot Topic tornado hit it.

I wonder sometimes if I took the job of mothering too seriously, too purposefully. The kids go to other people’s houses —houses without books, houses without political opinions, houses without the dire impending doom fight of me. They seek respite there. Banality. Less overt battles. A place they don’t have to think. I wonder about these other places too. Wonder if I was too much for them. Did I have kids too late in my 30s? Was it all too purposeful?

There is no winning here. It’s a matter of waiting and hoping that somewhere you instilled something that might trigger something called responsibility. Something called curiosity. Something called living. Something about giving back to the world around you.

I mother singularly now. Not a single parent–their father still very much here. Checking in with the other parent in the hopes that we will be on the same page every day. Most times we are. But there’s some fundamental differences in what we see as happiness and success. I want my kids thoughtful and engaged and self-sufficient. He wants the latter true, but measures the other part differently.

I see glimmers of hope. I have to hold on to that. I didn’t hold my end of the bargain. I didn’t stay with their dad till the end of the line. My fault. His fault. The fault of time and distance and the chasm between.

I have to remind myself not to look at my kids instagrams if I know what’s good for me.

ON WIFING

I was reading a vague booked reference to me and didn’t of course recognize the hated person as myself right away. Hussy. Psycho.  A woman who does not know me’s use of those words on me. Got me thinking of the nature of our own realities.

In 1996, on my honeymoon with my first husband in a hotel room we’d spent all night getting to in Bratislava, I knew my relationship had ended and that we’d be getting divorced. I knew it wouldn’t last. Traveling internationally with those ill-equipped to go with the flow brings on these denouement moments. I didn’t tell my first husband that it was over; I barely told myself. But that moment in Bratislava never left me and I always knew that was the beginning of the end.

It wasn’t that I didn’t try to keep us together for the next 3 years (our divorce was final in 2001 but I left to go to work in Japan in 2000 by myself–and the year before was spent on friend’s couches).  We did many things to get away from each other. He went to seminary to become a priest and all of a sudden god was with us and I felt like a third wheel. I went deep into graduate school thesis project and an ex-lover.

I’m sure he would tell it differently. Most times, I don’t think it appropriate to tell it at all.

Likewise my second husband–our divorce final tomorrow–I feel the same way about. We got together when I was already writing. I try to keep him out of things. I only answer questions when asked about it. Every once in awhile I have that snap moment where he’s pushed my buttons and I vent–but it’s rare. I try to put it down to a sentence now. We got together when both of us really wanted to have children. That coupled desire works for a good long stretch but doesn’t work when you don’t have anything else (duh). So at least we will always be a family. And we can move on–he back to his lone wolf & cub ways. Me to being an artist without having to be chastised for it. It would have been sixteen years next week. That’s some sort of California longevity miracle. But a failure none the less–we were planning to break up after the kids graduated. We fell four years short. But really I knew we were breaking up 10 years a go. I’m just a chickenshit for facing failure. I didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t keep it together, that the differences between us really are irreconcilable. I broke in mind in 2016. I broke in body in 2017. I break in paper now.

ON LOVERING

But then there’s also this question of happiness. While wandering around in the PTSD of relationship malaise whose details I will not go into because KIDS, I started questioning the perceptions we guide ourselves by. I started wondering like all mothers who are still women and humans whether self sacrifice is always necessary. Why do we do this thing of making other people happy and leaving nothing left for ourselves? What does that teach our children?

My grandmother turned 96 last year and I turned 48 and I thought for a moment–what if I have another 48 years? How should I live them? Should I dare to be happy in that time? Should I be okay with being who I am rather than who I’m expected to be? Do I dare steal away a moment for myself? Is it okay to email a man I interviewed back to tell him how speaking with him made me come alive?

Last September I started seeing a man–but more than that–my twin. Anything I say after that sentence will seem completely corny and insipid and groanfully geeky. I now understand what all the fuss about love is about. I get it now. When you meet the person who gets you, who you can have conversations with instead of staring at the wall or having them in your diary, it’s like nothing else. When no one is putting up with the other but instead fully and totally in love and embracing the other…that’s a whole different type of love. People call it true love. I’m not sure what to call it yet. It’s different. It’s inspiring. And at this middle age of 49 it came entirely unexpected.

My man has suffered more years of vacant love than I have.

My ex goes inward–says little about us to people save for a few of his buddies and family who of course are feeding at a feast of a one-sided story. My friends and family have my own brunch I’ve thrown.

His ex lashes outward–gives women a bad name. She is a reminder that you can never help someone who doesn’t want to get better. Someone who has no self realization.

He spent years trying to conform to an identity placed upon him rather than one that was actually his. How well I know that feature of dysfunctional relationship. When someone demands your inauthenticity and you oblige–and then they call you a liar–and you are–because it’s what the role demanded. Because you didn’t have the guts to move on properly. I know this territory well. I am that territory. Sometimes self imposed–which is far worse.

Where do we go from here?

I take stock in my mothering, lovering. There are so many transferable skills. So much goodness I wish for them all. Even the exes.  Is it enough to just be who you are as a mother? Is it enough to just want to be present? There? Experience the moment and be grateful, appreciative, savoring and to give it all back in return? I think so.

And I’m hoping this thing called mothering and this thing of lovering will give me the strength and fortitude to help sustain the country from its self-propelled apocalypses.

But for this morning. I’m just breathing. Thankful and okay with myself. Even if I’m categorized as some psycho hussy by his ex. Even if my mothering is somewhat avant garde. Even if not everyone understands that my reality and theirs is not the same.