Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations (11 page)

At 25, I finally poked my head out of the laundry
pile and got a job. It was quite a bit like stepping on the pirate
ship.

Once I got the teeniest, tiny-winy taste of
freedom and debauchery I went all the way. Those after work, coworker
bonding trips to the bar became nightly events. Many things that my
tamed "Wendy" side thought were just irresponsible and
childish and rude, Red Handed Jess was out doing with absolutely no
conscience. I was not so different from my ex after all.

My version of Captain Hook was man's man with
hair on his chest who pretended he was my boyfriend when creepy guys
leered. He spent time with my husband to calm any jealousy and
promised him he was no snake in the grass. He drove me home when I
was too drunk. He always bought the drinks and he never tried to take
advantage of my drunkenness. He never wanted me to be his mom.

I thought my ex-husband would understand that it
was finally "my time" to be a girl in her 20s and be
supportive and hold down the fort at home for once, but it didn't
work out like that. But for a little while I got to feel cared for
and protected while I indulged..even if it was by someone else.

But ultimately, Captain Hook and Peter Pan are
both playing pretend at love. When I started spending more time at
home, trying to appease my Peter - my Captain Hook ignored and
replaced me. This is right around the time of the garbage can panic
attack so I knew it was time to make a choice and, as it turns out,
mine and Wendy's choice was the same.

Peter taught her how to fly and offered
her solace from societal pressures. Hook let her indulge in her
darkest fantasies. But who did Wendy choose in the end?

Herself.

And that's why now, finally, my Wendy complex has
paid off.

I choose myself, too.

You see, Peter Pan is not the hero in the story
named after him. And my ex-husband, similarly, is no hero in my
story. The hero is the one who grows, shifts, changes, realizes
something. Peter wasn't willing to grow or shift. He feared adulthood
and responsibility more than he feared death.
In the end of
Peter's story, Wendy goes back to the real world to grow up. She will
take the risk. The lost boys decide to go with her, realizing they
don't want to live a loveless life. Captain Hook is dead.

Peter Pan just lost
everything.
The
family he created left him and his favorite enemy slain.

All he has left is his fairy, Tinkerbell, the
only one who doesn't realize she's being used. The only one who
continues to indulge him – who still idolizes him. There is no
one to fight. There is no woman to care for him. There is no one left
to play with.

He goes home to an empty Neverland.

Peter and my ex were unwilling to make
sacrifices. They both do what they want to do. They both, ultimately,
alienate people.

Like Wendy, I choose to just go home and grow up.
I am leaving Tampa for Mobile today.

Like Wendy, my attempt at stalling adulthood
backfired.

Like Wendy, I will not waste another moment on
flying boys who want me to play mommy. I would rather take on all
this responsibility alone with the whisper of a chance that I will
eventually fall in
real
love.

I mean, I could fall flat on my face.

But all of that would be better than playing
pretend.

Mobile

Move
– March 2012

So,
I got the eff outta there. I'm moved into a three bedroom house,
sight unseen. My totally dope mom checked it out for me and handled
all the business end. Transactions are still practically
spit-handshakes in Mobile. The landlords liked her so they, by
default, like me and my three kids. My mom is good PR.

Kelley
called me the morning of the move because she had something for me.
It was mattresses.
She just
gave
me three mattresses.
She said a friend of hers was getting rid
of them and she knew I could use them.
Who does that?
I don't
think I've ever experienced kindness and sistership like the kind I
got from Kelley. I don't know if I will ever be in a position to pay
her back for her unconditional love. She just
saw
me. She just saw me and gave me help.

Like
Bridget.
I can't move away and fail. If I can't pay them back, I
at least owe them my functionality.
As for my ex, he was
astoundingly supportive. He insisted on helping us move because it'd
be better for the kids to see their Dad as part of the process rather
than us “leaving Dad behind.” He was right. It was good
plan.
But I knew things were too good to be true. And he has a
compulsion to sabotage good times. Sure enough, as we were packing,
we disagreed about something. He threw a fit and said he wasn't going
to help me move. Some shift had taken place within me and I just
didn't care. I let him leave and called his sister's husband, who was
on standby because of my ex's tendency to tantrum out of things, and
he said he'd help me move.
Minutes later, after pacing and
waiting for me to call him and beg him to help me to no avail, my ex
came back and said he'd help for the kids' sake.
Fine.
Shortly
after
that
,
all was back to normal. We had a pleasant trip up. He helped us move
things into our new place. The kids were completely bonkers bananas
at the fact that they could run around in an actual yard. And be as
loud as they want without the bang bang, which was a signal to shut
up, against the wall from The Other Single Mom back in the apartment
complex in Tampa.
We took my ex-husband to the bus station and
off he went.
I was free.

I
was really free.
Feeling
Alone Again – April 2012

I've been in Mobile about a month and my day-to-day has mellowed
considerably.
Yet despite being in a town where I have
so much history, I feel overwhelmingly alone.

I do not thrive in
solitude.

I admire people who do. Y'know, like those people
who jog and take a sculpting class and read a book and go have coffee
alone? That's impressive.

I can tell I’m going through one of those
post-divorce phases they catalog in self-help books. This must be the
Overcome By Loneliness phase. There are fleeting moments when I think
I want a boyfriend. And I think it is at that moment when many of my
single parent cohorts actually start dating.

But I am an investigator. I am more apt to
examine my feelings than act on them.

And if I ever have some sort of psychotic break
where I think I would actually ever want to get married again I want
to be sure I am not jumping into the relationship as some sort of
salve for my heartache. Divorce rates for first marriages are high,
and higher still for second or third marriages.

I guess the simple answer to my loneliness is
that humans are pack animals. At least I think we are. We like
belonging to groups. We like connecting.

But the reason
my
loneliness hits me like
a suffocating vice around my chest is probably due to Solitude being
the biggest theme of my life thus far. And Solitude is the catalyst
for every negative and life-altering mistake I’ve ever made. I
don’t trust myself alone. I don’t trust myself anymore
generally,
but especially not alone.

Chris and I were commiserating over our mutual
parentless childhoods and the subsequent effects. He reacted by
becoming a high-maintenance need-machine. I did the opposite. I am a
serial nurturer always choosing the broken misfits as my comrades.
Because if I am caring for someone then I cannot be alone.

Both Chris and I, when left alone, turn into
uselessness. I stare at walls. I don’t eat. I don’t want
to make the mess or go through the trouble of cooking. It’s
just me...
It’s
just
me...?

And there it is. I typed it and I didn't even
know that was how I felt. I’m not worth the effort to me.
That’s what it all boils down to. Damn, subconscious.

If in my Solitude I do not feel I am worth the
effort of basic self-care, then how could I possibly land in a
healthy relationship if I choose to seek one?

Any man I meet would be coming in with a job to
do.

Give me a reason to care about myself. Prove
to me that I matter.

That’s a lot of pressure. I would never do
that to someone consciously. And now that I am conscious of it I have
to just sit in Alone until it feels okay.

The
easy
solution to this loneliness
problem would be to just go out and meet people, but I fear my 10
year relationship to an addict has left me feeling quite small and
socially inept. Plus, I have three kids with me all the time. It’s
just easier not to. I’m way too insecure right now. I’m
always worried that other breeders are judging my parenting. Then I
worry that people without kids think I’m lame for breeding.
Then I worry that people think I am a teen mom because I look 19.
Then I worry that I dress too young for my age. Then I start feeling
sorry for myself because I am poor and only have two pairs of jeans.
Then I am depressed because I have fifteen pairs of pajama bottoms.
And at that point I am content with playing with bubbles with my kids
in my backyard.

So for now, since it makes me so uncomfortable, I
will sit with Loneliness and we will get to know each other better.

Naked

We separated almost a year before we got divorced
so I've been single for almost two years. I wonder how I will know
when I'm ready to date and I keep coming up with one tiny problem.

Someone new will eventually see me naked.

A shocking secret I've learned about a lot of
divorced couples, including myself and my ex, is that they still
sleep together if they can. Almost everyone I know who has gotten
divorced continued to sleep with their ex - some for years after the
marriage ended.

I mean, getting laid takes effort and crappy
marriage puts you way out of practice. Sleeping with the person
you've been sexing for a decade is just convenient. They already know
what you like. Or totally don't. But at least you know what you're
getting.

I, like so many other moms, have "let myself
go." When I only had one child, I smugly watched the weepy
doormat moms on Oprah and berated them from my couch.

I will NEVER let myself go! You can't take
care of others unless you take care of yourself!

I used to love my body. I walked around naked all
the time especially during my first pregnancy when my boobs were all
huge and my skin was extra glowing.

Fast-forward two more kids, a combined 4 years of
breastfeeding, crushing depression, jobs which kept me away from
human interaction and I am just a hop-skip from wearing pajama jeans,
a do- rag, and bunny slippers in public.

I mean, as I've mentioned, I only own the two
pairs of jeans and the rainbow collection of pajamas. Where am I
going in that? I do not have the tools to make myself attractive. I
can't compete. I am a really, really mommish looking woman. I'm about
as sexy as Nanny McPhee.

But the real roadblock is the post-baby body. I
nursed three kids in 5 years. My tits have definitely seen better
days. As the joke goes, my bra size is now “34 Long.”
Couple that with the tell-tale mom pooch, an extra thirty or forty
pounds above my pre-marriage weight and a crooked C-section scar and
I fear I must live a lifetime of self-love to crappy internet
erotica.

I
did
have some post-divorce sex with a
chef from Paraguay. He was a palette cleanser, if you will. He was
very athletic and attentive in the way sexy, South American chefs
should be. Our short affair was the perfect way to break the
monotony, reminding myself that venturing away from convenient ex-sex
is worth it.

Now, though, I am raising my kids full time. All
the adults I know are women or gay men. I can't imagine a straight,
single man wanting to jump on board with all of this - or even
accommodate it.

Married friends say stuff like, "you're
worth it, girl, he's out there." I don't think they know what
the hell they are talking about. Reassurance from
married
women is not helpful.

I need a fairy Godmother to poof into my life,
buy me clothes, do my face and then babysit. Otherwise, I fear that
no matter how pithy my dating profiles are and no matter how
cross-eyed, blindingly horny I am, it's celibacy whether I like it or
not.

And since you're asking...

...the answer is "not".
General
Life Update
-
June 2012

OK, for realsies, I don’t know what took so
long. I should have moved home ages ago. I am so generally happy that
I just feel sad to think of the time I lost being unhappy in an
unhappy environment, surrounded by unhappy people. Feeling good makes
me realize, also, how few people I know back in Tampa who
are
happy. There
was
a lot of robotic, suburban defeat, though.

Not to say my life is not majorly vanilla
suburbanism. I mean, I live in West Mobile with my three kids doing
playdates and stuff. I am not any less poor. I actually have less
time to myself now that it's summer break and we're homeschooling.
But what’s weird is that, in Tampa, I was always exasperated. I
was living a little bit outside of my body, just doing what I was
supposed to do. Now I am with my kids almost twenty four hours a day
and I genuinely enjoy it. I enjoy
them
. I talk to them and
listen to them. I hug them. I don’t have to spend sixty percent
of my mental and emotional bank on numbing the general malaise of a
wasted life. I’ve got 100% of myself
to
myself. It’s
nice.