According to Trish

Shh. It’s early. I have sneaked (snuck?) downstairs to have a little rendezvous with you before the kidsters are awake. I inadvertently made coffee the consistency of pancake syrup but I’m just going to suck down that nasty bidness anyway so my brain can wake up. And then you and I can have our special time together.

Because I have missed you.

Let me just get my excuses for not writing out of the way so we can move on to more interesting things: moving, doubling my job, kids underfoot, little bit o’ family travel and some grownup-style socializing here and there (momma must get out, after all) have all teamed up and roundly kicked my roundly ass. As a result, my body is no longer accepting the synthetic sleep serum that I’ve been offering it (caffeine) and is instead insisting on the real deal. But sleep is like organic fruit — I know why it’s better for me but it’s so darn expensive sometimes.

It’s before 5:30 AM as a I write this. I’ve become quite fond of this time of day over the last 7 years since I’ve become a mother — not because I love getting up early but because the wee AM hours are often the only time I can grab to work or to write. And I’d like to make a little report to those of you who aren’t up at this time: It’s getting pretty sweet out there right now. That’s because it’s still dark. I love the summertime as much as anyone but the delicate slide into fall gets me every year. It’s so impossibly gentle yet so powerful, like the small of a woman’s back. I just want to grab a seat on a hillside somewhere and not get up until it’s November.

So enough of that. I know that’s not why you come here. You want to find out what’s going on in the life of single-momma Trish — and I suspect that you don’t want to hear about the dishes that need done or how fast the kids are growing. You want the good stuff. You want to know if I’ve gotten over that shy thing yet (nope — but working on it), if I’ve started hiking my boobs up to my chin in order to attract a little attention from the male-creatures in the tribe (not quite to my chin) and if I’ve managed to entice one of those man beasts to press his lips delicately or not-so-delicately against mine (not telling, bitches).

And it makes me laugh that you all want to know about that. But I get it. Because while so many of you have expressed your concern, your sympathy and your support during this time, you’ve also expressed another thing: jealousy.

Not that anyone wants to get divorced. But I think the prospect of a little freedom is tantalizing to a lot of you married types. The thought of getting “out there” again, knowing all that you know now … oh, the things you’d do.

And there’s another interesting thing going on with all of you since I dropped the D-word. Let me explain: When I was in college, I had a delightful friend who couldn’t keep it in her pants. (Yo girl! Holla!)  This was no secret, first of all because we lived in a dorm and second of all because she was quite generous in sharing tales of exactly who was or was not circumcised. And she was/is a screamingly hilarious chick. (No, I’m not talking about myself.) And, as often happens on co-ed college campuses in our great nation, there was a lot sex going on — much of it of the guilty variety. You know, girls sleeping with people they later regretted or sleeping with guys to land a boyfriend (which rarely works), people neglecting to use proper protection, classmates adding new and exciting levels of kink to their sexual dance cards … you get the idea. As it became known that my hilarious friend was pretty open about her exploits, people started talking to her about theirs. I guess it was like no matter what you (I mean they) had done, you could go confess to so-and-so because she always had a story that would top yours. There was that reassurance of thinking that what you’d done wasn’t so very bad after all.

Since I’ve come clean about the divorce, I sort of feel like that girl in that I’ve slept with everyone in my dorm (kidding). But now that I’m out there with the failed marriage thing, and been open to certain point, I find that people want to tell me their stories about their marriage woes. And I want to hear them. Not because I get off on hearing about people’s problems, but because I’m interested and I care. (Because I looooves you!)

I also suspect that people want to tell me about their marriages as a point of comparison. They want to know if they’re having normal marriage trouble or if they’re having big, scary trouble that will eventually be their undoing. It’s like talking to a cancer patient who started out only having flu symptoms — and maybe you’ve been having flu symptoms, too. You want to know how to tell the difference  between a minor bug and a potentially fatal condition and you’re wondering if the cancer patient has any insight.

Now let me pause right here to say that if you have shared your story with me, please know that it is safely tucked inside my head and I have no intention of hauling it out for the world to see. If you read something here that sounds like you, please know that someone else  or several someone elses have told me similar stories. Because many of the stories I’ve heard are strikingly similar.

The fact is, marriage can be a lonely place. Even if you’re married to your best friend. Even if you wouldn’t change partners for the world. Even if you’re still attracted to the person on the other end of that ball and chain. Why is that? Is it because we stand there in front of the whole world and go, “See this plate of spaghetti? I love it. I love spaghetti and this plate of spaghetti in particular is so intricately delicious that I pledge, for the rest of my life, that this is the only food I will ever eat again! Come visit me in 50 years and I’ll be sitting right here, still chowing on this exact plate of spaghetti! When I’m on my death bed and they ask me what I want for my last meal, I’ll say it loud and proud, ‘Bring me my spaghetti!’”

But come on. It’s a tall order. That’s not saying that I don’t believe in marriage, because I think there can be a lot of fantastic things going on in the good ones. But I’m saying it’s really easy to get tired of doing the mental work to relate to that spaghetti anymore. And eventually it becomes easier to just skip some meals rather than go back to that same plate of food.

OK, I think my little metaphor is falling apart here. Let’s speak plainly, shall we? Here are the things that I’m hearing over and over:

1. My spouse doesn’t understand what I’m going through.

2. We’re not having sex.

Right now I’m imagining a bunch of you going, “Wha? You mean we’re not the only ones?” Nope. There’s a whole subculture going on here, people. I have heard this A LOT.

I wish that I could trot out some great advice for all of you celibate, lonely married people at this moment but honestly, I’m too busy trying to get laid. (Another joke.)

However, since I’m a chick I can offer just a wee bit of insight to the dudes out there. This probably won’t help any of you, but what the hell?

If you’re in the land of supposed domestic bliss, and especially if you have children, you need to help the fuck out. (Said with love. Lots of love.) I think some of you are great at this. I have seen this in action. But I’m talking this kind of help: Send your woman off for the day (or several days). Hold down the fort. Don’t be a whiney baby about it. Let her go off by herself or with some girlfriends and let her remember who she is. Because the mental load of motherhood is much more formidable than the list of tasks on her to-do list. Yeah, she wants to sit down and take a break, but she also wants to stop thinking about what everyone else needs and just think about herself for a bit. Let her remember that she’s funny and interesting and worthwhile for a bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with getting someone’s breakfast. Motherhood can be phenomenal in a million ways. But it can also be a big, fat identity crisis. When roughly 99.2% of your day belongs to the care and upkeep of other people, it’s pretty easy to not feel so sexy. Having the expectation of 0% privacy throughout the day doesn’t help, either. It’s hard to take the time to conduct all of that personal groundskeeping that women require when you have short little people peeping around the shower curtain.

On the reverse side, ladies, you need to take the time if he’s offering it. Go. Don’t look back. If he’s not offering it, comandeer it. Explain why you need it (which he may or may not get — doesn’t matter) but then GO.

And obviously, men want more sex. And if they’re getting plenty, chances are that they still probably want more. And then even more. I’m just guessing about this …

Sooo … the question is, how do we get this all humming along so that everyone is happy? I read something a while ago by John Gray (the Mars/Venus guy) that relationships are cyclical, in that woman need romance and intimacy in order to feel sexual and men need sex in order to feel intimate and romantic. The thing is that someone has to get this cycle started. So if you’re reading this, I challenge you to be the one. Consider it your homework assignment. BUT …. but, but, but … don’t expect an overnight miracle here. You have to work this program for a while, I think, before the cycle starts running on its own. I also just recently heard something from a wise person who said, “You wouldn’t go to the gym once and then go, ‘Well, nothing happened so I guess it didn’t work.’” Put in the time. (And yes, to answer the obvious question, I applied all of this to my own marriage. I’m not saying this system fixes everything but it’s an important starting point.)

Obviously, I’m no expert at any of this. However, I have a friend who I think is a good case study. She is the most contented person I know, in her life and in her marriage. Her husband really shares the load at home (they both work). They each let the other get away, guilt-free, pretty often. They’re getting busy a couple times a week — not always like rock stars, but still, there’s a frequency. I think they have some pretty spectacular fights here and there but they’re airing things out. Another key: I suspect that she feels pretty sexy — as she should because she’s a hot momma. So there’s something to be said for taking care of yourself (although between you and me, I doubt the bitch has ever had to work very hard on it). But even if you don’t have a rockin’ bod, it’s worth taking the time (yes, I understand time is hard to come by) to wear clothes that make you feel pretty and to go out get a good haircut, etc. Those things help. Because ultimately, neglecting yourself is neglecting your relationship. Ladies, speak up about this.  Spell it out. Inform your man-beast that it takes work to look hot and sexy and to FEEL hot and sexy so you’ll be motivated to get him all hot and sexy.

And it’s now 9:00 in the morning and I’ve been writing all of this while getting breakfast for the munchkins and changing diapers and sitting in a lawn chair in the basement so I can keep an eye on them while they’re playing and now sitting on the sticky deck. If they only knew what their momma was up to. Enjoy this now, peeps. Someday they’ll be old enough to have Internet access and then I’m going to have to start writing about knitting patterns and how to make a great meatloaf.

Reminder: Do your homework. Report back.

It’s my last night in the house. The kids are in bed. It’s really, really quiet.

I’m sitting at the high kitchen table, where I always seem to end up working even though I have a desk in the dining room. There are a lot of boxes around but there’s still some packing to do — mostly random piles of clutter that will take some tedious going-through. I’m think I’m just going to swipe them into a couple of boxes and sort them out on the other end. Because the time for sorting and organizing is over.

Now is the time to mark the moment. An end. A beginning. A transition that is occurring right now as I write this.

The kids spent the day with my sister (THANK YOU, TREAS!) while my mom helped me pack (THANK YOU, MOM!). I picked the munchkins up and as we were all getting out of the car and I was digging out my keys, it struck me that this was the last time I was going to unlock the front door as a resident of this house. And it didn’t bring me to tears, although plenty of other things have. I felt resignation. ”Yeah. There was going to be a last time. It’s now.” Megan whined that she was hungry and Benjamin chattered as I carried him and they had no idea that something significant was occurring.

My normal impulse is to turn things over and really try to get at the meat of what’s going on. But over the past few months I’ve had to learn to power down a bit just so I could do what needed to be done: details, logistics, tasks. They can be a nice distraction.

In my power-down mode, I don’t have a lot of insight into tonight. I don’t really have a lot to say. I just want to note The Moment. I want to nod my head and say, ”I don’t quite understand you, Moment, but I know that you are important.” We don’t always know when the Big Moments are happening, so I might as well acknowledge one when I know it’s here.

If I want to address anyone, I guess that would be my house. I want to tell it that while I’m leaving it, I still have warm feelings for it in my heart. I’m comforted that my children will be able to come back here to a familiar place when they are away from me. I want to thank the house for being good to me. I want to part as friends.

I wonder if growing up in a military family is paying off right now? Moving must’ve gotten into my DNA along the line somewhere because it all feels pretty normal to pack up and start over.

Start over. Not totally but some. I realized today that as long as my kidsters are with me, I really have nothing to complain about. (But don’t hold me to that. Sometimes I find complaining to be entertaining. No, really.)

That’s all for now, blogmuffins. Signing off from this location. Next time I write to you all, I imagine that I’ll be at my desk, which will be tucked into the corner near the stairs, one of my favorite pictures hanging where I can see it. There will be spaghetti sauce on the stove (a house isn’t a home until you’ve made spaghetti sauce there) and the kids will be wrestling their way across the couch, laughing and ignoring SpongeBob on the TV as they burn off their evening crazies. I’ll be trying to squeeze in a little writing before dinner while they’re not paying attention. I won’t finish until after they’re in bed and the house is quiet. Really quiet like it is now.

And instead of boxes to fill there will be boxes to empty.

Nighty night, campers. See you on the other side.

OK, confession time. Shhhh. Lean in real close, would you…? Anyone looking? Here’s the thing: I, uh, really don’t know how to be single. I don’t know how in such a massively huge way that as I’m sitting here typing this I’m on the verge of hysterical laughter because I REALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I’M DOING!

I’m sure this sounds premature. I know we just made The Big Announcement. It’s true. But divorce decisions don’t just happen overnight. There is a big, fat lead-up to the day when you finally become the town crier and confess that, yes, it is true. So you have some time to kick things around and think about what life is going to be like afterward. I am not ready to date right now, today, here at the Panera where I seem to spend so much of my bloggy time…

But…

The time is coming. It’s out there. (Oh no! It’s out there! Somebody call the police!) Right now I feel like I’m 15 and in my best friend’s house and I just want to giggle into a pillow. Because this Trish who I am right now has never been single. The Trish who was single before was a different Trish. That long-ago Trish is sitting inside of me right now, poking me in the ribs and going, “Hey! Guess what? I’m still here… You want some help?  Because I’ve done this before… remember?” Oh yeah. I remember.

That Trish was not great at dating.

You want to know just how not great? If you happen to be a guy and maybe you went to high school with me, here’s a test to figure out if I had a crush on you back then: If I spoke to you at all, I was absolutely not interested. Sorry (I’m sure you’re fabulous now, though).

I maybe got a little better as I got older but probably not much. I don’t know. Let’s face it, if I dated you at all in my 20s I was probably drunk during the meet-and-greet phase of our relationship (or possibly “relationship” — you know what I mean). And I’m pretty goddamn charming when I’m drunk, I can tell you, so I probably had no problem chatting you up. Also, if you were lucky enough to meet me during what I like to refer to as the Slutazoic Era, I’m sure things moved along quite nicely.

But now it’s a different ballgame. And I’m out of practice for any sort of dating ballgame, to be honest. 

I like people. If you’re a person and I don’t know you (or even if I do), I want to dig into your head like it’s a half-gallon of ice cream. I’m interested. I want to know what you ate for breakfast and if you had a dog when you were a kid and what age you were when you first did it and if you ever pee in the shower… I want to know it all. So I think that this is probably good for my personal dating world because I like to ask questions. Or it will be, when I freakin’ have a personal dating world… but I’m saying that even if I go on a buttload of bad dates, at least I’ll get to meet a bunch of people and have some conversations. Some of the guys will boring or loser-y or whatever. Some of them may be nice but there’s no chemistry. Maybe some of them — or even just one of them — will be the best ice cream I ever had. Who knows?

But I’m paranoid that that shy, tongue-tied, long-ago Trish is going to try to take over. I was pretty sure she moved out years ago so I was surprised to find that she’s been squatting in the basement all this time, waiting.

And here’s another thing that I’m paranoid about — and it’s probably really, really stupid but I think about it and I want to say it: I am maybe the only divorced person (or soon-to-be, anyway) in most of the peer groups I associate with. I am big and loud and crazy and talkative sometimes. As I mentioned before, I like people and I like to talk to lots of people. I am now really, really paranoid about talking to anyone’s husband because I am terrified that people will think that I’m flirting — because I’m being big and loud and crazy and talkative. But please let me assure you that I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO FLIRT. I missed that lesson whenever they were giving it out.  Any attempts at flirting in my past have ended in terrible disaster, I assure you (ask my college roommate — she still teases me about it). So please do not mistake my smartassiness as flirting. It’s just me. (I also say this because it’s been misconstrued in the past — I’d find some guy trying to lay a kiss on me and be like, “Whoa! What are you doing?” And he’d be like, “You were flirting with me all night!” And I’d be like, “Ummm… I was?” So I am clueless.) (And also: I do not cheat and I do not help anyone else cheat. Long-ago Trish had a policy of not going after anyone who was otherwise involved with anyone else — that’s one policy I’m going to borrow from her.)

So I don’t know if I had to say all that or not, but I wanted to. A divorced friend of mine (who is now happily married) said that he felt a lingering sort-of 1950s stigma about being a divorced person. Possibly he just perceived it, possibly it was real. But I get what he was saying. I keep thinking of the Happy Days episode with the “hot to trot” divorcee’. I wonder, “Will people think I’m hot to trot? What the hell does that mean anyway?” Where is Potsie when you need him? (And why was he called Potsie? What the hell was up with that show?)

And now, chickadees, one more confession: The thing that prompted this whole blog tonight was that I think I might have maybe kind of gotten checked out by an OK looking man when I walked in here. I was thinking, “OK, girl. This is your world now. You’re not ready but you could use some practice…” So when I got up to throw some things away he happened to be walking past. And you know what happened? Nothing because long-ago Trish took over and I put my head down and sprinted to my seat without even attempting eye contact. So embarrassing to even write that. I’m laughing at myself right now — and also cringing. But, hey, it was a learning experience and it was harmless. Now I know that long-ago Trish needs to be bound and gagged and reminded that she doesn’t run the show anymore.

Someone today called me the Indiana Jones of Singledom (thanks, Charlie!). I’ll take that. If I think of myself like that then maybe I’ll be able to take this on…

Hang with me, people. It’s going to be interesting.

Divorce. No one wants to say it. People find out that you’re having problems and they talk around the issue so they don’t have to use the word. I talked around it, too. I said “splitting up,” “if things don’t work out…,” etc. Then when someone finally says it they whisper it, like that scene in St. Elmo’s fire where the mother kept whispering about cancer.

Then finally you realize that you have to speak the word. You have to try it out. You have to see how it tastes in your mouth, how it feels on your tongue. It has a hell of an aftertaste, I can tell you that.

The first time I spoke it was on a Saturday afternoon at a parade. My daughter was still in her leotard from her dance class. She was busy playing with someone she knew so she wasn’t paying attention to me. I told the other kid’s mom and then I fell apart, right there on the curb as people walked past me with their lawnchairs. I hardly knew the woman but I knew that she’d been divorced because we’d discussed it at the community pool the summer before. But I had to tell someone. I had to make it real. I had to put it out there in the universe. I had to call it what it was — not “we’re splitting up,” not “separating,” not “having problems.”

That was weeks ago. On that day, I was sure that there was no way back. I was so sure that I decided to tell a person who wasn’t in my family or who hadn’t already met me for coffee and watched me cry publicly or who hadn’t fielded long and gut wrenching emails from me. Just a person. Because I was sure.

But then I wasn’t. Because I wanted to find a way to not do it. Because the pain of splitting up your family is so bad it’s actually like sticking a knife into your own belly, grabbing your intestines, ripping them out and then jumping up and down on them while they’re still connected to your body. Then multiply that feeling by a million. Or, as one divorced friend says, “It’s hard as fuck.”

So we took a step back from the edge of the cliff. We said maybe not. But then there came a point when we both realized that what was broken wasn’t going to be fixed. And if we did manage to adhere all those pieces back together, it was pretty likely to be some warped, cracked version of what it was.

Then you have to tell everyone. That is when you wish you had some sort of celebrity publicist to do the dirty work for you. And these days, you practically have to write a press release anyway because of facebook. So I did the dirty work. Then, before I posted the Notice of Our Official Demise, I got a babysitter and sat in Panera and emailed back and forth a hundred times with the person who I guess I now have to refer to as “the ex.” There were no more last-minute “let’s not do this” emails. Instead, it was “Let’s stay a family, even though things are going to look different. Let’s cheer each other on. Let’s be kind and cooperative. Let’s stay friends,” all the while thinking, “Do all divorced people do this? Are we kidding ourselves?” but hoping to God that we can pull it off. Yes, there is hurt and disappointment and some anger, but we could work well together when we wanted to in the past. Maybe we can do it now.

So it was time to tell the world. Or our world anyway, via the ever-present gossipsphere of social networking. But first there was lots of staring out the window and thinking, “Really? There’s really no other way out of this? Really?” And then saying, “No. There’s not. It’s hard and it’s sad but how many times can we circle the same block before we decide to turn?” So I posted it. And somehow that made it feel official. And we again emailed each other about how sick we felt after seeing the post. And we commiserated over the announcement of our divorce from each other.

This is going to sound nuts, but in a way it was kind of beautiful. There are many things that we do not see eye-to-eye on. We are very different people. We’ve hurt each other and we’ve made each other mad. But at the end of it all, perhaps we are able to set each other free in a peaceful way, with the recognition that we’re both hurting right now. Perhaps we can find a new way to love each other — as friends and as co-parents. We both have to reconfigure our lives. We both have to start over in many respects but we also have to find a way to continue on with the next phase of our family life. I do not know what shape the future will take but I have hope for us.

And now let me tell you that the napkins in Panera are not absorbent enough to mop up tears. If you’re planning on going there to cry, bring some tissues.

And I also want to say that this has been a tough few months. There have been lots of people who have come out of the woodwork to support both of us and I just want to say thanks again. Thanks doesn’t seem like enough considering the heavy emotional burden that many of you have tried to help us carry. I know that many of you have lost many hours of sleep over us because sometimes it’s almost harder to see the people you love in pain than to be in actual pain yourself. So a very humble thanks. Your friendship and love and support have been overwhelming . While a lot of you have said that you didn’t know what to say or that you wished there was more that you could do, let me tell you that you did a lot just by being present and walking through it with us.