I wrote this post just over two months ago. At one point in a mediation meeting shortly after that, our lawyer proposed that Matt and I each spend a week figuring out how to extricate ourselves from each other financially. Now, as then, I am still financially dependent upon Matt, and he has been struggling with making ends meet in two separate households. While the photo business has certainly brought in some money, it’s inconsistent and fledgling, so it’s unlikely to solve our problems. I’ve been looking for a job for what seems like forever, but nothing’s happening. This all adds up to a very pissed-off Matt, a very concerned lawyer, and a very fucked-up me. Money money money. It’s a bitch.
When the attorney tasked us with this financial untangling, I made a joke about how it felt like homework; all of a sudden I felt as if I needed to write a paper, or study for a test, or meet some impossible work deadline. My head is buzzing with legal jargon about child support and maintenance payments. My stomach is in knots with the fear that before long, I’m going to be cut off from food and gas and therapy and MY GOD HIGH-SPEED INTERNET. I’m not afraid for Calder — Massachusetts protects him well, and Matt is extremely devoted to his happiness and well-being, but all of the legal ramifications of divorce leave me pretty much in the gutter.
In Mourning and Melancholia, Freud wrote “for the most part…the occasions of loss extend beyond a literal death to include…all of those situations of being wounded, neglected, hurt, out of favor, or disappointed, which import opposite feelings of love and hate into the relationship or reinforce an already existing ambivalence.” Well, no duh. My ambivalence toward this whole dismantling is really bad. I have to snap out of it. I have to protect myself.
But all I want to do is stick my head in the sand until it’s all over. Change is rarely linear, so I might as well start digging south.
Poor me, huh? Yuck. I despise myself when I feel this way. I have friends who love me. I have family who cares. I have access to Buddhist wisdom:
May I be free of anger, fear, and worries. May I not fall into a state of indifference or be caught in the extremes of craving and aversion. May I not be the victim of self-deception.
Maybe it’s time to turn over my fear. I can replace it with the trust that the highest good is unfolding, not just for myself, but for everyone involved.
Maybe these are quotidian details to some, but shedding the pernicious and embracing the present may be all I have left.
See? I just saved myself $150 in therapy.
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5 comments:
Ugh. It's never like the movies - revelation and freedom.
Oh, how did you crawl into my head?
having two ex's and one child I can sympathise even though I look at it from the male perspective..there were lots of times when trying to run my truck..make payments on it,insurance etc etc etc..and support ex#1 and our daughter when I wanted to bury my head in the sand as well..but we all made it through it... without the truck running there was no income..so do I send them money or fix the damn thing...all this doesn't help you much other than to say your not alone I guess...
Quotidian details are often the best details (plus "quotidian" is such a lovely word).
I want to give you some sort of words of encouragement... but as with all horribly difficult things, we have to go through them all alone.
For what it is worth - I am sending you some virtual happiness vibes from snow-covered Montreal. This post really touched me (I despise clichés, yet here I am using one) - thank you.
Hi there. I came across your blog from a mention by T-Shirt and although I've only skimmed a few entries, and I don't know your whole story, it seems as if we may have similar-ish circumstances, as my husband left me when I was 7 months pregnant. It's hard, it's really really hard, but it DOES get better. I promise.
Wishing you and your little one a Merry Christmas.
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