'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse....

Ok, so it's not the night before Christmas, it's two nights before Christmas, but my house is very, very quiet.

My little girls are celebrating Christmas this evening with their Dad and his family. Their Uncle is visiting from CT so the family have brought the celebrations forward to include him. The girls will be so excited to see him! I know they're going to have a ton of fun. They're going to put on a show, their Aunt will help them. They'll pretend to be Little Ms Christmas's and hand out the presents, their Aunt will help them with that too. Although this year, Ella can read the gift tags herself, so she may not need any help. Their Granddad will sit in his comfy chair beside the big window that overlooks the beautiful garden and quietly open his presents, all the while watching his Granddaughters with a heart full of pride - the way we all feel when we watch them. The girls will be super excited to give their Dad the presents we chose for him. They'll eat the yummy food that Granny prepared and stick their little hands into the special Paulson snowball, searching for a gift with their own name on it...and eventually they will collapse into bed, excited, exhausted, happy.

Of course, I may be entirely wrong. They might be having the Christmas celebrations at their Aunt's house. The above is just how I remember Christmas used to be.

I think that you eventually become 'used' to being divorced, but I don't think you ever become used to not being with your children at times like these. I think that you always regret the break up of your family unit and I think it takes a long, long while to get to a point where you don't blame yourself for that. Right now, my heart is hurting, my tummy is churning and all I really want (selfishly) is for Christmas to be over. I don't want to rush the time S has with his girls, but I cannot wait to pick them up on the 26th and have them back in my arms. To listen to them babbling on about all the fun they had - and then to start all over again when we have our own Christmas celebration that evening.

Don't get me wrong, I may be sad but I'm also very happy that our girls are having fun tonight and that they're having special time with their Dad and the rest of their family. I'm very aware that when it's their time with me, it'll be their Dad who's missing them - and so the vicious circle continues.

With the divorce rate so high these days, and people moving to other countries, more and more families are split apart and what used to be a day for huge family gatherings is pushed out to other dates, divided into the morning with one family and the afternoon with another, and sometimes even celebrated on Skype. This is the first year in a very, very long time that I haven't been with any of my immediate family for Christmas. My girls are away, my Mom is in Grahamstown, my Dad is in Zambia and so is my brother. My other brother and his family live in Australia. I'll miss all of them on Christmas day - terribly. Luckily I have other incredible people in my life, who love me dearly, and I'll spend the day with them. We'll have fun, but it won't be the same. Just different...and I guess that these days 'different' is more of the same.

Right now, I just wish that Maya the cat ate chocolate and drank wine. She's a great companion, and very snuggly, but she doesn't giggle when I tell a joke, and there's no way she'll dance on the tables! ;)

xoxo

Regrets

A little while ago, someone asked if, having been through my divorce, I had any regrets.

Regrets are supposed to be stupid…”don’t regret what you’ve done, learn from it instead”. Regrets are a waste of time…”don’t waste time living in the past”. Certainly! I agree wholeheartedly, but sometimes our actions have such an impact on those we love that we can’t help but regret that pain we have caused. Perhaps we just have to find another name by which to call those regrets. I couldn’t answer the question with a simple 'yes' or 'no', so I’m writing it down here instead...the place where many of the long conversations I have with myself are played out!

The question was difficult to answer because this person has not been through a divorce herself – thank goodness! She sees me happy now, and maybe she thinks that because I’m smiling and seem to have my life back on track that I’m no longer hurting or missing part of what I used to have. As with anything in life, it's the common thread between people that brings them together. When the thread is a good one - the birth of a baby, a wedding - it's easier for the people around you to relate and to want to share the experience with you, but when the shit hits the fan - the death of a loved one, cancer, divorce - it's much harder for those who have not walked that same path to understand what it is that you’re going through. And anyway, one naturally gravitates towards those people going through the same thing as you are at the time, because you relate to eachother, because you share that common thread.

Many friendships are formed around experiences - both good and bad. Think of all the new Moms who meet eachother at Moms and Tots groups, at baby clinic, or during antenatal classes....firm bonds are formed and many of those become lifelong friendships. Last year I wrote this post about the group of friends I met at Divorce Care (DC). DC finished more than a year ago, and we're still friends. We see eachother every week and have a good laugh in our WhatsApp group chat every day. These people (and my parents) are the only people who understand exactly what I mean when I say that I do indeed have massive regrets.

It doesn't mean any of us would go back to where we were two years ago, but it does mean that we wish life had worked out differently. That the promises we made before God and our families and friends...and to the person we had intended to love for the rest of our life, could have been kept. We regret that our children do not wake up each morning with us, that we have to share them instead. More than anything, we regret that our children have had to go through the pain and the heartache they have been through, because yes, they see their parents happier now, but a child from a divorced family will always hope that their parents will get back together.

Having been through my own parents’ divorce as a young child, I can completely relate to what my girls have had to deal with – and I’ve been able to draw on my own memories to help and reassure them. I remember the crap as a child, having to say goodbye to my Mom to go to my Dad, and the other way around, wanting to please them both without hurting the other. I've watched my children hurt. I've heard Ella say and do things to explain her hurt and confusion that I can't bear to repeat. I've said it here before....it sux, and it always will.

So yes, I most certainly do regret that S and I could not pull it together and give our girls the family ‘togetherness’ they want – and deserve. I know we’ll find it one day, albeit in the form of a ‘blended family’ (this seems to be the new term for a stepfamily, maybe because not everyone remarries when a new family is formed). It won't always be S and them, or me and them, because S and I will both move on, and our girls will learn other life lessons from those new families that they wouldn't necessarily have learnt otherwise, but the learning of those lessons will have come at a cost.

Dealing with these regrets doesn't mean that I sit around and mope all day. I cried all my tears, many years ago. However, with the anniversary of my actual divorce only a few weeks away, I'm unsure what to expect over how I will feel. It will always mark one of the roughest days of my life, and I will always remember sitting in the courtroom, waiting for my name to be called, but my girls have grown and adapted and are doing remarkably well. They've become used to the routine of time with Mom, and time with Dad. I've grown and adapted, and I see S doing the same. I can't say that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, because there is no longer a tunnel, but wide open blue sky, with occasional dark and heavy clouds that hover, burst and go.

“I haven’t lived a perfect life. I have regrets. But that’s from a lifetime of taking chances, making decisions, and trying not to be frozen. The only thing that I can do with my regrets is understand them.” Kevin Costner

What have I learnt? About divorce? Wow....

It sux!

It's a process. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. And not necessarily in that order, and just because you've been through one stage, doesn't mean you won't go back to it. It takes time and patience. I've come so far, yet the last few days, almost a year down the line, I've been back at depression, or let's rather call it sadness. The difference now is that I understand the emotion - it still hurts, but I can sit down and accept it and deal with it. It no longer immobilises me, I can move on from it.

This post may end up sounding like a bit of a pity party, but really, it isn't meant to. It's just that, sitting alone at home on a Friday night, listening to music, eating an odd combination of food for dinner (chicken and grapes), I realise just how much things have changed. You see, in just a few days it will be an entire year since S moved out. On the other hand, I politely declined a dinner invite this evening to spend some time with Her Royal Highness - me!

So, back to the original question...I've learnt a lot, and looking back over what I've learnt shows a definite movement from one stage to the next, you'll see it as you read it...

I have learnt...
how to keep living while my heart was breaking (ok, so that sounds a bit dramatic, but when the world is crumbling down around you, that's just how you feel);
how to tell someone that I was ok and to sound like I meant it, because I needed to feel that I was ok - and because I just couldn't bear to draw any more attention to my own personal failure;
that some friends could help me with what I was going through, while others couldn't - but that doesn't mean they didn't care;
how effective the divorce diet is!;
how to wear my big girl panties and put myself out there;
how to keep myself as busy as possible with any task - no matter how small - to keep my mind occupied and my body moving;
how to wake up each morning smiling because my children needed me to, and how to console them in the middle of the night when they cried for their Dad - and not collapse into a heap myself.

I eventually learnt how it's ok to sometimes not be ok, how to spend an entire day in bed and plough through a tin of condensed milk, because sometimes (not too often) that's just what you need to do, and slowly the fog starts to lift....

And then I learnt...
that I'm stronger than ever before;
that I'm stubborn, and reluctant to rely on anyone else for anything, because I'd rather just do it myself;
that I love music;
that I actually quite enjoy my own company. When S first moved out, I would dread Friday nights, which is when the girls go to him. Now, if I am home, I relish the time I have to myself;
to sleep in the middle of the bed rather than on 'my side';

Most importantly, I'm learning to let go of my children.
I have to share them, and so rather than be miserable without them, it's better to make the most of my time without them. It's human nature to depend on the people closest to you - depending on your children for your own emotional support is not on. This is my life, it's my mistake/decision/fate to end up where I have. Divorce is hard enough for the kids, they don't need needy parents. They need to know that Dad will be ok and that Mom will be ok - and that so will they! So I've learnt how to tell them, with a smile on my face, that I will miss them while they're away, without making them feel bad or sad. I've learnt to speak of their Dad as the strong and invincible hero, because they love him as much as they love me. I've learnt when to be strong but also when it's ok to cry, because sometimes it's ok for them to see me cry. There have been moments when all 3 of us girls have sat on my bed and cried for our combined hurt, we bonded in that moment. It's better for them to see me miss their Dad, than to see me fight with their Dad. So, as a parent, you do all you can to make the transition a smooth one. Admittedly, I am in a fairly unusual position, as for the most part, S and I still get along pretty well - and that makes it much easier for our girls.

I have also learnt what my mistakes were - now that hurts! Knowing and admitting to where you went wrong, what you did or didn't do that contributed to the dissolution of your marriage, of your dreams, is hard, but it's a lesson. I know that when new relationships begin - for both S and myself - we will know what to look out for. We know what we want, but most importantly, we know what we don't want.

I've learnt so much, and I continue to learn every day.

xoxo