This Mama’s Dharma

Certainly contrary to The Rules, or other such advice about not pursuing men, I sent MTM an email yesterday.  I decided to make one last attempt to clear up the question marks.

Hope you had a fun inauguration weekend.

Also wanted to ask: is everything ok?  I thought we had a really nice connection at brunch, was getting the same vibe from you, and was looking forward to seeing you again…sort of wondering what happened?  If you don’t respond to this email, I totally respect that you’d rather not stay in touch and I promise to not bother you again. 

And here was his response, a few hours later:

Sorry to have gone silent on you. I felt we had a great connection. I’ve been having a hard time in the last few things thinking about whether I know what sort of person I want to meet and what I should expect from the ideal situation. I’ve had second thoughts about a few things, just one of which is whether it matters if a woman already has a kid or kids. I think you’re probably the smartest woman I’ve gone on a date with in a very long time and that we have some very important things in common but I also think that if things went really went well between us, I’d eventually see that we’re a bad fit in circumstantial ways. 
 
Again, I should have called to discuss this instead of writing an email (and only after a nudge) but I’ve been talking to myself about it a lot. 
 
I hope you’re not incredibly pissed at me.

I wasn’t pissed.  Just…extremely disappointed.  

Before I got a chance to respond today, I saw him on the bus this morning.  Funny, how I haven’t seen him for weeks on the bus, maybe since before the holidays, but today our paths crossed again.  Weird.

I couldn’t help but smile as he walked up the aisle and stood next to me. 

“Did you get my email?” he asked.

“Yes, I did.  And it’s all good,” I heard myself saying, while inside I hurt so much.  ”It’s great that you’re clear about what you want, rather than getting into something and then realizing that it’s not right for you.”

He was very kind, and funny as usual, and we had a lovely and silly conversation for about half an hour about the Inauguration and telemarketers and seeing the same people over and over the bus.  Perhaps it should have been awkward but it wasn’t, because we have incredible, undeniable chemistry.  

But he has made himself clear: he doesn’t want to be with me because I have a kid.

In some ways, it’s consolation.  It’s not me he’s rejecting, it’s my package.

“I should have been more up front, in my ad…” I offered.

“No, you were, you were up front.  You told me right away.”

It all got me to thinking how I should not have listened to another single mom friend, who assured me that I didn’t need to include my single mom status in ads.  ”Let them get to know you first,” she advised.

If I had not withheld that information in the ad, he probably never would have answered and that would have been that.  But withhold I did, and he answered, and I started to fall for him, and now that’s definitely not going anywhere.

Now that he doesn’t want me, I want him more than ever.  This is an old pattern that I’d like to break. Last night as I was trying to sleep, my mind was spinning with grief for what I might have had with this funny, fascinating, bright, attractive man.

I thought about emailing him back and offering my friendship, or at the very least, jokingly suggesting that we become “bus buddies.”  I sent the draft of the email to a wise friend, who encouraged me to look and see what was behind it.  

Do I really want to be his friend?  

I do, and I could (especially since we never slept together).  I have very few male friends, and I genuinely would like to have some of that yang energy in my life.  

Are there ulterior motives in my asking him to be my friend?  

Yes, I think so.  There would probably always be some submerged desire to get my “friend” to fall in love with me and forget his reservations about my single mother status.

I have no business trying to manipulate someone like that.  No good can come of it.

In the end, I deleted the email from my “drafts” folder and decided to practice some restraint.

Let it be.

I need to respect his decision and I need to let him go, especially since he was never “mine” to begin with. It is merely the promise of something that I mourn.  Damned reckless hope that always fucks me up.  I know better.

If only I could get over the story of how we met, so incredibly cool and random and crazy.  I can’t even be bothered to try to convince myself that something cooler and random-er and crazier is to come.  

Sitting with it.  Sitting with sadness tonight, loneliness, longing, all that fun stuff.  But that’s OK.  This too shall pass, and all that jazz.

Today was a magical day, a glorious day.  The feeling I get when I contemplate this new leader of ours is simply beyond description.  

I did not head out onto the Mall with the millions cheering on our 44th president.  I knew my feisty three year old would not have been very tolerant of hours-long waits at checkpoints and public transportation, in 25 degree weather, the inability to bring backpacks and strollers onto the Mall, and other less-than kid friendly things of that nature.  

As a mom of a little one, I knew the right decision was to stay home.  We watched the inauguration ceremony on a big screen at a local community center with friends, so I still had that little sense of a shared experience.  I cried pretty much through the whole thing - especially the invocation when the pastor talked about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. looking down from heaven.  And Barack Obama saying in his inauguration speech that it is the firefighters entering burning buildings, and parents who are willing to nurture their children, who will shape our destiny. It was a beautiful, beautiful speech.  Usually I hate political speeches.  I can barely listen to them.  But when he speaks, I am moved, and moved deeply. 

After hearing that line in his speech about nurturing children, I felt better about keeping Sami warm and safe in our neighborhood instead of venturing out onto the Mall.  I was doing my best to consider the needs of my child in an uncertain situation.  

Though we weren’t on the Mall today, I want to raise Sami with a love of service, a sense of personal responsibility, all the powerful themes that Obama talked about in his speech.  

When I looked at that brilliant, beautiful man with his hand on the Lincoln Bible today, I just shivered.  A man with the middle name “Hussein” is now our president.  A man who spoke about how 60 years ago his father would not have been allowed to eat in most restaurants in DC.  Our president.  Son of a single mom.  He’s a bridge, spanning our differences, bringing us together. His very presence uplifts and inspires people.  

My cynicism about politics has not completely disappeared, but I’d say that it has significantly faded.  I’m holding on to scraps of my anarchist youth, my grad school-cultivated contempt of all forms of nationalism, but these days I am feeling downright proud to be an American.  Never ever thought I would say that.

One last thing: I do have an update about MTM, which I’ll post about tomorrow, but I’m not going to taint this post with anything but pure celebration and reverence for this special day, a day I’ll never forget as long as I live.

Buh-bye, W. Hello, O.

 I know it is ridiculous.  I know it is.  But as I was getting a blowout in this fantastic Dominican salon today, I was retracing the steps, and one of my theories is that MTM Googled me and got scared off.

I told him my last name on our very fun and thrilling first date, and it was soon thereafter that he fizzled and poofed.  When you Google me, all kinds of intense stuff comes up.  

For much of the past eight years, I have been an advocate for rights and self-determination for people diagnosed with mental illnesses.  At the age of 25, I made a conscious decision to go public about this stuff, and it was scary as hell. I made a decision to speak out, and I don’t regret it.  I believe in the cause.  I believe in breaking down the stigma and telling the truth, in large part so that others will feel less alone, and perhaps more comfortable telling theirs.  

Online, there are all kinds of articles I’ve written and bios from conferences and speaking engagements. The bios talk about how my parents were both people with diagnoses of severe mental illnesses, whose lives were in essence cut short by the terrible “care” they received, and how I myself went through a very traumatic time as an adolescent in the mental health system.  I have also written extensively about how no matter how traumatized we have been, no matter how much we have suffered, we can and do heal and find a way to live meaningful lives in the world.  That is the message I’ve brought to my writing and work for the last eight years.    

But anyone who didn’t know me from Eve and Googled me would probably be horrified and think, “who is this crazy lady with two crazy parents?”

I know, my mind is working overtime.  I need to just divest the energy and focus elsewhere. 

A wise friend suggested that I need a project or a class or something that is just about me.  Now that Sami is with his dad pretty consistently on Saturdays I need to look into that.  Some kind of nurturing and fun thing that is about building up my self esteem and bringing me joy.  Maybe a dance class or a writing workshop or something enriching like that.

Yet - this Google thing haunts me.  I can’t shake the fear that any potential date will get scared off when the inevitable Googling happens.  Am I doomed?

In the end, MTM poofed and I have no idea why.  And anyway, do I want to be with someone who is that easily scared off?  Instead of constructing elaborate theories that may or may not be true, I just need to move on.  

And moving on I am.  I live in DC and it is Inauguration weekend, people!  The atmosphere is buzzing with excitement, and I just scored a free ticket to one of those fancy-schmancy balls tomorrow evening. Bibbity-bobbity-boo!  Cinderella’s going to the ball.

I’m going to put on a fabulous LBD, walk in there with the killer blow-out I acquired today, drink one (or several) glasses of champagne and feel fantastic about being alive.  I am so lucky to be a part of this amazing historic weekend in our nation’s capital.  

Yes we did!

Reading Single Mom Seeking’s recent post about how confusing dating can be, all I can say is that I truly relate.  

I always feel like I am doing it wrong, like I scare guys away with my intensity, with some needy vibe that I don’t even realize that I am giving off.  I’ve concluded that there must be some pulsating, festering, unhealed part of me that sends them packing with speed.

I have not been in a relationship for 7 months.  I broke up with my last boyfriend last May, feeling totally stifled by the relationship after just three months.  Now, more often than not, I feel stifled *not* being in a relationship.  I’ve barely dated.  There have been little dates here, a smattering of messing around.  Not even any deep, hot, satisfying sex.

Having been married for the last ten years, not having regular sex is like an anathema to me.  It’s definitely not getting easier to get used to.  But it’s not just the physical intimacy I’m longing for, it’s the sense of partnership, the emotional intimacy.  Facing this wacky-ass life as a couple. Laughing and crying through it all, together.  A shared sense of history and experience.

Sadly, MTM has disappeared.  Poofage.  Haven’t heard from him since Monday.  I left him a voice mail yesterday just to say hi, what’s up, and nothing.  Another “poof” move after a story that seemed so darn sparkling and romantic.  I guess love is not built on crazy random dating stories.  

I still have not gotten much more clarity on why I continue to attract these guys who poof.  At least this time, I did not need to fly across the country for the poof.  It was much more convenient.

The question remains: In what ways am I “poof-ing” on myself?

Tonight after work, I sat on the bus on the way to Sami’s school listening to Sigur Ros and I had a very intense string of thoughts.

“I cannot stand being single.  I cannot STAND it.  I cannot do this any longer.”

If I had not been on a bus, I probably would have lost it.  I’ve never been good with public displays of despair.

So I investigated the thoughts.  My practice teaches me to drop the thoughts and to stay with the energy underneath.  It was that of a sad little girl, maybe seven or eight years old.  Just sadness.  It’s actually easier to deal with than that kind of frantic thinking.

The fact of the matter is, the thought is not true.  I have been standing it, and I have been doing it.

Sami’s huge bearhug when I arrived at his school to pick him up tonight meant so much.  It went a long way to soothe some of the ache inside.  I am so lucky, so blessed, to have such a beautiful son to love and who loves me.  I wish it was enough for me right now, like it was in his infancy and early toddlerhood.  I’m trying to forgive myself for needing and wanting romantic love, too.

A wise friend remarked to me tonight that maybe the spiritual lesson in this is to learn how to sit with the discomfort of being alone.  This is something I have not really done as an adult — I have always been in a relationship.  (Except maybe for a month or so during the summer of 1996.  I can’t remember.)

I wish I could say that I honestly like being single.  I want to be there.  Or even just a simple place of acceptance.  There have been moments, glimmers of acceptance, but generally, I’m not liking it.  Not so much.  

I still have no clue how to date.  I don’t have trouble feeling connections with a lot of the men I date.  I could have seen myself getting into a relationship with at least four of the men I dated in the last year. Inherently, that is a good thing, I think.

I don’t know why they don’t return the sentiment.  There are so many question marks when it comes to this stuff.

Perhaps that is my job, to drop the inquiry, to stop blaming myself, to stop blaming them.  It’s no one’s fault, and to make it any different is just to heap suffering on top of an already unpleasant experience.

Like it or not, I’m single.  This is my life.  I’m choosing to date.  It’s not all hell and there are many moments of fun and exhilaration and connection and laughter.  It’s my choice.  No one is forcing me online at gunpoint. A dating hiatus is not an option I’m willing to pursue now, so how can I make the best of the dating life?  

I am going to see about adopting a sense of bemused bewilderment and perhaps to stop taking the whole damn thing so seriously.

I’m on a compassion jag and I can’t stop it.

I have been gathering up Sami’s baby gear to donate to a local thrift store, but then as I was looking at those two bags of stuff sitting there in the front hallway this evening, it hit me that I know someone who can really use it.

My ex.

Have I gone completely, totally, nuts?

Tonight when he came to visit Sami, I waited until he had brought him back and was about to leave before timidly offering him the gear.  ”It’s tough economic times right now, and I thought you could use it…whatever you don’t want, you can just give away…I mean, I don’t even know if you want it.”

I thought for sure he was going to turn down my offer.

“Sure, I’ll take it,” said my ex.  He seemed glad to take the stuff.  He walked away with some of Sami’s 3-6 month sleepers, a play gym, my Boppy pillow, and some random toys that Sami has outgrown.

“I have way more stuff,” I added, which is true.  I haven’t begun to go through it all.

It surprised me how good I felt when he walked out the door with Sami’s things.  I made space in my house and also seemed to open up some kind of corresponding space in my heart.  

This odd experience got me thinking about how giving is such an important concept in spiritual practice.  I don’t feel like I get enough of a chance to practice it.  Perhaps I do in the sense of the time and energy I give to raising Sami, or to being a friend to others.  But that is sort of expected: to take care of your kids and listen to your friends. You’re not supposed to give things to your ex.

The whole experience also got me thinking more about impermanence.  Last week at this time I was a basket case about the pregnancy, having just found out about it.  This week, I am giving the happy couple Sami’s old baby gear, and feeling terrific about it.  In some odd, weird, totally incomprehensible way, I am excited for them.  It’s as if I’ve burned up my reserves of judgment and self-righteousness and now I don’t know what to do.

While my ex was out with Sami this evening, I actually had some quiet writing time to myself.  To be able to write at 7:30 pm, when I still have a semi-coherent thought in my head!  How delicious.  Tonight I wrote a bit about finding out about my own pregnancy, about Sami’s newborn days, remembering the peculiar mix of extreme wonder and extreme anxiety which characterized that time.

In my writing, I am working through the events of the past three years on a deeper level and it feels like there is real healing there, in this sifting through the layers. It feels so strangely ironic, to be writing about Sami’s babyhood and then giving his baby things to my ex for a child he’s having with another woman, all in the same night.  

Perhaps that’s why I write nonfiction and memoir - I cannot make this shit up!

Certainly, the greatest gift in H’s return is for Sami, who gets to experience having a father in his life again. The man who loved him so much in infancy.  How his face lights up when he sees him!  It brings tears to my eyes when I think about that.

As for me, I am cautiously accepting the gift of H’s return: the gift of time.  

For now, a bit more time to explore my love of writing, and perhaps time to explore love, period.  Perhaps.

Today I was reflecting on impermanence and how extraordinary it is and how when we realize, truly realize that everything in life is impermanent, how it can set us free.

This week I was in a hardened shell of anger and self-righteousness towards my ex.  Then, with one apology, it all changed.  With the willingness to let go of my story, my moral superiority, the rage flipped into understanding and even a good measure of compassion.  

Yesterday Sami had his first solo visit with his dad in 11 months.  They went out for lunch and hung around downtown Silver Spring.  When they pulled away in his car, I could feel how painful it was to let go.  This reminded me in a small way of how I felt when we were newly separated and he first started taking him for overnights.  I felt like a vital organ had been ripped out of my body.  

But that passed and changed and although I missed my little guy terribly when he was gone, I began to cherish my one free night and afternoon a week.  It looks like those days are going to be coming back again.  I’m not sure of the time table yet, but it may be soon.

Sami is bonding with “H” as he calls him, not “daddy.”  When my ex left with him, there was nary a tear or sign of separation anxiety, and Sami also came back to me easily and happily.  This doesn’t seem to be stressful for him, at least not at this point, which is such a relief.  

There is just one more person in his life now who is showing him love and affection, and that is just stellar.

When my ex was MIA, I thought it was forever.  Now he is back, and I don’t know what will happen next, and I am reminded on a new level that nothing is forever.

***

And now, for something completely different…

While Sami was with his dad, I went out on the best date I’ve gone on in a while.  Mystery Taxicab Man is such a remarkable person — well-traveled, politically conscious, bright as can be, funny, cute — and Jewish.  Which is kind of important for me, more on a cultural level than a religious one, but it’s nice to date someone Jewish.

We ended up going out for brunch and I felt so connected and comfortable with him.  There was zero awkwardness.  He makes me laugh, and he makes me think, and from the little I know of him, I admire him tremendously.  His mind turns me on.

I’m not going to write too much more about him, because this might actually be going somewhere and I want to make sure that he’s OK with me blogging about him.  

He did call me back today, and we are going out again sometime this week.

I love this feeling.  I do.  That walking on the clouds feeling when there is someone new and all this promise of a mysterious relationship unfolding.  I am full of goodwill towards the world and feel comfortable in my skin.  

It’s fantastic, but impermanent, I know.  I’ve been here before in this exhilarated place and had it all come crashing down with tremendous force.  Yet tonight, I’m giving myself permission to feel just this wonderful, just this connected, heart open, joyful mind.

But first: a ”Baby Daddy” Update.  Exhaling deeply.  There has been a break in the persistent awfulness of this past week.   

I cringe when I read about the horror and devastation happening in Israel and Palestine.

Is it possible that there could be one less Jew and Arab fighting in the world?

Last night, I listened to somebody I trusted, put my ego aside, painful and icky as it was, and yes!  Emailed my ex a simple apology for my own unskillful actions. 

The result was amazing.  My ex completely shifted and was the most conciliatory he’s been since the divorce, when we both thought I might have breast cancer.  For the first time EVER, he admitted that abandoning Sami was a terrible mistake that he regretted, instead of making it all my fault.  He wrote this long and totally impressive email that answered a lot of questions I thought might never be reasonably answered.

Wow.  Just wow.

I still don’t know what to do exactly, in terms of this Saturday’s visitation, but I have some ideas.  I have composed an email which is in draft form and which I will not send until I sleep on it.  (I seem to be getting a hair better at this whole “refraining” thing!) I also made an appointment to talk to Sami’s school psychologist and I’m going to get her ideas as to how to make this transition easiest on Sami.  She knows my kid, as she has been working with him and a small group of other kids on a twice-weekly class that helps the kids to articulate their feelings.

Sometimes he comes home with a sticker (obviously from this class) that says, “I can stop my anger.”  Can he?  Can I?  I think I know what the sticker means: don’t act from that angry place, don’t hurt other people with your anger…hmm.  Good advice. 

OK, enough with the Baby Daddy Drama. 

I have something fun to post.

I have been working downtown for 3 months now and keep seeing this guy on the bus, both on the way to work and back. Very cute, well dressed, about my age.  We never talked or flirted or anything.  I just noticed him every time I saw him.  I liked his face, his dark features, the way he carried himself.

One day after work it is raining and the bus is just MIA. I see him get in a cab and then realize I had better do the same thing or I would be late to pick up Sami. I start to hail a cab and he opens the window and asks me if I’d like to share the cab with him.

Maybe I am obtuse but I didn’t know what to make of that move.  Was he interested, or just being nice, or trying to save money by splitting a cab? 

We chit chat a bit but he is not really giving off a flirty vibe. I think maybe he could be married or with someone, so I don’t flirt with him. He gives me practically the whole cab fare and gets out before me.  He doesn’t introduce himself, and neither do I.

So…fast forward 2 months, to this week. On a whim, I put another ad on Craig’s List, this time not mentioning my mama status, and get a whole slew of completely uninteresting or repulsive responses.  Then one of the last ones to come in before the ad “expires” and IT’S HIM!!

We talked on the phone tonight for a little while and I like him. He made me laugh often and well.  Then he heard my kid in the background and didn’t appear to be freaked out.  (I was going to tell him, just after we had actually met.) He’s wicked funny and smart, I can already tell. He does interesting work in the nonprofit field, just like me. We figured out that we work and live within 10 minutes of each other.  Talk about convenience. 

And get this: we are going out this Saturday night!

Who knows what will come of it, but it’s a crazy story, no?

Maybe life is completely random, maybe everything happens for a reason, maybe it’s both, but damn.  It hasn’t yet ceased to be interesting.

Someone to tell me what to do.
There is not much narrative
Left in me right now. 
I’m tired.
This morning I get an email from the ex
Agreeing that we have gone nowhere with our nasty emails.
Our fights have always been legendary.
I really want to have Sami in my life
As much as I want to be in his,
He wrote.
I spoke to a wonderful lawyer today
Who gave me some pro bono advice
On my options regarding visitation.
At first I got all psyched up.
Now I’m afraid to protect myself and push back.
I feel silly for my need to make this feel
Just a little bit safer.
I keep arguing with myself.
Keep playing different scenarios in my head.
Can’t seem to turn off my brain.
Can’t settle down to meditate
I’m so afraid of what I will find.
I guess that is the whole point.
I promise to breathe for five minutes after I post this.
I just want someone to tell me,
“Do this,
Then do this,
Then do this.
And I promise,
It will all be OK.”

Last night, at visit #4, my ex dropped a very large bomb.

Before that, he dropped a smaller bomb. 

He asked me to take down a picture of Sami on his photo website where there is a Star of David painted on his cheek. 

I explained to him gently that Sami himself asked for that Star of David on his cheek, and that it was a Hanukkah celebration and very innocent, not an anti-Arab demonstration, and that he is half Jewish, and that I encourage Sami to be proud of his Jewish and Muslim heritage. 

My explanation seemed to convince him, so he apologized.

Then he dropped the large bomb.

“My wife is pregnant, in the early stages.  It’s probably too early to tell Sami, don’t you think?”

I just stared at him, probably with an extreme amount of hostility.  I felt like I stared at him for a very long time.

“What do you want me to do about it?” was the only thing I could think of to say.

“Oh.  Nothing!”  He stammered.  “You don’t have to do anything, I’ll tell him–”

“No — Why are you telling ME this?  I don’t want to know,” I said. 

Which wasn’t entirely true, but mostly true.  I was in shock.  I mean full body shock, as in the blood drained out of my extremities.  He often has that effect on me.

My ex has three families now.  One in his country, and two here in America.  We are the ghosts of his past life, too close for comfort.

My grief at hearing the news of his wife’s pregnancy seemed like it would swallow me whole. 

“Just go,” I said quietly, as he bent down to pick up a few toys.

After I watched the lights of his car disappear down the street, I cried harder than I can remember crying in a long while.  Sobbing, shrieking for the ease with which he replaced us, the death of any possibility of repairing what has been so utterly broken. 

And the very worst of it: I cried because I wished it was me carrying this baby and not her. 

I called my beloved teacher, and she actually walked out of her daughter’s Girl Scout meeting to talk to me for several minutes. 

“I already know how to sell cookies,” she said, making me laugh through my tears.

She reminded me that my job was to be just this sad, to cry just this hard, to be just this broken, and not to look away from the magnitude of this suffering, so I can see that this suffering is not me.  Suffering comes and goes, comes and goes.  This is life.  She asked me not to come up with a phony way to tie up the loose ends and make it look prettier.  She gave me permission to be messy.

“Nothing is still.  All of it is waves.  And we all get wet,” she said.

Sami witnessed my intense tears.  I wanted to much to hold them back until after he slept, but the dam broke.

“Mama, are you crying?”

“Yes honey, Mama’s crying.  But I’m OK, and you’re OK, and Mama loves you.”

“Are you frustrated?” he asked.

“Yes, a little.”

“Are you sad?”

“Yes honey, I’m sad.  But I’m OK.”

I walked through the bedtime routine numb.  So distracted and distraught that I poured bubbles into Sami’s bath, though he has been in a staunch no-bubble phase for a while.  I cried through the stories I read him, about trucks and fire engines, and space shuttles.  I tried to hide my tears so he could focus on the stories, but he saw them.

That night, the last thing I did before I went to bed was to write my ex an email requesting that he not speak to me right now but communicate through writing instead, unless it directly involved one of Sami’s immediate needs while he was visiting him.  I desperately wanted to protect myself from his bombs that shatter me so completely.  I know it was futile and very, very unskillful. 

I went to sleep and dreamed that I had convinced him to convince her to have an abortion and to come back to us.

Bombs are dropping on Gaza.

And today, my ex and I threw bombs at each other.  I wanted not to get caught in the war, not to add more aggression to the planet, not to cause harm, but today I did.  It is my aspiration to soften and open my heart, but today it was small and hard and mean.

I fought back.  I fought down and dirty.  The emails and accusations flew.  I talked about consulting a lawyer to get a legal visitation agreement, even though I don’t know if that is what I want to do.  We clawed and nailed at each other via email.  I took pleasure in refuting his accusations, in making myself right and him wrong.  Today was not my finest day of mindfulness.  Pema Chodron talks about “refraining” from harming others.  Not a sexy word, but I wish I had found a way to refrain from acting out my pain.  No one is winning here, especially Sami.

We are now at an impasse.  He refuses to come to the house to see Sami, and I am not yet trusting enough of him to let Sami stay with him.  He is insisting on starting overnights immediately.  I can’t yet allow that. 

He dictated his terms to me and I refused.

You agree on me seeing him as I want or not at all, was his response.

He accused me of making this trouble because of the fetus his wife is carrying.  As you know, Gentle Reader, I was concerned about giving Sami over to him quite a while before I knew about the pregnancy.

I think it’s too soon and not healthy for Sami.  Plus, I don’t trust my ex.  I am suspicious and I can’t shake it. 

Maybe someday Sami will hate me if my fear of losing him drove his father away yet again.  I know, I know, I am taking ownership of his father’s crazy game of making me responsible for his desertion.

My gut tells me that he is looking for another convenient way to get out and make it my fault, again, because I was too “unreasonable” or “guilt-inducing.” 

I am willing to compromise, but I am not ok with his pace.

I won’t let him bully me and threaten and intimidate me.  I need to do what I think is right for Sami.  In my last email I left the door open to finding a mutually agreeable solution.  But I said if we could not, then maybe we would need some outside help. 

I wish there was a Truth and and Reconciliation Commission to heal this war between my ex and I.  We are an example of failed Jewish-Arab coexistence.  We are, in some ways, a microcosm of what is happening in the Gaza strip, trying to kill each other with verbal bombs. 

It is always the innocent children that pay the highest price for the violence of adults.

I don’t know what is going to happen next.  In my heart, I suspect he has retreated once again.  But we’ll see.

(The odd side effect of this is that I have completely lost my taste in dating.  The compulsion to check my inbox for new messages from men who answered my ads has just up and left me.  Tonight, I feel completely indifferent about all of it.  I’ve retreated into this small world where I can only face what is right in front of me.  The thought of even responding to an email, let alone planning a date, is too much to bear.)

Sometimes it’s all too much to bear.  But bear it we do.  We always do. 

“The good news is that it doesn’t kill you,” said my teacher, “The bad news is that it doesn’t kill you.”

First of all, I must announce that I am offically full of shit. 

Despite recent meanderings  that hinted to the contrary, I am not going to stop trying to meet someone (never mind if wisdom indicates that it would probably be a good thing for me to intentionally be on my own for a while).  In fact, I just placed an ad in yet another online venue and have already begun to get some responses.  I’m cautiously (extremely cautiously) optimistic.

I think I have made peace with my own full of shitness. 

Whew.  Now that that’s over, I can move on to other things.

Yesterday Sami and I had a playdate with a single dad whom I had met through a single parents’ group in the area.  We spent the better part of five hours with the kids at the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum.  While it was fun looking at all the planes, I was a little creeped out by all the fighter planes and missiles, thinking about how many people died as a result of these brilliant human creations.

I didn’t know what to make of the experience.  Was it a date AND a playdate?  Can a playdate be a date?  I’ve never done anything like that before.  He was sweet and very kind, a good conversationalist, and insisted on paying for everything, even though I offered.  When we said goodbye it was kind of an awkward over the front seat car hug which I awkwardly initiated.  Our kids had both fallen asleep in the car on the way back from the museum, and we got the chance to talk freely about our divorce experiences.  His divorce, not-yet-final, was your textbook nightmarish and complicated and frighteningly expensive kind.  Mine, while nightmarish in its own way, was simple and uncomplicated (at least on paper).

Despite my “good divorce,” I keep realizing just how much healing I have to do.  It’s been six months since the divorce, over a year since he left me for the Blushing Bride.  Not a lot of time at all.  Now the grief is back with surprising rawness.  Why do I miss him so much?  Why do I want someone who rejected me and our child?  I keep dreaming about him.  He keeps making love to me in my dreams.  Why won’t he leave my dreams alone?

Today Sami and I went to the farmer’s market to get apples, and I ran into my friend M and her son.  M became part of the new moms’ group I formed when Sami was 11 weeks old.  Back then I was so fucking innocent, in a bubble of nuclear family bliss and new parenthood.  Now, three years later, I am transforming into someone I’ve not yet gotten to know yet.  And that’s ok.  We still have our kids in common, and three years of friendship, but we now inhabit different worlds. 

At one point in the conversation, Sami looked intently at M and asked, “Do you remember H?”

We looked at each other in the wordless way that adults do.

“Yes, I do,” she said to Sami.  “I remember H.”

Then we remarked how strange it was to hear him call his father by his first name, like a Bohemian teenager.

Sami asked to talk to his dad on the phone the other day, and I texted him asking if he was available.  He said that he was and would call back in 10 minutes.  He did, and I didn’t even answer.  I simply put the phone to Sami’s ear, and when Sami was done, I just hung up. 

God. 

In some ways it was SO much easier when he was MIA for these last months.  But I am going to rise to this challenge.  I can take this on.  For Sami, I will do anything.  And for me, I need to get over him.  I need to heal this heart of mine, aching so much tonight.

We are supposed to see him again tomorrow, for visit #4.  I think I am going to suggest that he come with me for pickup at Sami’s school, so Sami can see him in that context and get used to the idea that his dad might be picking him up there.  (Not that I am ready for him to do it solo, and I don’t think I ever authorized him to pick up.)  I am also going to ask him if he would be willing to do the bedtime thing with Sami. 

Friends have suggested to me that I should get a legal visitation agreement in place now.  Right now all our divorce says is that “visitation is mutually agreed to among the parties” because at the time the ex was MIA and didn’t want any.  Right now he has been emailing me schedules.  I will just take it slowly and if I see that he is really serious about being a part of Sami’s life, perhaps we need to formalize things. 

I’m so afraid to rock the boat, though.  He’s so volatile with me and I feel like any kind of perceived “demand” I put upon him will just be an excuse for him to take flight again.

Anyway, I’m future-tripping like mad here, but the bottom line is that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.  I have no idea how to negotiate this transition, for me or for Sami.  When my ex was gone it was like he was dead and I could just put him away.  But that’s not the current reality, and I will do whatever I can do to facilitate a relationship between my son and his father, while at the same time making sure that things proceed in a way that’s–for lack of a better word–reasonable, and has some clear parameters. 

Perhaps that’s just me, trying to impose order on an inherently messy situation.