Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

I miss you. It has been so long since we got to speak and these last three years have been some of the hardest of my life. I carry a ton of guilt over our final days together. I hope I can explain and that you will forgive me. I am sure you will, based on one of the conversations we had before you went into the ICU, but I still feel I owe you an explanation. I don’t know if you remember your final days, but the last time we spoke you didn’t seem to know who I was. The doctors explained that the toxicity caused by the organ failure was affecting your brain. It was so painful to watch but I didn’t want you to see my fear or sadness. I couldn’t stay long that day because I had to get home to my kids and prepare them to go to their Dad’s. By the next morning I was woken up by an emergency call informing me you had a seizure resulting into you falling into a coma.  I can’t explain the emotions that ran through me. I knew I needed to get to you and speak to the doctors, but I also knew these were possibly your last days. I had to prepare myself. When I arrived at the ICU, I was immediately met by a social worker and the resident in charge of your care. They pulled me into a small conference room and sat me down to explain what had happened and that the next 48 hours would be a waiting game. Though they told me you had been intubated and I had already spent days with you where you were being treated with IV’s, nothing could have prepared me to see you on life support. They told me you might be able to hear me, so I sat with you for a while. I did my best not to allow my voice to shake and to stay calm. All I kept thinking about was how scared you must be. You hated going to the dentist or getting needles and over the pervious week I crawled into your bed with you more than once while the nurses administered medication just to try and comfort you. I was sure you hated the tube down your throat, or being strapped to the bed, the sound of the machines, and the lack of privacy. I left for some air and because I was starting to fall apart thinking about what might come next and what I would have to do. It was at this time a nurse pulled me aside and told me to go. She was aware Heather and I came to see you everyday and she could see the toll it was taking on all of us. She knew I was your advocate or power of attorney, she told me to go, that she had you and that you had no concept of time. She told me she was a mom and that she knew you would want me to take a break and allow myself to seek comfort. Her name was Joyce, like your mother’s. So, I listened to Joyce.

The passing of time gets really hazy after that day. I don’t know if it was 24 or 48 hours before the next time I was pulled into that conference room when visiting you. They had your vitals written on the white board and there were still coffee rings on the table from their meeting before I got there. The news they gave me was horrific. You were going to die. There was nothing they could do for you. They could wake you from the coma if I wished so Heather and I could maybe speak to you, but you were going to die. I could not bear the thought of waking you and having you pass in fear. You and I had already had so many hard moments and I didn’t want either of us to experience that and I wanted to spare Heather further pain. We said goodbye to you that night. It was September 5th, 2018. I didn’t sit with you long that day. I kept coming and going, I would hold your hand then leave for a bit then come back and hold your hand. If I am honest, I looked more at your hand in mine than at you. I was reeling with all the responsibility, and I didn’t want the image of you in that bed to be how I saw you forever. I question all the time whether that was the right choice or if I should have just allowed myself to fall to bits and sob at your side? I felt at the time you needed me to take care of Heather, of your parents, of your grandchildren and of all the business of death. I am so sorry I couldn’t handle seeing you like that. I am so sorry.

 There has been a lot to grieve and there have been things to rejoice over and I have found both incredibly hard. I spent the next year after your passing tending to the grief of your loved ones. I called your parents that night and broke the news and arranged with Papa the details of your final resting place and how to best cradle Grandma. I made sure Heather was surrounded by strong, caring friends who stuck to her for days. I allowed myself to cry at night away from the children and Heather to shield them from witnessing my pain. Over that year your grandkids, who you called Cutie and Sweetie went on a rollercoaster ride of grief. It was so hard to explain to a 4 and a 3 year old what death means. They had nightmares for a long time about losing me. They feared getting sick ‘cause doctors cannot heal everyone all the time. And to this day, Cutie worries about me getting old every time she sees a gray hair. They are past the worst of it, and they talk about you a lot. They have come to refer to you as Sweet Grandma when they tell a story or ask for the blankets you made them. At first, I found this very hard to hear because they followed it up with “who died”, but that distinction has fallen away and now it is so touching and everyone in their lives refers to you this way when you are spoken about.

I flew to your home town. Drove around with Papa and made all the arrangements for the funeral. I know you didn’t want a funeral but if you were watching then you know it was just family and we tucked you in with your brother and Great Grandma Mona. Please understand, your parents needed the Christian ceremony. I needed to see them have it.

The business of death is exhausting as you know. Ten months before you passed you watched me manage my father’s Suicide and just as I closed that chapter we lost you. I was so not ready to lose you. Every phone call included a detailed explanation and I felt like I had to relive your illness and death over and over. I think you would be proud to know that through it al,l Heather and I have grown closer and when I couldn’t be present as a mom she was often Super-Aunt. During all of it, my life was changing and my family was growing. I am so grateful you had the chance to meet Ryan and the boys. That you made sure I had your blessing. I am grateful they were present during this difficult time for me and the kids. Cutie and Sweetie felt surrounded by even more love and more kids giggling is the best medicine and motivation to keep moving forward.

Last summer I was starting to feel like myself again. Working out how to mom without my mom. I was beginning to see hope as more than a four letter word. Ryan and I had lived together for more then a year by this point and the kids were all getting on well. Ryan had asked me to marry him and I was feeling safe enough to plan a wedding even in the midst of a  world wide pandemic. There was overwhelming uncertainty and chaos daily. I remember thinking often how it would have been hard if you had got your transplant. You would have had to tuck yourself away from the world and lived so carefully isolated from Heather, the kids and myself. We have felt guilty more than once for thinking it a small blessing that you haven’t had the worry about navigating recovery during these times. Grandma and Papa really struggled, though he never let on until the day my phone rang. The news was Lung Cancer and he had only been given weeks to live. He told me it was up to me to carry the family and how much he trusted me. I want to tell you how grateful I am for the belief he had in me, but by this time I was exhausted from all the loss. The weight of responsibility has felt crushing and I have felt less like family and more like the Grimkeeper’s administrator.

I pray the kids are right and that there is a heaven and that you, Papa and even Dad are all wrapped in love together surrounded by family and looking down on us. But my faith has been shaken and I don’t know what to believe. I do know this right now, me and God are friends off for the time being. It might be a break, it might be a breakup, only time will tell. I don’t want you to worry because of this statement. I am not lost. I know exactly who I am. I am however, finding it difficult to live without you all.  There are moments where I feel like no one knows me but me now. I don’t have a village to help guide the kids and teach them the morals and values that built the foundation of our family. I have felt very alone even when surrounded. I find it hard to relate to other people my age because, while they worry about their job performance or if their kids have had 4 to 6 servings of vegetables, I worry about failing to get up off my knees. Failing to live again after all this loss. Failing to let my kids truly know me. I fear I am not strong enough. As I type that, I can see you sitting there giving me that look. The one where you purse you lips then smirk and tilt your head to the left. That look that says “Don’t doubt yourself, ‘cause I don’t!” Guess that is why I am writing this letter. I needed to see that look. I couldn’t just have dinner with you and see it and I needed to see it. Now I guess, in a way, I have.

It just dawned on me how I reach for you when I need you all the time. I plan a trip to the mountains every year so I can stand in your favorite place. I fill my house with carnations on Mother’s Day each year. I even tattooed some on the inside of my left arm, so you are always at my side. I buy something pretty and go out to dinner with Heather for your birthday like we did, and the kids and I sing as loud as we can as often as we can in the car. Heather and I turned your earrings into pendants. And I get Ryan to take me on long drives when I am feeling overwhelmed or confused. So, I guess you are right, don’t doubt. I will be ok. I already am, I just miss you.

                                                                                                                                                Your Girl,

Stacey

Dating After Divorce Continued…

              Previously, I mentioned how I made the decisions around divorce and dating. How I described the thought of dating again scary, terrifying and overwhelming to anyone that would listen. Dating should be fun and exciting, exhilarating when done right. After divorce, it was a Six-Flags rollercoaster ride of emotions spurred on by a mix of sex, wine and anxiety attacks. There were three stages of reintegration.

Stage 1. Get out of the house

Stage 2. Lust and discovering my desires

Stage 3. Lust, Love and Stuff

Most people might not think that Stage 1 would be all that difficult but it really was for me. I found that after my divorce, along with a PTSD diagnosis, I also suffered from social anxiety. I still do. There is this wild fear that I am awkward, or often behave inappropriately. I worry I am an embarrassment to others and myself. Now I know there have been occasions where I have been an embarrassment, but the large majority of the time I have been told I am charming, charismatic, easy to talk to, funny and all-around good company. This fear of my behaviour in mixed company made “Getting out of the house” a challenge. I started dating like most single moms do now, from the comfort of my sofa, in my leggings with a glass of wine. I downloaded the apps (just three really: Plenty of Fish, match.com, and Bumble, in that order). Answered all the questions. Wrote a little blip about myself and uploaded a picture I had my mom take of me earlier that day.

Not the one mom took…

Not using a picture of myself 5 years younger was very important to me. I never wanted anyone to say “you don’t look like your picture”! The first night was all about window shopping. I was not sure I could even look at a man and think about attraction or feelings. Quickly discovered there was no problem there. It was very easy to swipe left or right, impersonal and easy. In other words, it was prefect. Soon after that, flattering text chats and not long after, I had agreed to meet some man for coffee. Divorced, 2 young kids, business owner, kind of flirty, attractive but not really my type. At this point I didn’t trust myself to know what my type was, I just wanted to talk and try on a man. See if I enjoyed their company. This man was coffee and then dinner and then I agreed to lose his number. I did this kind of romantic job interview style dating for a while. I truly can’t remember when it stopped being about appetizers or an excuse to wear something nice. Thank god for that social experiment stage though, it allowed me to narrow down what I found attractive about men. It also allowed me to practice asserting myself and being clear about my intentions.

Stage 2 required more wine. This is a joke and a fact. I was horny. Hugh Hefner said it best, “Good girls like sex too” so don’t get me started on overworked, tired, guilt- suffering moms. I wanted to be touched and was terrified of being touched all at the same time. I had a million questions playing on a continuous reel. Questions like: Am I a good kisser? How will I feel with a new man touching me? Am I sexy or can I fake sexy? What if they are turned off by my stretch marks or the fact that my boobs hide in my arm pits when I lay on my back? Shaved, landing strip or trimmed? (Disco bush was never an option). Do I know how to pleasure a man? Do I know what brings me pleasure? When did I start using the word pleasure? I was driving myself crazy. I remembered watching a show where two friends were talking, the one was spinning much like I was and spewing her insecure internal dialog to the other. That friend unapologetically interrupted with “Hey, you need to be nicer to my friend.” This hit me, I needed to be a better friend to myself. What if my best friend was sitting with me asking all these questions? I started systematically answering what I could. Am I a good kisser? I have been told I am. Moving on. How will I feel being touched? That can not be answered in advance, I would have to wait and see. Am I sexy? Well, that is relative and individual. I decided to focus on what I found sexy and what turned me on instead. Then there was the stretchmarks and shy boobs, these insecurities ran deep. Part of me was very aware that men found me attractive and that everyone has stuff they wish they could change. Another part of me wondered if Spanx yet developed a full bodysuit with realistic nipples and easy access openings? As for landscaping, I decided I spend more time with this area so I would do what suited me. The pleasure, pleasure, pleasure stuff for me got washed away by, of all people, my mom. She turned to me one day and pointed out that I first figured out what went where as a teenager and must have mastered it cause most days, I was running on little sleep thanks to the sexual aftermath still sleeping in cribs down the hall. Thanks mom. Questions answered, I was ready to pursue sexual relations post divorce.

This is where the rollercoaster really picks up some speed and turns a corner. I was excited and scared. I remember the first time. I would compare it to a surprizing out of body experience. There had been a few dates and I let him come to my place while my kids had a sleep over at my mom’s. It was strategic. I wanted to be in my own environment where there would be no chance of an “I can’t find my bra moment.” At my place I could count on finding it eventually if lost. Among other reasons. He brought me wine and I gladly drank the entire bottle. Full disclosure, I had drunk two glasses earlier while cleaning and getting ready for him to come by. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, with a play-by-play commentator in my head. The commentator was very impressed by the attention and interest being paid to me, and I would have to say so was I. Truth is, mom was right. I did have it worked out as to what went where. The biggest surprize for me had nothing to do with orgasms or preferred positions. It was the after-sex check in about how I was feeling and how cared for I felt. It surprized me so much I had more questions and I asked him every single one. For the rest of this stage, I experienced all the fear, all the anxiety, all the fun, and exhilaration. The emotional relationship was still just about the one I was having with myself. The time allowed me an escape from my single mom stress, to just be a woman. It also gave me funny sexy escapades to brag about to my friends over drinks.

Stage 3: The final stage of my dating after divorce journey began because I realized lust was not enough for me. I wanted lust, I wanted affection, I wanted wine and long conversations but I wanted that man to have real and deep feelings for me. I found myself at one point in my lusty dating stage confusing what was happening as feelings, when in truth I just enjoyed that persons attention, physical touch and the excitement. I had to decide what I really wanted. I have always wanted what my grandparents had, so I spent some time thinking about their relationship’s impact on me.

While I was ironing all this out in my head, I went on a little girl’s trip with a friend whose life mirrors a lot of mine. One day after trying to hike and instead drinking wine and grabbing lunch, she said something I will never forget. She told me that she was not interested in dating to date. She felt her marriage robbed her of time and she was not giving anymore up freely. She wanted love. She wanted the kind of love that spoke to her soul. She wanted to meet someone and enjoy everything about them and treasure every moment together. That once she had that in her life, she would need it to survive.  She wanted to fall in love so deep with a man and have a man fall for her their dreams wound around each other.  Therefore, she was settling for nothing less.

That day as she spoke, I remember thinking that was crazy talk. That those were unrealistic fantasies. In hind sight, she was describing the love my grandparents shared for 68 years of marriage. The cliché would describe them as two sides of the same coin. That’s garbage, she is fiery and private and not very affectionate at all other than with him. He was even tempered (for the most part), extremely out going and the first in line to give you a hug or a hand to hold. But they worked, not in the opposites bla bla bla kind of way. They were true partners in life. They took care of each other. Every decision they ever made after saying “I do” had been made with their relationship as top priority. When she hurt, he hurt. His dreams were hers. Her triumphs were his. They were a unit, a family, their souls desires were wrapped around each other. Their fights were epic because the passion between them was intense. They were a real-life Nicholas Sparks novel. I, however, was settling for sex and feelings. More to the point I had made the decision no sex till there were feelings. Even at this stage I was still trying men on like hats. Sorry fellas. At least I was until I wasn’t…

Their

love spanned 68 years

It took one date with my now husband to change everything. I had told him via text that I was not interested in a physical relationship of any kind until there were feelings involved. He didn’t run. In fact, he told me he admired my boundaries, (Do real grownups talk like this?). The lead up to that date was like every other one for me. 2 glasses of wine while getting ready. Extreme anxiety regarding his expectations and my awkward behaviour and at least 3 outfit changes. Then we met. He looked exactly like his profile pictures, he was outgoing and easy to talk to but seemed a bit nervous. The thing that struck me was that I felt at ease right away. It was like he was someone that had been in my life for longer than I could remember. It is cheesy and will sound like crazy talk but he spoke to my soul. I started to care for him more and more with every passing moment. That date went from dinner and drinks to a quick walk over to an arcade where we ended up just sitting and laughing and telling stories about our lives. We had gotten so wrapped up in each other we never noticed all the other patrons leave and the staff begin their closing duties. There we were enjoying everything about one another, treasuring the time. We never noticed 6 hours go by. To be clear, this is how the next five dates went. It started to be a joke between us that our dates were more like little escapes from our lives. Upon reflection that is exactly what I think falling in love with someone should feel like, like a blissful escape from all the responsibility, from the grind and the hustle, and the endless searching.

Dating After Divorce

Scary, terrifying, overwhelming. These are all words I used often when describing the thought of dating after divorce. I said them to my friends, my mom, and my therapist. I had these words said to me by my girlfriends that were deciding if they were ready to date. For me there were things I had to take care of first, before ever downloading some app to window shop my potential prospects (i.e., my kids and my mental health). I feel this is where the subject of romance after divorce gets controversial, and I am going to be honest, I have an opinion as well as an asshole, and I own it. That being said, I 100% support everyone who also has an asshole to have an opinion. We do not have to agree. I love to hear what others think, as long as respect is evident. Now, I am going to dive into my opinion and how I went about making the decision to date after divorce, how I would design it around my kids, and figuring out exactly what I was looking for.

              Dating was not on my post-divorce ‘to do’ list for over a year. I felt raw and unprepared for my new life. No one goes into marriage and family planning thinking, “one day I am going to be doing this all alone, heartbroken, overworked, and afraid.” So here I was, 33 years old, with two babies, yes babies, and working out what my next steps had to be. The first thing I did was get my ass into therapy. Divorce, and then the process of dismantling the life I was building with my now ex-husband, was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I have heard people compare it to the death of a loved one. I disagree, due to having experienced both, but that is a blog post for another time. I compare it more to discovering you have a life threating illness. Before you ever leave a marriage, you know things are not working, but nothing you do seems to have an impact to course correct the damage to the family. Then, one day, you start talking about the symptoms to anyone that will listen and it becomes very clear to all parties, real change is the answer. I will be clear: I ended my marriage. It was the best thing for me and I think, or would like to hope, that my ex-husband would agree that it was the best thing for our kids. What happens next in this situation? You seek legal or professional counsel. This is when shit gets real. I sat there, told my story, discussed my desired outcome, and was advised on the life-saving measures that would have to be taken. Move out, iron out custody and finances, say goodbye to the parts of my life that I enjoyed very much, because the diagnosis was serious…DIVORCE. Divorce was the diagnosis and the cure if I ever wanted a happy family and a loving, emotionally safe, home(s) for my kids. I equate this to a doctor telling you that you have diabetes or liver disease. From this point on, you are going to have to do everything differently to ensure health, and as a mother you don’t want this to affect the kids in a scary or overwhelming way. So, my first year was about learning how to divorce, how to be a single parent, how to respectfully create boundaries with my ex, and how to support myself, because there is life after a life-threatening illness. A person learns to live with that threat and if they take all the right precautions and make the changes, they can live a long and healthy one.

 About a year later, and after many tears, giant marshmallows, and wine (plus therapy), I was feeling stronger in my new lifestyle. I talked often to friends and my angel of a mother, and came up with these rules for dating.

Rule #1) Give yourself at least a full year to get comfortable with you. Do this for you, your kids and for the sake of that potential date.

Why? Because you need to know what you want out of a relationship, and you can’t do that if you feel lost or wounded. So, the first relationship I worked on was the one I was having with myself. This, for me, meant therapy (have I mentioned that?), physical fitness and better nutrition, as well as some more education. I also felt that even though my kids would be too young to remember this period of time, kids should be allowed a full year (at least) to get used to their parents separate lives. I think it is really important to give time to address their feelings and insecurities about mom and dad not being together anymore. I personally didn’t really need to do this. When we separated, our kids were 16 months and 4 months old, but I think this rule helps the extended family re-adjust too.

Rule #2) No one meets the kids until it looks like the relationship will be long-term and they have also met the other parent.

Why? What I’m about to say might offend some people. It was important to me to evaluate how my kids might view their mom’s relationship or relationships with men who were not their father. The idea of introducing my kids to a number of “my friends” gave me the icks. How would my son view me if my sexuality was something he had to pass in the hall before school at 14 and it had a different name every other month? How would my daughter interpret my desire for lust and love? Would she be empowered or would mommy dating multiple men equal something negative for her? I decided I was not taking unnecessary chances. I wanted to control my kid’s exposure to adult themes. In short, I put a PG rating on my dating. The second motivator for me was my ex’s feelings of being respected. He is their father and for he and I to have a productive co-parenting relationship, respect is key. The kids are in the center and for us to do this, we can’t be knowingly doing things that rub each other the wrong way. I didn’t want to have weeks of petty back and forth that would possibly be felt by our kids. I decided the best way to handle this was a co-parent meet and greet. (Please forgive the rhyming I have been in an open relationship with Dr. Sues for the last 20 odd years.) This type of interaction is not comfortable for anyone, but we are adults and the goal was to spare our children as much uncomfortable or harmful interactions as we could, post-divorce. No need to size up the new love interest at a child’s sporting event or Christmas concert. We are all adults here, so let’s have awkward drinks at the Keg instead, and let the other parent ask questions, or lay down some boundaries. After all, they have a right to transparency when it comes to their kids. This also allows all to discuss how the ‘meet-the-kids' process should go. It also might help both parents support their kids and love them throughout the changes. How to handle this efficiently as well as how awkward those drinks were, is a blog post in itself. Cheers to a future post or a book deal!

Rule #3) Figure out what you are looking for before you start looking.

Why? I think it is obvious but let us go into detail.  First, I had to ask myself, ‘am I interested in lust, love or both?’ At the beginning, I was only really interested in getting out of the house and meeting men for the purpose of adult conversation. That later changed into living a bit of a double life, where lust and feeling like a desirable woman again was more my aim. After a while, I became ready for a much deeper relationship, and the possibility of love again. All these stages of my re-integration into dating required me to understand my “deal breakers.” In the first stage, I was just getting out of the house. If a man was interested in sex or a new mommy for his kids, that was a deal breaker. The next stage was more about lust. I wanted sex in my life again, and to feel desired, so I added that to wanting to just get out of the house. At this stage, deal breakers included: wanting a more meaningful relationship than just casual or fun, smoking, chauvinism, and living with their mom. It was still very superficial at this point, because I was not including them in my life. To go along with this dealbreaker list was a “must haves’ list. Physical features, likes and dislikes, and age appropriateness were all big factors when narrowing down who I would spend my little free time with. The last stage is the scariest, and most overwhelming, because it is all about love and stuff. I had to focus on what I brought to the table because no one should ever settle for less than what they are worth. My “Deal Breakers” list became very specific, but more importantly, my ‘must haves’ came into hyper focus. To be clear, this was not about six packs and blue eyes. My ‘must haves’ were about integrity, romance, education, kindness, if they had kids in their life, age, maturity, and affection, just to name a few. This is important for a parent to work out. We are busy. Time is limited. I didn’t want to waste someone else’s time and I didn’t have time to waste.

This is my last rule and some might find it silly.

Rule #4) Always debrief with someone you really trust, who knows you and whose opinion you value.

Why? It is really hard, when scared or overwhelmed, to trust yourself. There is still hurt that needs healing and dating is part of the post-divorce mending process. Shit comes bubbling up. That friend or loved one can help you talk out the fear, or point out when you are standing in your own way. They can also remind you of your priorities when you become confused by that pretty young thing with a six-pack, who made you feel sexy again.

Dating shouldn’t be anything but fun and exciting. Dating should add to a parent’s life. It should allow them to recharge and regroup, and if done right, it should provide them with love and support. That love might be from a possible love interest, it might be rallying the friends and family, but for me, it was learning to love myself. These rules helped me take the best care of my kid’s mom, while she worked hard to rebuild her life, so that all members of her kid’s family could cope with the DIVORCE diagnosis/cure.