Elizabeth's Ramblings

Inconvenient Timing

elizabethac — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:51:55 +0000

Divorce sucks. Let’s face it – for all parties involved. Sure, the promise of a brighter, happier tomorrow scabs over the wound, but sometimes, when you least expect it, the scab falls off and the wound bleeds.

The other day I received a card from a friend’s mother – a truly lovely, wonderful woman — the kind of mom that decorates goody bags and leaves notes on napkins in her children’s lunches. The card simply said that she was thinking of me and that I was always welcome at her home. All of a sudden, I start sobbing. Not gentle, delicate, chick flick tears, but the ugly, thick, fat tears that turn your eyes a fierce shade of red. I haven’t cried about the divorce for a month, and here I was sobbing at a one paragraph note.

I realized how difficult this is going to be to face alone. I know my parents were trying to look out for my best interest by waiting till after high school, but really, they just made it harder. Transitioning from high school to college is already difficult – leaving your friends, your home, your lifestyle, your reputation – everything. At least if they divorced last year, I would have my support group. Now, I feel like I have no one. New friends are lovely, but sometimes I need my oldest friends. And they aren’t there.

Organization.

elizabethac — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:03:02 +0000

Finally, Friday. My day off from the glamorous career of a Bob Evans’ hostess. Yesterday, my day involved cleaning the restrooms, sweeping the floors, listening to my fellow hostess talk about breast milk for an hour (quite literally), and getting my hands smacked for keeping them in my pockets. Sigh. I like my job, I really do. Although mundane and menial, work provides an opportunity to escape from my bickering household and time to think. During those lazy hours between 3 and 5, I create to-do lists, grocery lists, and schedules: in other words, I provide structure to my chaotic life by organizing the few constants in the multi-variable equation of my life.

To further purge myself of life’s clutter, I have been cleaning my room to an extreme degree for the past few days. Sorting clothes for goodwill, throwing away bags upon bags of trash (how does trash accumulate so quickly?), but more importantly sorting the remnants of the past 18 years. Within 5 rubbermaid under-bed boxes, the memories of my past 18 years now reside: band trophies, theater awards, old pre-cal tests I can’t bare to part with, American girl dolls, horrifying troll dolls (why on Earth do children play with these naked, Einstein-haired gremlins?), and photos of old friends, some come and gone, some, hopefully, to stay forever. Perhaps by boxing these memories I can give up on my old life and attempt to prepare for my new adventure: college, adult siblings, and a fragile family.

Aren’t the most fragile items the most beautiful?

Charybdis Under the Bridge . . .

elizabethac — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:47:49 +0000

Marriage counseling. 27 years of marriage. 5 beautiful children. Marriage counseling?

We all saw it coming. I remember as a little kid wishing my parents would get divorced. The fighting would stop, my problems would subside, and my life would be calm. Now, all I can think about is how my life would undeniably change.

Who gets Christmas? Who gets Thanksgiving? Where will I stay for summer break? Where will I call home? When I get married, will they be able to stand in the same room without fighting? When I have kids, will they be able to know Grandma and Grandpa for the loving people they can be, or will they only see the hurt?

They say, “It was easier when five kids filled the house. Now that you all are gone, it’s tough. We need to learn to communicate again. We’ll see how it goes.” I knew that was coming. I sensed it. Mom would talk about her Book Club and Pokeno ladies’ divorces and mention that a child’s high school graduation was a common time to separate. I guess I didn’t realize she could be talking about herself.

Dad, apparently, has been begging for counseling for fifteen years. Mom, on the other hand, can’t open up. She refuses to go, unwilling to accept that maybe she needs help. In 18 years, I’ve seen my mother cry once. Once. She didn’t even cry at her father’s funeral. So many words have gone unspoken between the two. The past, she claims, is water under the bridge. Water? I see thousands of lives devastated by flooding in the Midwest. Sometimes water isn’t tepid. Sometimes it’s a storm.