Today I started to recalibrate emotionally from the intense high I’ve been on since the Folk Festival. Even coming home, I’ve been listening to loud music, seeing friends, spending a lot of time with Mason and out with Blake doing fun things. Today was a humid, frustrating day that followed hot on the heels of another fun but late night at the ZubHaus. Around dinner time, when Blake accidentally kicked over one of Mason’s decorations, I finally lost it and started sobbing.

It’s probably good that I’m getting into this right now. This is always a weird time for me, as summer starts to wind down and people make mischievous comments about going back to school. Have I done enough? Lazed enough? Crafted enough? Slept enough? Seen friends enough? This year the answers are maybe, no, yes, no and never. I have a few more days to work on the first one, and I have the rest of the year to work on the last.

And yet, despite driving home with my eyes sore from weeping and my shoulders slumped from sleeplessness, watching the pink sunset to a soundtrack of Broken Social Scene was just about the most perfect moment of my life. Guess I’m not quite recalibrated yet.

Labels: angst, music

So, for just about all of my Blake-less summer vacation so far, I have been vegging. I had thought that it would be really hard without him for so long, and I did cry the first day when I saw a little guy splashing in a public wading pool, but mostly my angst has been reserved for me. Since the first shock faded in January, my loneliness and feelings of abandonment have never been as strong as they have been this month. I find that more than ever before, I long for the Boy. The interesting thing is that despite this desire, I don’t particularly want him back in the state he was when he left. I can recognize the nostalgia in my thoughts and I’ve decided to give it free reign. As long as I don’t get maudlin and start drunk dialing him and begging him to take me back, I’m going to accept these feelings as part of the process.

I’ve been telling people that getting separated is like getting ready to eat a pie. People like me tend to think that they’re smart enough to avoid certain pieces and they can throw away a bunch of the pie uneaten. The bitter truth I have found this summer is that I have to eat every damn piece of sadness, every piece of nostalgia, every piece of insecurity and fear. I do not get to skip a slice because I’m clever, or because I’m aware of the dangers or because I’m trying very hard to sympathize with the Boy’s decision. The pie has to be eaten regardless. And no, it does not come à la mode. (Unless the ice cream is made of tears, that is. Salty salty ice cream of tears.)

But! On a happier note, my mood has improved in the last 3 or 4 days, and I’ve mostly gotten over the hump of inactivity. It took a lot of aimless wandering, but it seems to be over. Yesterday was the first day that I felt normal and even happy to be out and scooting around the city. Which is a good thing because there were so many good things yesterday that it was more or less my birthday: first, a matinee of Die Roten Punkte that had me wishing for even more rock, then dinner at the Corner House for Summerlicious, and then a long and happy Stitch n’ Bitch at Lettuce that incorporated Little Mousling’s search for anonymous sperm donations (“just go to the Brunny and stand for a pitcher,” I counseled) as well as the memorable phrase “reach-around colonoscopy.” And Denny wasn’t even there to hike up the smut levels…we did it all on our own. I blame German performance rock and really good wine and the never-ending medical talk that practically begged for a punch line to lighten the load.

Yesterday and today I prepped Blake’s room for painting, and I hope to be done my taping in time for Saturday. I even bought him a fan, so that when he insists (as he does nightly) on going to bed in long pants and snuggling under a comforter, he might not die of heat exhaustion. (I find myself in the curious position of begging him to wear less clothes now that we’ve hit the warm weather. “Come on,” I whine, “don’t you just wanna wear your undies? Or nothing?” He makes me sweat just looking at him. And yet he springs up every morning refreshed and ready to snuggle in my bed. I don’t get it.)

I’m feeling a little guilty for taking advantage of his absence. Blake has been quite vocal about his desire to paint his own room. He’ll probably have a freak out when he finds it’s been done without him, and small wonder. Still, my guilt can’t quite overcome the sheer lunacy of single-parenting a 4-year-old while I paint his room. No dice, Blakers.

I really should have taken some “before” pictures; his room is usually a cluttered mess of epic proportions and almost all of it has all been transferred to the closet. I wouldn’t have thought it possible if I hadn’t done it myself. I even vacuumed the baseboards tonight, seeing as I’ll be getting up close and personal with them before long. And if this painting job is anything like my last one, I’ll still be painting when he comes home. He’ll like that.

I’m also finishing projects every couple of days, with recent standouts being the De Profundis pillow (which combines knitting with cloth strips of text so that Mason can decorate his couch with one of the most depressing bits from Oscar Wilde’s letter from prison) and an amigurumi Strong Bad. I’m madly in love with Strong Bad, and have to stop myself from saying the same thing over and over: “Dear Strong Bad, How do you crochet with boxing gloves on? Yours, Rocketbride” I think the people around me are finding it old.

I got my big box of prize yarns yesterday. There is something absolutely magical about a box of yarn that is for me and me only. It’s a pretty interesting assortment; not a lot of anything I would choose myself, which means that I’ll have to stretch and do a lot of new things. And there’s nothing wrong with a big old stretch, especially when I haven’t done yoga for months. Did you just hear something crack?

In final crafty news, I’m wondering if I have the fortitude to enter the Summer Ravelry Olympics. I committed to doing a lot of amigurumi toys this summer for my co-workers, and it would be kind of nice to plow through them in 17 days. On the other hand, I’m going to the Ottawa Folk Festival in the middle of the run, and I can’t imagine that it’ll help my time. Still, a dozen toys in 17 days would be pretty cool. We’ll see.

Labels: angst, crafty, friends, outings, the boy, victory

Some pictures, peeps. I made a Cthulhu toy for the cool home ec teacher/game store owner who got a new job for September. It was half farewell and half payment for getting me started re-lining my favourite spring coat (translation: she traced, cut and sewed it together; now I get to sew it in. I'm cool with that.)

For those who worry, I am seeing a counsellor about once a month. I'm also reading some good books about CBT and one called Rebuilding After Your Relationship Ends which sort of makes me mad but has some good stuff buried among the patronizing points. Last night, when all I felt like doing was crying, Mason came over and made us supper. Good, healthy, fresh food does wonders for my mood. I even had the energy to clean up the kitchen before he arrived, which was an insurmountable horror when I was weeping into the tissue Blake so kindly provided. My parents are worried that I'll scar Blake with the tears, but the truth is that I cry very infrequently around him. Yesterday was a big exception. I worry more about the time I disengage, although I don't suppose it's any worse than what the Boy was doing this fall. I'm hoping to use the next two weeks to recharge and find my joy wherever it's hiding.

Labels: angst, crafty, health

It’s been a rough week. The end of the school year is always a bad patch for me – at its best I just want to sleep 24 hours a day, and at its worse I feel like my life has been a total waste. I’m at that second extreme right now. It’s like the school year puffs up my days full of air, and once that air is gone my life collapses into a new, shrunken state covering the odd, small shapes that lurk below. Every year I wonder how I could have let my life become so impoverished, so flat, so lonely, so boring. For the last few years I’ve also had the feeling that I’m a failure as a mother for not being able to shift into full-time mom mode as gratefully as everyone else seems to. The Boy has been my bulwark against the worst of these feelings for eight years in a row. This year he is gone, never to return, and suddenly that pain is breaking over me in waves that make me feel like this summer will drown me.

It’s pretty dumb stuff, too. This afternoon I dragged myself to the grocery store, and I was overwhelmed with thoughts of every trip we ever took to stock up. Every meal we ever botched in Nova Scotia, every pint of cherries we ever ate on the way home from the farmer’s market, every discovery we ever made in cookbooks and at the houses of friends: I’m the only one with that stuff still sloshing around inside me. From the way the Boy would talk in our last month together, it was pretty clear that he remembered our past as one unbroken stream of unhappiness. I’m the only one on earth left to think about the meals we cooked on our tiny hibachi and remember being in love. Sometimes I feel that the worst part about losing him is that I’ve lost my back up memories, and without my back up, how can I know for sure that I spent those years well? I thought we were happy but look how wrong I was. Why couldn’t I be wrong about everything else?

It was just as bad when I was shopping for Blake’s summer clothes. This is the typical, boring job we would have done together, late in the season and rushed. Every year we got to pick out the clothes we would get to love Blake in this summer. Now I get to pick out the clothes myself and think dismal thoughts about the Boy’s reaction.

Some people who used to be my friends got married this month. I’m in the awkward position of finding out through the internet, which doesn’t make this time any easier to bear. I just hope that they do better than I did. Than we did.

Labels: angst, blake, the boy

I am closing in on the end days of my sixth year as the World's Worst Teacher. This has not been one of my better years. I am profoundly disappointed in my time management, and my deep, deep procrastination reflex has never been exercised quite as much as it has this year. Of course, I have an automatic: this is the year the marriage sprung a leak, foundered and sunk. Still, I'm going to need to rise above it sometime, and that's going to have to be next year, I suppose. Next year I will have to learn how to balance the single mum thing, the teacher thing, the crafty thing and the dancer thing with the venerable closet intellectual/weekend goth thing. I think I'm going to have to get one of those books on how to sleep less at night.

And yet, I haven't done too badly this year. I had grave doubts about my ability to deliver term marks before exams were written (because marking term work and exams together is hot, crispy death), but it happened. All I had to give up was lunch yesterday, and while I am not one of those people who can skip meals without noticing, it all came right in the end. I was able to go to my exam supervision with a clear conscience, and once the whanging headache subsided, I had an awesome evening that included two dinners. Sweet.

Last night was a costuming session for my troupe, and I was all ready to skip it on the grounds of not enough good health and too much the Blake (who was not misbehaving, but who is not a kid you can safely park in a corner while you do something else). As Blake and I left the house to run an errand, a tiny bell clanged in the back of my mind. Hadn't I promised...something? To Juuki? About giving her a ride tonight, oh crap. So I went to her house, drove her to the meeting and was prepared to turn around again when Blake asked if we could go in.

"Just to say hi," I said, thinking he'd lose interest quickly. After all, he hadn't eaten dinner and we were on borrowed time. I hadn't counted on the amazing attraction of a new male friend, all to himself, in the person of Jessamyn's husband. The two of them played video games in the basement while the troupe ate freely of the potluck feast (to which I hadn't contributed, of course, not that it stopped me from eating away) and worked on our costumes. Blake was awesome for two hours, and the only reason we went home is because it was my bedtime. By this point, Blake had tried on my skirt and demanded his own so that he could dance with us.

He definitely has moments when his cuteness threatens to overwhelm existence and snuff out life as we know it.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, dancing

something nice

I paid for yesterday's storm day of leisure with the worst case of cabin fever I've ever experienced. As soon as I got home from church, I was certain that if I didn't get out of the house again that I might die. I was vibrating so fast that I could barely think straight. Unfortunately, all of my regulars were busy or we have a date so soon in the future that me rushing over right now would be pretty silly. Even Dirk, my soi-dit lazy friend, was very resistant to inviting me up to his parents' place. (I think I'll have to stop being a brat for the next little while, because Dirk's current incarnation just isn't finding my shit funny. Unsettling.)

So I called Preacher, and found him at the airport with the family, on their way to Palm Beach. Good thing I hadn't gone through with my plan to just drive to his house, Dirk or no, which was my original plan two months ago.

We've been talking today about the small still voice of God, and I figured that if it was this hard to find something to do, then I must need to do something here to make myself settled. I sat in the study, thinking, and I suddenly noticed something: of all the rooms in the house, the only place still haunted by the Boy is this room. Every other room, from the living room to the basement to the bedroom has been reorganized, altered, shifted so that the holes are no longer obvious and wounding. This is the only room that still has piles of his shit on the shelves, in the closet, under the desk.

Today I purged.

It's all sitting in piles by the door, and the Boy has promised to pick it up tomorrow. He didn't sound to pleased with my "pick it up or I'm throwing it out tonight" message, but I don't actually care. As I was packing it up for him into nice, convenient crates from my dad's company, I had second thoughts. What if I blow it because I won't be nice to him now? And then I realized that it didn't matter. This week I asked him twice if he would reconcile, once with a joking tone in the driveway of Casa Nova and then privately in my doorway. Both times he was more than happy to refuse. If he's going to point to this latest ultimatum as proof positive that I'm unreasonable, well. Actually being nice never goes to my credit, so why not play the bitch?

At least I'm not borrowing a trebuchet from Team Sundridge to fling flaming JUMP workbooks at his apartment windows, which was my first plan last month.

cosmic pluto's socks pose with the boy's crap

Labels: angst, house rich, the boy

"You do stupid things that I don't like!"
- Blake, this morning, when the rage subsided enough for him to speak

I had a really great entry for Wednesday, but then I thought better of it. As I learned from the great Q & Stacy Rumour Disaster of 2002, sometimes I need to think twice before publishing something on the Internet. It will see the light of day eventually. All we need to say for now is that I cried myself to sleep on Tuesday and made all of my co-workers join my pity party on Wednesday, whether they wished to or not. Everything got better when I made it to my knitsibs, big fat burrito in hand and wool fumes buoying me up. I only had to tell a few people before I was okay again. I even got a phone call, which left me gobsmacked because only one person knew where I was going that night and I thought I was moving renegade, under the cover of the eclipse. Not so much. But being found was pretty terrific, too.

Tonight I pack up the Blake's stuff for the weekend and spend the night making something for Hestia's b-day tomorrow. I love a good kids' party, and between Andrea and Opera Sarah, I've been invited to some of the best lately.

Labels: angst, blake, knit

My Grade 12 class has a summative project that involves designing a utopia based on the principles they've absorbed throughout the semester. Then they make a presentation designed to sell us (or more importantly, me) on this idea of utopia. One group last month did a slide show about their institutions of higher learning, and partway through my startled voice proclaimed, "hey! That's my college!" Good old UC. And when they argued, I said, "I know that place. I was up on the roof once." Then they laughed at me.

Happy 11th anniversary, ridiculous Fireball. Happy anniversary random nudity, stolen ice cream and impossible love. It was worth the cigarette burns, the ruined stockings and the pictures in which my underwear was clearly visible. It was all worth it for the view from the top of UC.

Yesterday I offered to drive Mason home because I was going down for Drunken Knitting and we haven't had a chance to hang out since he came back to work this week. I didn't realize that being with a friend would make the handoff of Blake to the Boy that much harder. This is because I couldn't encase myself in the customary ice that cloaks my recent dealings with the Boy. So when the Blake had walked off into the snow with his daddy, I started to cry for the first time in weeks. Sometimes I am terrified by the amount of denial I use to get through the day. Watching the two of them walk around the corner made me realize that on some level, I'm just keeping my life warm for the day the Boy decides to come back.

This week was an especially hard one, because the blessings flowed in and there was no one to share them with. Asked to join a belly dance troupe – wait until work to cautiously tell anyone. Love bombed by Stacy – private and wonderful and no way to share why I'm smiling. Cosmic Pluto wants me to test-knit a pair of socks for her book – wait a day and a half until I can share the news with my knitting protégé Mason. It's really really hard to be missing the person who tried to understand my obscure flashes of joy.

But if emotion is the sickness, Drunken Knitting is the cure. By the time I made it down to the Dick, everything was in full swing. Sophie buttonholed me outside the door and we traded angst (not only are we goths, but we have actual troubles this winter, which makes it easier to mope convincingly.) I ordered food as fast as I could, then spun my head around when Mason, Kristen & Sage walked in. Yay! Between eating and talking and listening and playing pass the Sage and soothe the Zoë, I might have knit 8 tiny rows on my scarf. Maybe. It was one of the good nights, one of the best. I only went home when I was too tired to keep my mouth closed from yawning.

Conversation in the car on the way to K8rs' party:

Blake: I don't love Daddy anymore.
me: Yes you do, sweetie.
B: No. I don't love anyone anymore.
me: I feel like that sometimes.
B: No love for anyone. I'm not going to save anyone from dying.
me: I feel like that sometimes, too.

Labels: angst, blake, friends, knit, nostalgia, outings

The Boy & I continue to bicker about access. It's complicated by the fact that this is the only issue he's bothering to pursue, so all of his energies are focussed on wringing extra minutes from me. Plus it's the only thing he can do and get any sympathy from anyone, so I'm sure it's helping his self-esteem to be as pugnacious as possible. (As pugnacious as he can be without actually paying for a lawyer himself, that is.)

I'm not happy about this for a host of reasons, including but not limited to the strong feeling that this is creating an unstable environment for Blake, the Boy's douchebag attitude, the lack of attention to any other relationship issue, the amount of running around I have to do preparing Blake & driving him around so that the Boy can have a visit, and the loneliness I feel when Blake is away. Everyone I talk to, from my parents to Palaver & Preacher, is aghast that he is demanding so much, which makes me feel worse for every concession I make.

On Friday I fought the rising tide of weekend-related claustrophobia by driving to Parkdale and visiting with my favourite chat-based superhero: Dirk Nightshade. The agenda was typical of a meeting with such a man: excellent dinner, light conversation and perambulation about town. The walking was slightly sullied by the facts that it is wicked cold on the streets and Blake's sidewalk speed is set at "pokey," but we muddled through. And one of the best things about the trip was that it gave Blake a chance to play with Dirk's toddler roommate Ivy, the Gothest Little Girl Of All Time. I often wish for friends in the town where I live, but I have to admit that these nights in Toronto, when every part of my social life come together perfectly for Blake and myself, are all the sweeter for their rarity.

Thanks to the recent thaw, my house is under siege by some of the biggest spiders I've seen since my last B.C. vacation. The most obvious are the four who have claimed my upstairs bathroom, an occupation which means that I need to do a cursory check of my surroundings before taking my clothes off or reaching for a towel. It's especially fun when you're as nearsighted as I.

I generally have a policy of live and let live when it comes to spiders, as they take care of some truly horrid insect roommates. But their sheer numbers are starting to get to me. I mean, how long will it take until they start eating each other? The weather is cold again and I have to think that they've already eaten most of the bugs on offer. To my mind the cannibalism can't come soon enough.

The other neat thing about my house is that my bamboo have become an interesting emotional barometer. Joyce gave me three pretty stalks as a housewarming present, and they are pretty damn hard to kill. That being said, as soon as the Boy left, I noticed that one was…failing. Sure enough, one stalk is now completely withered, while the others go on. I'd take a picture, but I can't find my camera. Bamboo: innocent agent of feng shui or sinister agent of destiny? Mua ha ha ha.

Labels: angst, blake, the boy

Yesterday I got up at 4:45 to mark my final 8 essays (I just go crazy like the good old days). At about 6, I heard a little voice coming from the next bedroom.

"The S is for socks! (clap clap) The S is for socks! (clap clap)"

Hee! Only Blake truly understands why I need to listen to a good Homestar song over and over, because he wants to do the same thing. And in honour of our earworm, I changed the banner.

Things are pretty static around here. The Boy & I have switched to email negotiations, as talking to him in person about anything of importance makes me pretty angry pretty fast. He showed up on Sunday to drop off Blake and he wasn't wearing his wedding ring. As soon as he was gone, mine went into the china hutch. I find myself touching the place it used to be on my finger a lot.

I'm having a hard week. I keep waking up and wondering who I am. I wonder if this is supposed to be my life. I wonder if I'll always feel this dislocated. I wonder how long the Boy was faking it. I wonder if this is for real or if I just have to be patient a little longer. My hands stay in motion, ringless. Busy is all I have.

Labels: angst, blake, the boy

Today has been a fucking disaster. No, I guess it hasn't. When I think about Abortionpalooza Weekend I realize that my life can – and has – dropped much further. Still, I've been pretty brave lately, and I feel especially tested. The sequence, for your consideration:

1. Clean the house in preparation of a visit with Poppy & the twins. Get a call from Poppy asking for a rain cheque because everyone is sick sick sick. This wasn't so bad: at least I vacuumed my couch.
2. Go grocery shopping with Blake during lunchtime. Watch his fuse shorten. Insist that we visit Chapters before going home for lunch. Watch him have a complete sobbing meltdown over a mitten in the parking lot. Drag him to the Chapters, to find that the book is not in stock. Drag him back to the car.
3. Bake brownies for Stacy to make up for lack of present yesterday. Yell at Blake for gouging at brownies with knife when I left the room.
4. Go skating with Blake and parents at large public park at the centre of the town's New Year's Eve celebrations. Have a good time. (Wait for it.)
5. Go for dinner with family friends. Have an excellent time. Realize as I am about to leave that my wallet is gone, probably during skating. It is now full dark.
6. Go with my mother's friend to find wallet. Spend an hour discussing my separation. No wallet.
7. Go home to find a message from the police: wallet was turned in! Go back downtown to fight crowds and find police officer. No officer.
8. Find another cop, who tells me to phone the station.
9. Phone station. No wallet. I am told to phone tomorrow.
10. Go home. Realize that it's now 10 and I can't drive to Toronto without my licence. Further realize that I will be home alone on New Year's Eve, as Blake is sleeping at Camp Grampa. Think about eating all the brownies. Write journal instead.

So here I am. I figure that if I can live through this night completely alone, cheated & stuck – then I can live through fucking anything.

Bring it ON, 2008.

Labels: angst, family, friends, outings

The last few days I've been doing stuff, filling the time with wholesome activities. Moving books around so that the gaps are less visible. Skating with my parents & Blake in the pretty pretty snow. Transferring my clothes from the craft room to my bedroom. Making sure that the kitchen is tidy and the laundry up-to-date. Taking Blake to Christmas stitch n' bitch at Lettuce Knit, because I don't even have to mention it to anybody. Keeping busy. Trying to feel good about myself. Distancing myself from the pain by excelling in domesticity.

I keep tripping over things that he left, and they are just as inexplicable as the things he took. Why did he take the Vince Gueraldi Peanuts CD and leave his R2D2 phone? I suppose that I need to be a little less diligent about trying to figure it all out. The lack of logic fits in well with the whole breakdown of the relationship, anyway.

Preacher phoned me a couple of nights ago, and I found it soothing that he was as baffled as I was. Besides, trying to explain it to him meant that I didn't have to try and live with it alone, at least not for that hour. I saw Ian today, and the same applied. I think I crave people who knew me before I started dating the Boy, because they're a link to a time when my whole identity wasn't this relationship. I realized today that I got engaged and dumped within a week. There's something about this season, I guess, something that really and truly makes it the cruellest month for me.

Speaking of wholesome activities and cruel months, I managed to see Sweeney Todd on Boxing Day with Stacy, JimZed & Death. Thank heaven that in my time of need I am given Johnny Depp in a striped bathing suit, Helena Bonham Carter in black corsets and jet upon jet of arterial blood. That, and the snowman tray, made it all worthwhile.

"I eat out of a snowman. Do you eat out of a snowman?"
"I eat out of plates with my family."
"Oh."

I also tried taking Blake to the ROM for the reopened dino exhibits, but it was a bit of a bust. The first part was good: I met Ian as planned, he whisked us in with his employee pass (swank! I'm with the video producer!), and the new galleries are truly dino-tacular. Blake, however, was completely over-stimulated by the swarming crowds that blanketed the fossils, and it was a struggle to keep him with me and focused on the exhibits. The real descent began when we were in the bird displays and I realized that Blake's Buzz Lightyear had been AWOL for some time.

If you ever want to see my kid collapse in grief then you should know that a defecting father isn't going to do it: it takes the disappearance of one of his 8 Buzzes in a public place. He reacted exactly as if there had been a death. First he clung to me, sobbing weakly. Then, when made to move, he marched tragically with a few tears slipping down. He accepted a free granola bar on a street corner, but when he realized that it made him happy, a new fit of tears wracked his little red face. Like so much of my recent life, it made me want to laugh and cry at the same time, while leaving me with a pounding stress headache.

Despite this reckoning, I did enjoy getting out to see Ian. He is, as ever, a quirky mix of rockstar privileges and honest integrity, which meant that I could cry my eyes out in the rotunda for free. And his reaction to that will be telling me that he made his sister cry on Christmas, so it's been the Worst Christmas Ever in a few places. That made me feel better. I guess I don't mind being in pain as long as I can be the Queen of Pain. Plus, unlike most of the people I meet in my day, I can say all of the crazy shit that I'm thinking and he'll just return the serve as if it was normal to refer to yourself as "the spores of relationship poison." I miss that.

Labels: angst, blake, friends, outings

"Merry Christmas, yer arse, I pray God it's my last."

Well, I'm officially a single mom in a paper crown. Queen, if you will.

The last two days were pretty awful. The Boy's insensitivity verged on satire at times, and I found myself wondering how I could have been married to a complete stranger for so long. I'm learning to keep my expectations extremely low. And even as low as they were, it hurt that he spent most of Christmas morning clicking away on my computer (his is already gone) and seemed surprised that I would have any objection to dropping another load of his stuff at the Casa Nova on my way to Christmas dinner. It hurt that he waited until yesterday morning to tell me that his mom was coming in an hour to move his bed. It hurt that after I fled the house for 5 hours to give him space, he asked to borrow my car as soon as I walked in the door. It hurt that he skipped what would have been Blake's first Christmas Eve pageant, if Blake hadn't been felled by a sudden fever, and came home without notice near 11 p.m. It hurt that, as soon as Blake had unwrapped his many presents from Daddy, Daddy packed them up to take to Casa Nova.

And yet, there were bright points. Yesterday's church was the first Christmas Eve in years that I haven't attended under a dark cloud, fresh from an argument about why we had to drop everything and see the Boy's mother later that night. Seeing everybody's excitement, singing the carols, reciting the well-worn litany: it all seemed good and proper last night. And my family have been very helpful and kind, which is awesome while it lasts. Last night after I'd been jilted with a feverish baby, my parents came home with me to wash dishes and bake cookies. I haven't enjoyed a night like that since they used to visit in Wolfvegas. Today, when dinner got boring, Nic & I snuck away downstairs. If we were a normal family, we might have smoked a cigarette or downed a shot, but instead Nic showed me how to maximize my flexibility with isometric stretches. It's all about the clench & release, people. Really.

So, yeah. The new phase starts today. I wish that the Boy were able to look into our marriage and see something worth saving, but part of me is glad that I'll have a break from being invisible in my own house.

Labels: angst, family, the boy

Yesterday was hard. Today has been hard. I can't imagine that Monday or Tuesday are going to be anything but hard. Still, I haven't been in the depths of despair since Wednesday night (our last visit with the marriage counsellor), so I believe I'm doing what they call "hanging in there." My worst problem is finding reasons to stay out of bed; although my activity level has been pretty normal, I'm having more trouble than usual in keeping myself busy. The urge to give up is strong.

Yesterday I found out that the Boy has been using my car to make runs over to his new apartment while telling me that he's grocery or Christmas shopping. When confronted, he mumbled something about not wanting to upset me. When that didn't work, he tried telling me that we had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that I've been unaware of. Refusing to admit that there was anything wrong with what he's been doing, he told me that he'd just load his stereo into the grocery cart and walk it over. Fine, I said. While he was loading up, I sat in the kitchen, eating oranges with Blake.

"Blake, should we drop off your Daddy at his new apartment, or should we let him walk over with his stereo?"

Blake considered. "Let him walk."

I have to say that the Boy's reaction to that judgement was almost worth the argument that preceded it. It actually made me feel sorry for him, and so we loaded up the car and set off to see the new flat. (We'll call it the Casa Nova, after the singles complex Kirk Van Houten moves into where he sleeps in a racecar.) The Casa Nova is about 10 minutes away from the house on foot. It's an ageing building, kind of crummy. The Boy has moved into the 22nd floor, and when I tired of waiting for the elevator, I started walking down the stairs. One landing was entirely full of garbage: half-eaten hotdog, pizza boxes, a bread bag with slices in it. I'm really looking forward to Blake spending his formative weekends in this smelly, stained rattletrap.

On the other hand, I couldn't have picked a better place to contrast a life apart with a life shared with me.

Anyway, the evasiveness continues, unpleasantly. I keep stumbling over things he's done, or getting surprise requests. I have to ask him directly, often repeatedly, when things will be moved out, or where he's going with Blake. It's like living with a war censor, or a particularly mulish teenager. The best part is that when I ask for full details, he starts telling me that he doesn't need to submit itineraries to me for approval. This is such a helpful attitude when coupled with a sudden request to take Blake out for hours, I can't even tell you.

Other than that, Christmas continues, my friends and family are supportive, and Blake is still Blake. Last night I went to a party thrown by NotAnArtist and wallowed in both sympathy and shortbread. Today I learned that Mason has a baby. I'm going to let him pick the pseudonym, but I can say that everything looks a-ok: fingers, toes, and that put-out expression particular to newborns. This year my Christmas present will be snuggling him.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, blake, friends, the boy

One of the things you may not know about me: I'm thirsty. When I started this journal I pretty much stuck to the Diet Coke at all times, not realizing that I was further dehydrating myself. When I started teaching, I switched to gigantic bottles of water, often carrying two 1L bottles on either side of my backpack like a mule. Now that I've been teaching more than 5 years, I find that I'm still not smart enough to drink water on the weekends – and switching from 1 – 2 litres a day to nothing is hard on the body (no wonder I'm so cranky). The problem is that I come home from work thirsty, and having drank water all day I search for something that I can drink that won't keep me up all night. I've been plugging this hole with beer, but I'm afraid that's not going to cut it now that I'm going to be the only parent around at night.

I guess it's time to start fooling around with those fruity teas. Sigh.

Sorry for the boring; it's just this or a pointless lament on the effect of seeing all those Phillip K. Dick books gone. I always kind of thought that he loved them more than me. It's tough to have that confirmed.

Or I could talk about the talent show. Today was the last day of school, which means that it was time for the Bat Masterson Non-Denominational Concert. This year distinguished itself from last year in two major respects: 1) the audience was not filled with drunk, surly misfits, and 2) some of the staff did a number -- that was all dancing. I felt remarkably similar to how I once felt as a camp counsellor: impossibly proud to be a part of these people, and sad that I hadn’t the guts to participate. Next year for sure.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, dancing, health

One of the worst parts of all this is how little energy I have for anything. When I get home, it's about all I can do to make supper and do a little bit of cleaning up. It's not that I'm tired, although some days I'm so fucking tired that I can barely see straight. It's just that I'm not interested in anything. Not writing, not knitting, not movies, not my Buffy DVD's, not even the 'net. It's six thirty and I'm thinking about going to bed with a book. The boredom – when I used to bemoan losing even a second of the night – is palpable. It's times like this when I really wish that I had teevee. Just think: a steady stream of nonsense, distracting me from that box in my peripheral vision that's starting to fill up with the Boy's possessions.

Yup. That kind of distraction would be good right about now.

Labels: angst, the boy

Blake's Christmas concert was last night. O Christmas concert of preschool awesomeness, I sing of thee! There were many acts that blew me away. There were the SK's with a girl dressed like a Christmas tree who danced alone the entire song (me: "I want to be her.") There were the Toddlers dressed as snowflakes who stood amazed while their teachers tried to get them to shake glow sticks (except the one kid who cried unremittingly until muffled by a soother). And then there was my son, who helped to introduce his class, and was part of the only introduction not delivered in tragic sing-song. (At one point he forgot his line and just laughed directly into the microphone. It was quite possibly the most infectious laugh I've ever heard - and we all laughed along.) Blake was also the most enthusiastic performer in his class, jumping emphatically, singing loudly, and pulling a classmate into a dance seconds before the others remembered their cue. If I had any doubt that he was related to Pixie, that doubt vanished in the shake of an unlabeled stocking. I don't think I could tell you about anyone else on stage; the tunnel vision was profound. I was overwhelmed.

Of course, my hard candy exterior was already softened before the concert experience itself. I went to see a lawyer yesterday to draft a separation agreement, and the combination of that appointment, two nights of insomnia and a steady parade of happy-seeming families in the audience just about ripped me up. I've been brooding on this today, about what makes a pair decide to stick it out and go on with the first family, and what makes others split up and hope for another chance. My impending single status looms like that ridiculous monolith in 2001, throwing a shadow over these last days of co-habitation. I find myself wondering if I'd really prefer my old, pre-August life. A choice between lonely stability and lonely instability doesn't seem much of a choice. Still, I find myself longing for the chance to be forgiven. Maybe I'd still be here a couple of years down the road, but maybe I wouldn't. All I know now is that my family isn't all that dissimilar from the families I saw last night. It's just pulling apart instead of pushing ahead or pulling together.

Labels: angst, blake, the boy, triumph

I'm having another one of those days. Things are going relatively well; it's just that everything is backgrounded by the thought that I've been awake since 3:30. Blake had a restless night, which didn't help my anxiety & depression-fuelled insomnia. The meds are apparently taking their sweet time about kicking in, which is great, except that if I don't get any damn sleep I'm going to find it hard to maintain even the thin veneer of control I've so far held up in most public situations. Plus, extreme tiredness always makes me feel strangely lucid, and so I've spent most of the day convinced that I understand exactly why my marriage is on the rocks, and how it is all my fault. How much of this insight will survive a good night's sleep and some fresh neurochems is anyone's guess. I suppose I'm just in a martyring mood.

My dad drove me to work today, which was good, because I'll have snow tires by tonight (message to the sky: ok, we get it. You can ease up at any point.) But, my parents being my parents, there was also a hearty dose of Discussions About My Responsibilities. They are, for obvious reasons, preoccupied with my upcoming separation, and I get to reluctantly discuss plans when I'd rather be staring out the window. At the snow. And brooding over wasted opportunities. And wondering if anyone else knows how lucky they are to be loved, and thinking that I probably shouldn't startle them by telling them that out of the blue.

One of the upshots of this morning's decision was a plan to move Blake's bedroom from the downstairs layer to the upstairs layer, into what is now my craft and dressing room. My whole reasoning behind putting him downstairs was to make room for a second baby. I guess I have to face that little slice of reality, too. No Burt. No Una. Just painting my craft room green and feeling like my whole body is made of dense, fragile, imperfectly-fired pottery, waiting for the right impact to shatter once and for all.

Labels: angst, blake, family, the boy

So, as I said yesterday, I saw the doctor. She's the replacement for my older family doctor, to whom I was grimly resigned to stick with rather than trust myself to clinics & the ER. One of the worst parts about seeing her was how kind she was, how compassionate. She looked me right in the eye and told me how sorry she was. I was afraid going in that I would be told that I wasn't feeling depression, but grief (which doesn't require a prescription); I was relieved that she took me seriously. The other bad part was her advanced pregnancy; she was so clearly young and energetic and just about to get to the really good parts in life that it made me feel 1) used up 2) hopeless 3) that my life was over. I coped with this by bursting into tears during the first sentence, and not stopping until the appointment was over. My stoicism is apparently overrated.

Ladies and gentlemen of the listening audience: please don't fight with each other. This is my biased, subjective account of my marital problems; no doubt if the Boy had kept a public journal you would feel just as much sympathy for him as me. Maybe more. So although I appreciate the tremendous amount of support I've been shown lately, it needs to stay friendly. Or it needs to be taken to the mud-wrestling arena, with bikinis and trash talk for all. One or the other.

Labels: angst, health, on-line diaries

Just had a tremendously disturbing exchange with Blake. We were horsing around on the couch and I asked him for a hug. He refused. When I asked him why, he said, "no hugs for you."

"You'll make me sad," I said, and I started making sad mewing noises.

"Yes," he said, gently touching my leg, "you'll be sad. And you'll cry and you'll go away."

"What?"

"You'll be sad because I don't hug you. Because I don't love you anymore."

"Why don't you love me anymore?"

"Because I'm mad at you."

"Why are you mad at me?"

"Because I'm going to move out."

There you have it, folks. The last week of my life, as narrated by a four year old. Oh yeah, then he bit me and was carried away crying. That part was new.

Saw my new family doctor today. I have to say, I've got a bit of a crush on her. Where my old doc was cold, she's warm. Where my old doc was formidable, she's open to discussion. Plus, she's pregnant and cute. I just hope this new antidep works out; I kind of want to show her a better side than I had on display tonight.

Labels: angst, blake, the boy

Having a tremendous amount of difficulty getting out of bed in the morning. Even worse than any other day, I mean, and even worse than I can expect around this time of year. The best part is that I'm usually awake from about 3:45 onward, kinked up with anxiety and stomach pain until I fall asleep 15 minutes before the alarm goes off. Moving through the day is torture. Figuring out what to do with my nights other than go to bed immediately is getting hard. I'm trying to get myself to the gym, but I have a really hard time wanting to do anything once I'm in my house and the sun goes down.

Tomrrow I'm going to the doctor. Friday I'm going to the department social. Should be fun.

19 days until he leaves us. Blake has started saying things like, "I want Daddy to stay with us," to which I can only respond, "I want Daddy to stay with us, too."

Labels: angst

I've been crying pretty much continually this week. There was something about these last few days – maybe it was the darkness, maybe it was the stress of planning Blake's birthday party – but something spoke deep inside me, telling me that the Boy wasn't ever going to try to love me, and that all the promises I extracted from him were evaporating as quick as I could see them go. On Wednesday, while I was watching my students, I wrote a little note to myself that predicted this. "My marriage won't survive the Christmas holidays. Two weeks together will precipitate a crisis." And still I tried to hope otherwise, tried to plan some kind of a vacation that would forestall the inevitable. But I knew. I knew that I would bring it up after the party, and I knew what the answer would be.

I've been trying to figure out why this was happening since August, when the decline began shortly after my birthday. Four months of obsessive thinking later, the best I can do is sit, confounded. I don't know why he's leaving me now that things are coming together in every other part of his life. I don't know why I can't with good behaviour cancel out the bad behaviour he says has made all the difference. I only know that I can't do it for both of us. I've been trying to keep it together for so many reasons: because I love him, because I'm terrified of abandonment and life as a single mother, because it's not fair (whatever that means). But I can't do it. I can't convince him to love me again with good things, and I certainly can't browbeat him into loving me.

The bitterly ironic thing is that as soon as it was said, he let go of all the defences and cried for hours. The intimacy, the connection, the trust I had dreamt of for months was finally mine, but only when it couldn't benefit me in the slightest.

This is what's left. A heaviness and an ache that infuses everything I do. A pain that steals my sleep and my appetite and my will to move forward. I'm going to have to force myself through the motions for the next little while. Not looking forward to it at all.

7:37 p.m.

And now for something completely different. Feeling really good right now, thanks to a combination of knitting downtime at Jacquie's, surprise handmade socks (thanks, NotAnArtist!), cardio exercise, leftover vegetarian chilli and some strategic kitchen cleaning (I love how parties make you clean up before and after). I think I like feeling in control, like I'm not just moping around my house. Plus, Blake was extra happy to see me, and I'm greatly looking forward to putting him to bed tonight in his new Buzz Lightyear sheets (thanks, Andrea & K8!). More party stuff tomorrow, because despite all of the heaviness I felt that day, it was a damned good time.

Labels: angst, blake, friends, knit, outings, the boy

Blake is 4 today, and ordinarily this would be an entry about the awesomeness that is Blake. But then the Boy told me that he was leaving me in the New Year, and my focus changed.

It was then I discovered that I was out of words.

blake, close up

Labels: angst, blake, the boy

Things are bad here. Again. And I said I wouldn't write about the relationship stuff, so I won't, but that doesn't mean that I have to lock myself into a closet and write things into a cloth-bound diary. I think I'm still allowed to write about the big picture, to say: my life, it sucks. Report cards are due in less than a week. I seem to have lost a set of tests somewhere. One of my good friends has been talking about suicide every day for weeks. Blake threw up last night around 3:30, and I was up with him until he left for school. And the Boy is really unhappy right now. Unhappy with me. Unhappy with us.

So we're right down to triage this week. Either we're doing basic stuff like food and clothing, or I'm trying to convince the Boy to give me another chance, or I'm taking care of Blake. I can mark or I can try to keep my marriage alive; I can't do both. This is why I'm home today. I haven't been sleeping and I need to mark without the pressure of classes and keeping up appearances for other people.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that there are bright spots. Blake, for instance, doesn't seem to be the worse for his night-time episode. I can whack a big assignment off my to-do list today, as soon as I get off the self-pity train. My friend is still fighting, still living. I'm wearing home-made socks. And the biggest thing is that I still have hope that things can get better. Not that you know what those things are, but trust me: they can get better. I can get better.

Labels: angst

I am unbelievably short-tempered today. I was up at 7 to get ready for a tutoring gig, but because this is wacky wacky time-change weekend, they came 25 minutes early. I had to answer the door in pj's as the Boy, my usual pitch-hitter in these situations, was just out of the shower. Embarrassing. After 40 minutes of telling them things they didn't want to hear, I got to go back to my life. (It's not like I have a magic pill to make people better writers, although I did prescribe a good old fashioned dose of the Elements of Style. Heh. Like Buckley's mixture, that book reads terribly, but it works.) I'm supposed to look at another draft tonight. Fun Stuff.

Time change has got me moody and hard to please. I'm cold, I'm hungry, and Blake & the Boy keep wandering off or falling asleep or bursting with energy. I'm going to cook dinner & go to bed early. In the meantime, here's some photo phun. Click through for more Hallowe'en costumed shenanigans.*

* Active shenanigans ingredient: less than 2%

Labels: angst, blake, pictures

More "setbacks" at school for Blake. Yesterday his teachers asked me: since he was falling asleep every day in class, should they just bed him down with the other pre-K's who have naps after lunch? I don't want to make their job any harder than it has to be, so I said yes. Today, when I dropped everything (including the pillow) at my parents', my mom once again wanted to know if I was going to switch him to ½ days. Because clearly, he's not hacking full days and I should just forfeit my commitment deposit because he'll never grow out of it. (She also told me to pull up my shirt, so I think there might have been a bad mood going on.) This followed closely on the heels of an ugly morning drive, and I tried to forget it all as I went to work. But when I picked up Blake & found out that he'd wet his clothes for the second day in a row, it all came rushing back.

I thought the toilet training was done. I didn't think we'd get a relapse for no good reason, one that allows him to casually wet his clothes when playing, in the mornings, after naps, etc. I realize that Blake isn't a problem to be fixed, but some days I wish I didn't feel so embattled.

And yet I am compelled to point out that his writing has, in six short weeks, gone from meaningless scribbles to numbers and letters. He can almost make out an errand list - although he spells "comic store" with a k and a.

Some pictures from our Sunday walk at the Arboretum.

this is how blake spent the first 20 minutes of our "walk"

the boy busied himself identifying fungus

…and this is his demonstration of a chitinous variety with a soft underbelly that can – and must! – be written on.

Labels: angst, blake, outings, the boy

This has been a very difficult week, and I'm starting to think that if I don't try to write about it now then I won't ever work up the courage.

Wednesday the Boy took me to Lettuce Knit so that we could celebrate Clara's 1st birthday with everyone, and within minutes, he was walking away. One stupid remark from a knitter and he shrunk in on himself & vanished, humiliated. He came back for me, of course, but there was so much crying (me) and free-floating anger (him) on the way home that it sapped all of my energy and I stayed home the next day. (To put that in perspective, I'd been flagging already. I left yoga class in the middle of the third sun salutation because I was afraid I would fall down, and two hours in the pits of despair took the last of my ability to pretend wellness.)

Thursday was recovery, and therefore better. We all went to a big ol' church Thanksgiving dinner that night. A most excellent time was had by all, and I began to hope that my run of luck was over.

The first two days of this weekend have been filled with work. Not professionally (which would have been smart) but domestically (which is still pretty smart, I guess). Saturday was indoors. Sunday was yard work. And we all worked together for the most part, and very happily on Sunday at least. Then on Sunday night, after we'd gone to bed, a little argument got bigger and bigger and bigger, well past the point at which we used to be able to let it go. So I asked him the question that he'd avoided for two months, and this time the answer was yes. Yes, he didn't love me. Yes, he wanted to leave.

Last night was one of the longest of my life. There was much more conversation after that, and he's agreed to wait until we can see our counsellor on Thursday, but I don't know if this is a retrial or merely a delay in execution. All I know for sure is that last night was the first night that I knew for sure that I was sharing my life with someone who didn't love me. And last night was the first night that I sincerely prayed for this cup to be taken from me.

fall keeps going, heartbreak or not

Labels: angst, house rich, the boy

Very strange week. The Boy & I reached a turning point on Wednesday, probably because three full therapy sessions equals some invisible tipping point. This was good timing, as I was pretty sure that if the "keeping his distance" trend hadn't ended, I would have gone round the bend. I could actually feel my nerves that day stretched almost to the snapping point. (I probably didn't help the situation by wearing one of my least-teacherly outfits: one of Stacy's black babydoll dresses, my new-old motorcycle jacket, and the Boots. Why does this matter? Because when I'm dressed like a teacher I can focus more clearly on being a teacher. When I'm dressed like myself, I tend to dwell on my personal problems.)

Wednesday evening was also the last of the Summer Knitting Nights; Mason will be starting pre-natal classes with his wife next week, and without someone to herd me out the door I can't be trusted to go home at a reasonable hour. So we both spent almost the whole of the night wrapped in a thick melancholy coating (which for me, surrounded a chewy nougat centre of anxiety about my marriage). How can I best convey my mind-state that night? How about: on the way home I listened to "Slow Hands" by Interpol 6 times in a row.

But that story has a happy ending. Not to worry.

The next night I headed down to the city again for a clandestine knitting brainstorming party. I had originally meant to drop Mason at the bottom of Spadina, but I got so distracted by our conversation that I ended up driving him to the Annex, and then being in the unlovely position of squeezing my way across the city in the middle of rush hour. I felt like a bit of food in Elvis' digestive system in the last part of his life. Ugh.

I was a full hour late for the party, and had to be emotionally propped up by Michelle's offer of butter tarts and herbal tea. But the party was good, and my go to hell attitude actually unfettered my imagination thus my suggestions were perhaps more creative than they might have been otherwise, and there was lovely swag, and then there were rather excellent burgers afterward with Michelle and the redoubtable Rachel H