Waiting for the dice to roll

I wanted to have something witty and uplifting for you, but the sad fact is that I seem to have regressed. Because I’ve felt so low, I’ve been reluctant to write–worried that this website would become (even more) puling and self-indulgent, when I want it to be a beacon of Light and Reason, helping fellow travelers find their way. (Never let it be said I don’t aim high enough.)

I trust you readers will keep me honest. A kindly meant Oh Do Snap Out Of It in my comment section will never, ever offend me. My own mother, at once my sternest and fairest critic, has intimated that I whine (in this particular venue, about my run-of-the-mill feelings) too much. She has a point. I’m not sure whether her impatience with me comes as a natural consequence of her status as a highly-decorated veteran of multiple divorces, or simply from the selective amnesia I pray will one day afflict me, too, as I move away from this wretched, stupid and somewhat spiritually annihilating period of my life. At this point I would prefer to be callous and unfeeling, or shallow, or blissfully oblivious, or even (horrors!) boring, because I can’t take feeling so fucking SAD for much longer.

The most overwhelming and least interesting woeful component of my life is the house, which is going to be shown to one more person on Saturday morning before I pull the plug. Then I will reclaim the place as my own, whatever that means (mess up the closets? Throw towels about willy-nilly?) My ex-husband signed the lease on the cottage, so unless Saturday’s people buy the house, that particular pipe dream is gone. I had to drive past the cottage yesterday, taking my kid and my consoling-windows friend’s kid to baseball. It nearly killed me. However, I have decided to refer to the dream cottage as “the apartment” to my ex, who has vehemently stated he would never, ever live in an apartment. It’s a small, vicious thing to do–really quite unworthy of me, but it makes me cackle inwardly. My consoling-windows friend promised she’d follow suit whenever she sees him and the topic comes up. We amuse ourselves.

I spent a few days in the company of my dear (and about to be extremely, deservedly famous) authoress friend, who took me to a fancy department store and discussed my skin tone with a charming young gentleman at the Chanel counter. I sat stupidly between them in a chair, tilting my face this way and that per their instructions. They might as well have been speaking Urdu. In the end I handed my credit card over meekly, and left with a bag full of beauty enhancers I don’t know how to use. However, it’s high time I spruced myself up, I’ve been told. My great-grandmother, an exceedingly glamorous woman, believed that clothing became much more important as one aged; so, apparently, does makeup. “You don’t wear…drugstore cosmetics?” my authoress whispered, and both she and the Chanel gentleman exchanged horrified glances when I admitted that I did not have a preferred (or any, as it so happens) eye cream. Or facial moisturizer. Believe it or not, when I was a dewy-faced 22 year old, I worked here at the Yves Saint Laurent counter, selling makeup. Not my calling, evidently.

Then my boyfriend and I trotted out to the country to visit some of his college chums–in an odd coincidence, they live about a mile away from my college chums we saw a couple of weeks ago. (Mine were not around last weekend–they were at my 20th reunion, which I, obviously, did not attend. I feel rather guilty about that. Numerous friends urged me to go, but (especially after l’affaire Chanel) I couldn’t justify the outrageous fees my alma mater charges for a weekend of nostalgia.) I was, for some reason, nervous about meeting these particular old friends of my boyfriend, but I needn’t have been. They turned out to be delightful people, with preternaturally lovely children, the youngest of whom (a second-grade girl who reminded me a great deal of my own second-grade boy) quietly took me under her wing for the weekend, slipping her hand into mine unobtrusively as we walked to the beach, appearing by my side on the sofa with a book, offering to accompany me in the hot tub. (We both like the jets off and the heat turned up, thank you very much.) She could not have been a better companion. And as I settled into their household for the weekend, I felt the familiar ache…not precisely envy, not nostalgia for marriage or even for domesticity per se, but for the utter coziness that comes with family life. Everyone exactly where he or she should be, at exactly the proper time. That sweet normalcy, for lack of a better word, that seems to have fled my life completely.

Oh, I know. It’s easy to romanticize and generalize, and I should know better. After all, I experienced first-hand the pleasures and annoyances of a long comfortable marriage with children. I loved it for years, and then I didn’t love it any more, so I wrenched myself loose. And here I am–living a life I would have mail-ordered if I could have, back when I felt the first icy tendrils of dissatisfaction creeping around the corners of my marriage.

Consider: I spend some part of every week with my boyfriend alone. This is not generally available to married couples with children–even if one is rich, and has obliging relatives, a yearly trip to Paris without kids is the upper limit, for most people. And I spend some part of every week truly alone–a luxury almost unknown in marriage. I spend part of every week alone with my children–which occurred when I was married, too, but their father’s absence was a presence, if you know what I mean. When I’m alone with them now we aren’t just waiting for Daddy to get home. And, paradoxically, it’s both easier and more comfortable without another parent in the picture. Finally, I spend the odd weekend with my boyfriend and his kids and my kids–domesticity on steroids, if you will.

This four-fold life strikes me as infinitely rich and rewarding. And so it makes no sense that I find myself upset and shattered on a regular basis, missing my kids when I’m with my boyfriend, missing my boyfriend when I’m with my kids. “Do you think you are good at long distance relationships?” I asked my divorced friend who lives across the country, and she said, “No, although it bothers me, because I think I should be, and I wish I were.” My feelings exactly. The limbo I’m in is the best anyone can do right now–we’re powerless to change it, so we might as well accept it. I wish I were better at it, though. I certainly think I ought to be.