is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
This part of the divorce is done
Wednesday, July 16, 2008 Our unplugged weekend away was the calm before the fury. Before I headed back to court with the Almost Ex and before Lil E was sent spinning in the middle of the plans and arrangements of the parenting agreement his dad and I were trying to negotiate, to get settled and signed.
We had a pre-trial hearing to address the issues in our parenting agreement that we've been disputing. Although we never saw the judge, we spent hours in the hallway, our attorneys shuttling back and forth between us, attempting to resolve those points that were gaping open. The hope was that we would sew it all up to present to the judge so that she would not make the decisions for us. And as lovely as hope is, standing with my lawyer in front of the Almost Ex and his lawyer, defending the merits of daycamp and nap times made the wound feel deeper and even more raw.
Even with that wide open part of myself exposed where I am sure anyone in that hallway outside the courtroom could peer in and see my heart beating faster and fast, hear the blood rushing and notice where the old scars around it have been healing, I felt strong.
Of course, I felt worried. Was I sticking to the most important issues? Was I standing firm enough? Was I thinking clearly enough? Was I making wise decisions?
I kept asking these questions my dad, who sat beside me on the bench with his stern social worker face on. He kept responding, "Oh yes, honey. You are doing the best you can. You are doing what you have to do."
Then I asked my lawyer to break it down for me, to give me her best advice, to help me weigh what I would settle on, negotiate with, give in to, stand by. Her straight-forwardness was comforting and helped me stay steady, kept me at the discussion even after I turned to her and said, "I cannot talk about this anymore."
More than my hope of signing a parenting agreement and moving on to settle the other aspects of the divorce, was my insistence for and with myself that the document will be reliable for me. That it will hold enough in it that I no longer have to communicate or negotiate on the issues that mean the most to me in parenting this child. After all of that back and forth, all of the hammering away at mere hours worth of visitation time and provisions that I can live with, I think there is left a document that does what I hoped.
And so we signed it. We initialed pages and changes and there it all is now on paper. Our parenting agreement.
I thought I would be more relieved. Instead, I felt sad and exhausted. I know the peace will come. After all, this was the most critical term of our divorce -- our agreement on raising this boy. It isn't perfect, but no part of parenting ever is. But like a good book on sleep training or the best advice your mother ever gave you or the website you turn to again and again, it is something to rely upon in making those wise and difficult decisions. At least for now. And least at this stage in the healing process.
As a part of that agreement, Lil E leaves on a vacation with his dad tomorrow for the west coast for a week. It is the longest time I've ever had away from him. It stings inside that wound even though I know it is necessary and good for him to have that time with that part of his family. My only antiseptic is the way I will fill my own days until then, keeping myself too busy to feel the burn for too long.
I am making a list now of the things I am releasing in this divorce so that I can concentrate on the freedom rather than the grief. Signing this parenting agreement, even in the pain of it, lets me release the worries I have every time Lil E is supposed to be home at a certain time and isn't or how we will decide holidays or when I will be able to sweep him up from our daily routine for a vacation. I can release some of the tension in my neck about whether the divorce, now nine months in, will ever be finalized. Soon, I also hope, I will release my concerns about doing enough, saying enough, holding tight enough, and rest easy in the choices and changes I have made to those 14 sheets of paper, now signed and set forth between us.
I purposely put a period at the end of my signature on the last page of the parenting agreement. Done. That's what it said to me. At least for today, at least for this part, done. I clicked my pen, put it in my purse, shook hands with my attorney and left the courtroom.
The next time we will meet there is September 17th. The same week this ache was first inflicted. The irony of that, strangely, makes me smile. Who knew then, when I could only describe what was happening in my marriage as feeling as if my limbs were being ripped from my body, that nearly a year later it would come down to this. Gaping wounds, yes, but many scars already healing over and some barely visible at the surface. My limbs, though, they are in tact, still keeping me standing, keeping my arms outstretched, holding me up and open so I can push back, reach out, sign off and walk away.
Done.
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And to think I just wanted to say how awesome it was to meet you at BlogHer. :(
- Mike Clark