Monsters have been pulling on my nerves, lightening flashes disrupting my sleep and trying my patience. So many memories I thought long buried have been hauled to the surface - jagged creatures all of them - and I'm at a loss as to why they've suddenly taken to stalking me.
As much as I often want it, I can't ignore the fact that Ben gave me my sons. There was love when we created them, and while that love changed in the end, what we created together then is blooming, cascading, sparkling and bewildering every day of my life in the forms of my sons.
Ben didn't fight me for my sons either. It was clear from the very first discussion we had about what my decision to end our marriage actually meant in reality, the boys were his focus. I have some very cool photos Max's coach took of the hockey tourney in Vegas of the boys on his team, and I still can't believe that they are there without me. I miss my boys so much and I just talked to them on the phone and they sounded like they were having a great time.
“Missing someone, they say, is self-centered. I self-center you more than ever.”
I want to see the photos, at least I get a glimpse and they are wonderful pictures, and the boys are playing great. I know the grief it makes to not share them. I still find it galling, to deliberately be generous to a devoted Ironman, to ignore the hurts and do the 'right' thing. I don't want to share the majesty and brilliance of my sons with people who don't care about them. I just don't. I want to be jealous, keep them close by me, carefully shared with those who will appreciate them for who they are, who love them enough to rouse on them, mock them, encourage and look forward for them.
I guess I have to get over myself enough - my scars and pains from past experiences - and give the gift of my sons to their (in so many ways distant) father. Even if the man has no idea what he is getting, or - even worse - what he is missing out on.
So.... It now looks like tomorrow after Max plays in the championship game and I work all day and my boys ride home they will be writing a thank you to Dad, enclosing their current school photos, and then maybe a mental palate cleansing Nerf war and Slurpee. Gosh, I am so tired of trying to be better than I am.
All this over seeing two photos. Which kind of explains why, elsewhere in my head, I had actively ignored a task now one year and counting put off, and continued to carefully avoid taking down the photos I had hanging on the walls in my home staring at me, waiting.
Waiting for me to be brave. Waiting for me to tie on some big boots and go monster stomping. Waiting for me to take a deep breath, a calm afternoon and evening last month, and sink into the deep, ancient, beautiful waters of memory, tiny babies and unbroken promises. Waiting for me to slay the last of the monsters, or maybe face them (warts, fire-breathing, knashing their terrible teeth and all), see them captured in sticky, shiny, matte-finished snapshots, and clear out the cluttered dense corners for better, brighter memories both past and to come.
