Mother's Day Before the Bomb
I have been working behind the scenes to prepare for moving out. The usual odds and ends -- separate checking account, where to live, what to take, what not to take, how the hell I'm going to pay for it all, etc.
It feels like I am leading a double life -- not the same feeling as when I was chatting with others months ago about the difficulties in my marriage and trying to get emotional support. Although some may disagree, I never really considered that activity "cheating." To me, this truly feels like "cheating", a dual life -- hiding my true depression and anxiety from L. with the goal of eventually beginning the demise of our marriage.
Nowhere was this made more evident than on Mother's Day. L. is the mother of my two children. Both of them are wonderful people -- generally responsible, kind, loving, decent kids. I took them, Mom and our future daughter-in-law to brunch for Mother's Day. I tried to focus on L. completely, to make this a good day for her -- one she can remember. It was less than a total success. We waited a long time for a table. We said very little. The food wasn't as good as I remembered it. It all felt so strange.
Later that day, we went to the in-laws for dinner. It was the first time I had seen L.'s youngest brother in nearly a year (I was banned from Christmas because of the revelations of my "chatting" before). Everything was typical -- L's father's "advice" on what to do about this thing or that thing; L's older brother's family playing out their teenager daughter's boyfriend dramas in front of everyone. There was the usual discussion of upcoming vacations and trips -- most of which I knew I would not be a part of any longer.
Our last joint event of the evening was L. pulling out old photos to display at my son's wedding reception in September. She got misty-eyed as she saw the baby pictures of B. and R., how she missed the days when they were so little. The panic in my head began to grow. How can I do this? How can I abandon the life the two of us had built together? Is it really all that bad? Can't things get better? The rational part of my brain had been overwhelmed by those same emotions L. was feeling that moment. Despite everything I knew to be true, I knew that those "good days" were a thing of the past -- mere snapshots in the album of my mind. We were always different people -- only now, those differences no longer served to unite us, but divided us and created rancor and pain that had poisoned not just L. and I, but our kids. All we now had left were those images, frozen in time, of happier days.
The thing I have noticed is that if you measure a life not by the little precious moments of day to day living -- of the happiness you find in the smallest kernels of the present -- but by the "big events" (the expensive vacation, the big party, the anniversaries) -- if life is measured by the big things, it is ultimately not satisfying. True happiness is found in the wonder and pleasure of the little, small things -- your child's smile, your mate's hug, quiet rains, sunrises, the taste of really good coffee. When you lose those things, you lose a huge part of yourself.
So the bomb continues to tick as I prepare for its explosion -- the one that I trust will both destroy our past but free me to the future. I brace myself for the force and the shrapnel that will fly, and hope to God I will come out alive to be healed to find the small things in life once again.