On Loneliness

It has been a tough week. DB has been traveling a lot lately, between work responsibilities and flying out to visit his kids. One day in late August, we sat down with a calendar and realized that between our respective schedules, we were not going to have a weekend together until late October. So that was demoralizing.

Then last week my kids went back to school, and it was a tough adjustment, which meant that they were WHINING constantly with the whining that just wouldn't stop, except when they were fighting like rabid weasels, or lying on the floor and refusing to budge, even though it was time to leave for school, and if they didn't put on their shoes THAT INSTANT, Mommy's head was going to explode!! I'm not proud of this, but at one point, I was doing what can only be described as shrieking. My throat hurt all day, and when I got to work I locked myself in my office and cried.

This is usually when my children decide to tell me that they don't want to live with me anymore. It's less of a blow now than before I realized that they do the same thing to their father when he finally reaches a point where placating them with cookies/ice cream/TV/outings doesn't work anymore, and they manage to get on his last nerve. But still, it's not a good way to leave things.

Anyway, the afternoon immediately following the shrieking incident, the kids spent the weekend with their father, and I was solo. And I didn't know what to do with myself. I had a volunteer commitment for part of one day; I had brunch with friends the next morning; I walked the dog a lot. Thankfully he's a big dog.

Bottom line, I was lonely. Like, cringing, long-dark-night-of-the-soul, pit-of-despair lonely. The weird thing is, I'm an introvert, and I never get any time to myself, so I thought I was going to enjoy getting to read and work out and putter around. Instead, I wanted a family around me. To be perfectly clear, I didn't want to go back to the family I had. Living in the same house with my ex was even more lonely, and I was so alienated from my children when I was trying to choke down my own anger and frustration. Being on my own is better, and it would be so even if DB weren't in the picture. But last weekend, I wanted my children, and I wanted DB, and I wanted DB's children. I wanted them all to be ours, to hear them playing, to walk up to DB and put my arms around him and see what we had made and feel that it was good. Of course, right after that the kids would doubtless start fighting, but that's part of being a family, too, and I would know that I had a partner to deal with it. I've never had that.

I don't expect bliss - it's not realistic. I know that in reality, if and when DB and I are able to live together with some combination of our children, it won't be easy. And while shrieking is suboptimal, I'm not sorry for requiring my children to behave like human beings, and I'm not going to bribe them the way my ex does. And I know that stepparent issues are their own separate emotional minefield that I can't even fathom yet. And, finally, and most importantly, I know that I need to confront and explore this loneliness, that my children and DB can't heal the broken places inside me. So I'm working on that, I really am.

Still, I have to say that when my children came home on Monday, they wrapped their little arms around me, and nothing has ever felt so good. I'm not sure what they're currently plotting, but I don't even care.