Bittersweet

The homeless man outside the court in Brockton made shockingly lewd comments as the assembly of humanity waited in line to handle whatever official business they were required to handle. No one looked happy and based on the stories I overheard, they had a right not to be. I, in my navy blue dress with yellow flowers, felt out of place. The last time I had been to this courthouse was a year ago for jury duty which, of course, landed me on a DUI case. This particular day was my divorce hearing. I wanted to throw up. Or poop. Actually both at the same time. So, yes, divorce is akin to the Norovirus.

It has taken me a long time to find the words to sum up the last couple weeks and I don’t think I’m there yet. But, in the interest of “moving on”, I have decided to rip this bandaid off and scrub off the remnants of that adhesive gunk that remains. Right after answering yes to all of the judge’s questions, I left the courthouse feeling victorious yet defeated, healed but forever wounded. In hindsight, my decision to go away with the kids to Castine, Maine within a couple hours of coming home from that hearing was ambitious. Also in hindsight, my decision to rent a 70-year-old cabin overlooking the bay was impetuous. Yet, we piled into the CRV with as much luggage as we could handle and took off for another Maine adventure because, as Maine says, it’s “the way life should be.”

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Still reeling from all the emotions of the hearing earlier in the day and the sheer willpower it took to get myself and the kids up to Maine, I found my eyes filling with tears at dinner when everyone was in a foul mood and J.D. told me to “stop talking” when I said “No matter where you go, there you are.” about five or ten times. This is something that I have gotten used to—emotions that surface and spill over right in front of the kids. Vacationing as a single parent used to be very overwhelming to me. Now, I embrace it. You can’t hide your humanity when parenting on your own. Vacations are great but stressful with kids. When you’re the only one tap dancing around all the personalities, it sucks. So, instead of parking myself at home to avoid all that, I just go and pray to Mother Mary to help me through this. NO ONE gives Mary enough credit for handling what she did so I assume she’s the one to pray to as a single parent. As soon as my eyes started to fill, I could tell that the kids were suddenly seeing me as a human and not a Mom. “I’m sorry.” I told them. “It’s not you guys, it’s me. But, it’s a lot of effort to get here on my part so can we all just pretend to be somewhat happy?” They did. We moved on as the funky little unit we are.

When we got back to the cabin and settled in for the night, the sun came out and I felt better about my decision to travel right after the hearing. Sure the place was a little musty but what isn’t musty after 70 years? The kids played wiffle ball on the grounds, I sat outside in an adirondack overlooking where Castine’s harbor met the Bagaduce River. When I talked to Thomas on the phone, he asked how I was feeling about the divorce. “Bittersweet” I told him. “Yeah, I get it.” he said. All of a sudden I felt a weight lift off of my back. Divorce with children is funny. It’s not just the marriage that ends, it’s also the death of an image you held in your mind of how things would turn out. You know, that image of sitting on the porch with white hair next to the person you married 50 years prior while watching the grandkids play in the yard where you planted life to surround and adorn your own. That’s a difficult image to let go of and the grief that comes with it comes in waves. The waves get smaller and eventually turn into ripples. However, a melancholy persists that might be unshakable. I don’t know yet. Time will reveal the fate of all this grief.

The first two full days in Castine were sunny and somewhat warm. We saw the northern lights one night and the next. We went to a remote beach that felt like a secret. The kids settled in to what this vacation had to offer and I felt relieved. Then, the mist and fog arrived and just didn’t stop rolling in for the rest of our vacation. The musty cabin was now damp—nothing felt comfortable to sit on, the lovely screened-in front porch where Maire and I caught the sunrise the first morning was now dripping, and the outdoors was no longer really an option. Further, the night kayak trip I had planned to take the kids on to see the famed bioluminescence of Castine’s harbor was also off the table as it was surprisingly all fully booked. This little sliver of what was once Acadia was the sight of where I most likely first encountered bioluminescent phytoplankton back in 1994 when I did Outward Bound for a two-week sailing adventure that was, and still is, one of the most rugged things I’ve ever done. Quietly drifting through the harbor there as we dipped our hands into the ocean and saw life light up at the slightest touch was a magical moment. The weighty combination of ick and my epic glow-in-the-dark Mom fail set my jaw into clench mode that not even a double IPA could relax. Everyday the kids asked what we were doing when all I had really planned on doing was plunking down right where we were and using the “beach” down by the cabin’s dock which was so mucky you couldn’t walk on it. My final conclusion is that I’m more of a rustic chic traveller than the rugged one I once was and my children have a different definition of magical that I do.

Despite all the challenges that weather delivered to our trip, we found a way to have a different adventure each morning and enjoyed the winding and rolling roads of the Blue Hill region of Maine. We drove a lot and did finally see bioluminescence at the dock one night. “I am a rock. I am an i-i-i-island.” Maire sang when I praised her for being brave for walking through the darkness to see something cool. It was, I think, my favorite moment that whole trip. That song has been played countless times during our road trips and, apparently, now my kids know it well. It is a great song. The final night in the cabin was so damp that I didn’t want to sleep in anything less than jeans and sweatshirt. I curled up on the musty sheets in the fetal position, hands in prayer mode under the right side of my face. “Take me home, country road, to a place I BELOOOOONG!” Isaac sang off-key from his bed. I laughed because, well, at least they have an appreciation of this chaotic revolving door of a home in which we live.

The past four years have been eventful to put things gently. Separation, illnesses, pandemic, heart attack, injuries, dementia, hospitalizations, soccer games, track meets, holidays, birthdays, wakes, weddings, funerals, new love, and divorce to name just a few. I decided this year that therapy should be a permanent part of my life as should be continuing to pray to Mother Mary. When we came home to Hanson from Hawaii in 2018, Dad was riding the zipline in our woods to test it for the kids. Now, he’s on hospice, not communicating much, and declining a little each day. There is a silver lining to all of this that I will detail in the coming weeks. For now, I will leave it with this bittersweet moment in time—As I type these words, I watch Dad stare at the TV from his chair while my brother Jim takes out the trash on his 61st birthday and Maire brings down her laundry. Sad, celebratory, arduous, joyful, painful, ecstatic, and mundane is what life is. Without that mix, without our ability to weather all of those things with grace and humility, we are doomed to continuous despair and victimhood. Choose joy and victory instead. What do you have to lose?

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