Big, bad, ugly baggage

“What it would be like if your parents had divorced?”

He’s a thinker. And he makes me think as hard or as hard as him.

“I think I would have lived with my mom full time. And I would have seen my dad every other weekend. And that he would come see me at my ice skating shows and my other activities. And I guess I would have split my holidays with them. I think it would have been really similar to how your schedule works with this divorce… and… it would have sucked to have to split my time between my parents.”

There. Truth.

I get it. I get that it’s painful and it hurts and it’s not fair. I get that he wants us all in the same house. Cause that’s what I wanted to. And… if I’m truthful, sometimes it’s crazy painful that our family is split up.

Sometimes I think I should have sucked it up and stayed in and fought some more. But then, past all the emotions, reality sets in. And I know. I know why we’re split up. And I know why I chose this path for us. It’s not the best path… but it was the best one I could give them.

So here we are… 3.5 years later, wadding through the gunk of it all. It does stink. Big time. There are moments of pain. There are moments of clarity. And there are moments that for a few minutes, we don't even notice the sting of divorce.

But then there are weekends like the ones with which he is struggling. Times of growth and of understanding. Times when he asks more, cries more, questions more. It's in those times that I feel the most helpless. The most guilty. Guilty about things I know in my head I should let go, but my heart and soul won't let me. Will I always feel this way?

I am in such a good place in my marriage. We're all 5, learning to grow through this and in this. We are learning to be a family... and we're doing it with all of our big, bad, ugly baggage.