The Daily Chai Has Her Bubble Busted

Today's Chai Latte told me that it was getting sick of always having to be available for me whenever I ordered it. Like I thought I was the boss of it. I told it to shut it and then I drank it. That'll show it not to get too uppity with me!

No, I'm not going crazy. I'M KIDDING. Chai Lattes don't talk, silly. They just hum quietly sometimes.

What to write about, what to write about? Hmmm....well. Kate asked me today if Daddy and I really had to get divorced. And I was like, crap, how do I answer that question? Because the truth is, we don't HAVE TO get divorced. Not really. We could continue on and pretend everything is okay and maybe even pretend we still love each other and pretend that the last five months didn't happen. Stop the sale of the house and run into each other's arms like they do in the movies and say, "I'm so sorry," "No, I'M sorry!" We could kiss and everything would be okay. On the surface. But nothing has changed and nothing is fixed and nothing will ever be the same. So doesn't all that fakeness sound like fun? Like an authentic life? Do you think you could do it? I can't. I actually wish I could. I wish I could take everything back and change how I dealt with my marriage when I was unhappy, instead of clamming up and pretending everything was okay, day after day, when it most definitely was not.

The sad fact is, I didn't deal with the problems in my marriage until it was too late and now here we are. So I looked at Kate when she asked this question and I tried to figure out an honest way to answer her that would be the truth without blaming her dad (or me) too much and still be somewhat satisfying to her as an explanation to why some marriages end. If not satisfying, at least something she can understand and accept. Because she's nine. She knows some of the reasons why we broke up, but she doesn't know everything, obviously. To her, we just got in a really big fight and then the next thing she knew, we were living separately. That was one doozy of a fight! And yes, it really was, but that isn't the solitary reason we are headed for divorce. Obviously it takes a lot more than that, but I can't tell her all those things. But...how do I justify the big D without explaining some of it to her?


As I pondered these difficult questions, she said, "Because if you guys stayed together, I could stay at my school and stay with my friends and I wouldn't have to leave my house."

And that, my friends, is how you get told that it isn't always about you.

The Daily Chai Needs to Go to Bed

Saturday. I can tell you where the Daily Chai is. That little fucker is still at Starbucks and it hasn't made an appearance. Thinks it's too good to be consumed by the likes of me I bet. Oh well, I could be a giraffe.

It's actually Friday night, but I can foresee that by the time I post this, I will not have a chai latte in my hand. 

To continue. I decided that my children are partly angelic little darlings and partly sadistic little monsters. Did you know they are both very sarcastic? I mean, Kate, she's almost nine, she's got the pre-teen (please don't ever call her a tween, I might vomit) attitude down pat. She cocks her head to one side and just looks at me, blinking her eyelids sarcastically. That is a feat, blinking sarcastically, but she's a pro. Then she says, "Mooooom!" in the most annoyed way possible. Like whatever I've said is just the most impossibly ridiculous thing she's ever heard. She may have a point as I wax philosophical about the chicken wing I just ate. And then she shushes me and continues on in her story about Minecraft vloggers. I expect this of her, she is right around the corner of teenagehood. She's got to practice now if she's going to get the angst-ridden, tortured soul routine fine-tuned in time for her 13th birthday. 

But Anna. My darling, sweet, little pumpkin of an Anna. She's turned on me and become a little terror of sarcasm overnight. She's four. How is that even possible? She actually ROLLED HER EYES at me today and mimicked her sister perfectly, "Moooooom!" She then put her little, adorably dimpled hand over my mouth and told me it was her turn to talk. But they'd both been talking FOR HOURS already. When is it my turn?

Today was my ex's birthday. Kind of crappy. I don't know, it felt weird not to spend his birthday with him, to not make a big deal out of it, to not make him a cake, or get him a present. I saw him at Kate's end of March Break camp play, we sat side by side and played nice. I saw someone I know and as I was talking to her, I referred to him as my husband, which I haven't done since the first month of our separation. It just sort of popped out because it was just too awkward to say, "my ex-husband" as I gestured to him sitting beside me, waiting for this bloody thing to start. I already felt awkward as fuck, no need to make EVERYONE feel acutely uncomfortable. Oh...I have an idea, let's get into how we're actually separated but trying to make things work for the sake of the children so here we are together, isn't it so very modern and fantastic of us? No, thank you. 

But he heard me say those words, "my husband and I" and I'm sure it made him feel like shit. On his birthday. I'm not a complete bitch, I may not want to be married anymore, but I don't want to unduly make him feel like crap on his fucking birthday. Ugh. This sucks. Amazing how four little words can wrack you with guilt all over again. 

And by the way, to the parents that brought bouquets of flowers for your children for their end of week 30 second skit for acting camp, get a grip. This is how you are making all other parents feel

The Daily Chai is....Terrified

Today's chai latte was a tall because I have to start watching my pennies. It was too milky and not spicy enough. I'm really going to have to have a word with them about that. SPICY,  I need it SPICY. Otherwise I'm just drinking hot milk like a five year old.

I've had a lot of people tell me how brave I am for striking out on my own, that what's happened isn't easy to endure, but the fact that I'm fighting to make my life right and good for myself and my kids is a good thing and something I should be proud of doing. But I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I'm fucking terrified.

When I was 18, my mom took a teaching job up North and I got my own place so I've been an adult in that sense for a long time. But my boyfriend at the time moved in with me and helped with the bills, so I wasn't on my own for long. When things went south with him, I lived alone for a couple months. I would say that was probably one of only two times in my life I've been really depressed and I withdrew from a lot of my friends. I made $800 a month and my rent was $500. I was broke and lonely. Spent a lot of time drinking alone. I ate one slice of pizza and a coke from Gino's pizza every day and that was it, because it was all I could afford. Always seemed to have money for smokes though. It was around that time I came up with the idea that they should make edible cigarettes. Then you'd always have something to eat and something to smoke. Brilliant!

My mom sent me money whenever I got desperate enough to ask for it, but my pride didn't allow that to happen very often. Eventually I found a roommate and I had a drinking buddy and with half the rent, more money to drink. Met a bunch of people through him (including my ex) and suddenly my house was the party house. It was the place everyone came to pre-drink before the bar and it was the place everyone crashed at after the bar closed. I loved it. I loved having people around all the time. It actually got to the point where I wanted them all to go home and leave me alone! That was mostly because I was usually hungover and bitchy, but we were young and foolish and it was almost always good time. Lots of fucking drama, my god, but generally a good time!

Anyway, my awesome, adorable roommate turned out to be a fraud. He stole our friend's bank card and withdrew all her money. Bought us all Christmas gifts and a flight home for himself to Halifax for the holidays and told us his rich dad sent him money. I bought it of course, I was young and stupid. And I would have never in a million years done that to anyone, let alone a friend, so it didn't occur to me that he had stolen the money. I came home from work one day and there was hammering at my door. I went down to see who it was kind of cautiously (because everyone I knew would have just walked in and started drinking, fuck knocking). It was the cops, there to arrest my roommate for theft and fraud. I was heartbroken at his duplicity, I trusted him, he was my friend and he'd lied to all of us. I freaked out, like really, screaming and crying and saying it was a lie, that he would never do that. Then my ex (who was just a friend at the time) and a couple other friends of ours came and got me and took me away, sat me down at a neighbour's and told me my roommate was a proven liar, that he probably did do it. I was kind of pissed that I hadn't been told this earlier, I'm not going to lie, but they all knew how much I loved him and he seemed like he was a good friend to me, so they never said anything. After all, maybe he had changed for the good. Evidently not. Eventually I calmed down and stopped hiccoughing and crying, but I was still so upset about it that the boys took me out to the bar and we got shitfaced. It's how you deal with everything when you're 19.

After that debacle, I moved with my then boyfriend to a new city where I went to school for awhile, but that all went south too. School, the boyfriend, the whole shebang. I was 20 and coming back from my big, brave move away from everything I knew with my tail between my legs to live with my dad. But then my ex and I finally hooked up after being best friends for about a year. We moved in together after a few months and the rest is history. We were together from that time until just a few months ago.

My point with all this? Through all that craziness, the ex-boyfriends and the fraudulent roommate and the drinking and the partying, I was never really alone except for those few months when I was super depressed. That scares the shit out of me. Because...here I am....on my own for the first time in my life. I have lots of great support, especially my mom who has been simply splendid. But now I have to stand on my own two feet and make an honest go at this thing we call life and I'm terrified. I know I can do it, I mean, I'm not going to die from terror, or starve to death because I can't afford food. Times are a little different for me now, I have a great job and even some assets. I'm a grown up, not a 19 year old kid.

But still. Eep. However, fear not faithful reader, I do believe that it will all be okay because of that quirky eternal optimist inside my brain. She's a bit of a pain in the ass, but I love her. Plus, I believe this wholehearted:

The Daily Chai Misses Her Kids

Today's Chai Latte was fabulous. I'm surprised you're not drinking your own while reading this. They really are the bomb.

So this is where I have the most trouble with my separation: the sharing of my kids. I know, I know, I just said yesterday that solo weekends are awesome. But then the work week sets in, I haven't seen my kids in three days and miss them so much. How is it possible that I've gone three days without seeing my girls? At the very beginning of my separation, I would be a basketcase on Mondays, and it was my bestie that pointed out I was always more emotional that first day back after a busy weekend of catching up with friends. Because while I was busy and distracted and occupied, my kids were not at the forefront of my mind, but reality set in on Monday morning. I would sit at the breakfast table, staring out the window with my Cheerios uneaten and getting soggy while I wondered how I got here and if I was really doing the right thing. That if I continued with this crazy, stubborn, selfish plan, I would miss seeing my kids every day of their lives.

The day after Kate was born, I looked at her and thought, "What the fuck have I done?" I looked at that tiny, scrunchy red creature and started to panic about how I now had a human being dependant on me for her every need. FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Holy shit. That's a hell of an epiphany I can tell you that and I didn't really think I was up for the challenge. 24 hours later, I would have fought tigers for her had I been called on to do so. That protective instinct and my love for her grew every day until it consumed me. I found out that I was really, really good at being a mother. For a person who has always been just smart enough to know that she is mediocre at best, the realization that I was finally amazing at something was deeply satisfying. I held on to it tightly and I wasn't going to give it up.

So when you feel that way about motherhood, dealing with the fact that you are no longer there to protect them and love them every day can be a bit traumatic. And let's face it, I'm a proven drama queen so I imagine the worst-case scenario about how this is all going to play out and I worry about my girls and how this will affect them long term. My worry is not baseless since you always hear horror stories about kids going off the rails because their parents split. My own life went off the deep end a bit when my dad left me at the age of 15 and I never really forgave him for it. I do, however, recognize that this is a different situation. When my dad left, he was done with us. I saw him irregularly at best because he wanted to screw his new girlfriend and he didn't want a sulky teenager who hated his girlfriend at his house every other weekend. The idea of joint custody and both parents actively raising the children after a divorce just wasn't his thing. I was also old enough and angry enough that I didn't want to see him very often. So I speak from personal experience when I tell you I worry for my girls and how this separation will ultimately affect them.

Obviously my ex and I have figured out a way to continue to be in our kids' lives regularly. We both agreed that if we were going to split up, the only important thing to figure out was how to make the kids feel as nurtured, loved and protected as they have always been. Everything else took second fiddle to that. There are going to be some changes, we are moving after all, but we're trying to make it exciting for them instead of scary. We reassure them that even when we aren't together, we're only a phone call away. And drama queen or not, I'm also eternally optimistic about life in general and I look for the good in the bad, I seek out the positive from the negative and see the beauty even in ugly things. So I might worry, but I also hope and expect everything to be okay.

It doesn't mean I don't miss them like crazy when I'm not with them. I haven't missed a moment of their lives since they were born except for the occasional weekend away. But just like with those weekends away, I feel guilty about looking forward to alone time. Because I really do. I revel in it. I write, I read, I do my nails, I watch movies, I see my friends. And I do all of it guilt free because I don't have to worry that I'm doing these things at the expense of not fulfilling someone else's needs. It doesn't seem like a very motherly sentiment to have, but I've always been the primary parent and having down time to recharge has made me a more balanced, patient and caring parent in many ways. And as good pal pointed out, it's ok to look forward to handing my kids over to my ex because I also really look forward to getting them back. It balances out.

The Daily Chai and How to Make a Choice

Today's Chai Latte is swimming in regret and wishes it could have been spicier. Not wanting it to suffer too badly, I drank it fast to ease its unhappiness. Yup, gonna be one of those days.

People have asked how was I 100% sure I was making the right choice? I will tell you. I was not 100% sure and I've wavered a lot over the past four months. How can you ever know that you are making the right choice when that choice means you are splitting your family up and possibly causing deep psychological pain to your children? The choice to leave a marriage is somewhat like starting a new relationship. You leap in, both feet, all in, on the FAITH that this relationship is going to be the right one, the one to end all other relationships. But you don't really know if that person is going to be the right person. You can't see inside someone else's head and we often put our faith in the wrong people. Human beings do it all that time and we get burned. Sometimes we only allow it to happen once, sometimes many, many times. But eventually, we do learn that nothing is 100% sure. Except death and taxes.

So how can I be 100% sure that I'm making the right choice? I can't, but based on the facts and based on my feelings and based on my self-worth as a human being, I'm making a semi-rational choice that I believe to be the correct one for my own sanity and well-being. I wish some higher being could come along and tell me I'm doing the right thing, but clearly that has not happened. I have to go with my gut.

I used to feel like time was running out for me. The thought that I am going to die one day and I'll have all these regrets, regrets that circle in my head like a flock of vultures, that thought nearly drove me mad. I used to go to bed each night thinking, "One day, my body is going to stop working and I will cease to be." And if I couldn't turn that thought off quickly enough, I would start having a panic attack about not existing anymore. I would imagine my heart stopping, my breath stopping and my thoughts stopping. Full stop. Nothing. A shell.   Death is really going to happen to me. Not just to other people, but to ME. It got to the point that I had to force myself out of the house, because I'd rather stay home and avoid dangerous situations like driving a car because I might die. Holy shit, right? But I will tell you something, I have not panicked about it once since I made this earth shattering decision. I have accepted that I will die and I'm not very happy about it, but I know now that my life is my own and I'm not going to die with all these regrets. I know that I will live my life the way I need to live it, without the burden of others' expectations on me. It won't always be the most amazing adventure ever, but I'm going to really, really enjoy the high times and let the low times just roll. Good with the bad, right? I will be the best mother, friend and person I can be, but on my own terms. That is about as 100% as I can be about what I've done.

The Daily Chai is Ambivalent

Today's Chai Latte is perfect. I have nothing else to say about it except that my entire day has been made because it started with the perfect drink. Sweet, simple things people, enjoy them all!

Mixed emotions last night as my real estate agent came to take pictures and measure rooms so she can list our matrimonial home. We've been here for six years and I never wanted to move again, but here I am, planning, once again, to move. Balls. God, I hate moving.

We bought this house sight unseen while we still lived in Germany. Lots of people went to look at it for us, but the first time we saw the house was on our final inspection right before we moved in. The bedrooms were a little smaller than I'd imagined, but all in all, I was happy with it. It's an old house in an old town and I loved it. It has some good character, like transom windows above the bedroom doors and some of the original trim has survived. There are windows everywhere and on sunny days it is filled with lovely light in every room. It has a finished attic family room just like the house I grew up in and a creepy old cellar with a working cistern that I have never been fully convinced does not house a crocodile. And I SWEAR I have heard children laughing and running when mine have been fast asleep. Maybe just a trick of the house creaking in its old age, but it doesn't bother me, it just reminds me this hundred year old house has history.

We will leave some of our own history here to carry on. There has been love and laughter in this house and it is the house I brought Anna home to when she was born. It is the house that Kate has grown up in and the only place she remembers as the memories of Germany faded for her. I spent almost two years here as a stay-at-home mom, raising my girls and the happiness of those memories will last me forever.

But it is also a house that has many sad memories for me and my family. By the very virtue of its age and character, it has caused us both stress and in someways, that stress played a part in destroying our marriage. Last spring, I thought if we moved to a new house, a house that we would both love, the stress would melt away, but that is like having a baby to save a marriage. It's a pretty big commitment for a bandaid solution. When I thought about buying something else with my ex and being as house poor as we were planning to be, I backed off the idea. It was yet another indication that my marriage was crumbling. People in a healthy partnership do not worry that buying a house is going to tie them more fully to the other person, they reveal in the happiness of the commitment.

And so, a chapter of my life comes to an end. I am excited about it as well as sad. Last week, I was having a few low moments and I asked a friend to remind why I was doing this again. To remind me the correct path is not always the easiest or the happiest. To remind me that sometimes the things of the greatest worth are the hardest to achieve. He came back with this:

So I, like everyone around me, weathers the storm. I'm even learning to enjoy the storm because I never know where it's going to take me next and I'm always up for an adventure.

The Daily Chai and Kids of Divorce, Part 2

The Daily Chai hates me. It has decided, in its existential crisis that because I didn't order it, it ceased to exist and now, just to spite me, it won't come back. This is what happens when hot drinks start questioning their reason for existence.

I wrote a couple days ago about how Kate is dealing with my separation and the essential splitting of her family as she knew it. Some of you asked, "But what about Anna?" Anna...is a different story. She's only four and she doesn't really understand what's happen or why it's happening. At this stage in her development, she is only beginning to understand cause and effect. Added to that, the world revolves around her and her wants and needs. She understands home and daycare, but her world is pretty small and therefore, fairly uncomplicated. The complexity of adult relationships is beyond her grasp of understanding and she only knows the close, affection bonds between herself and her sister, her mother and her father.  Bonds that have been tested harshly and, in the case of my ex and I, broken. She is striving for independence when she insists on picking her own clothes and getting herself dressed, but she still depends on both me and her dad for the majority of her other needs. She has three feelings: happy, sad and frustrated as fuck. So try explaining that while mommy and daddy don't want to be married anymore, that doesn't mean they don't love YOU! Yeah, right. Really? You guys used to love each other, what happened? Are you going to stop loving me one day? Why don't you love each other anymore? Why don't you live together anymore? Are you going to live together again? I want you to, so you better get on that.

The other night I went over to the house for a visit and Anna came out of the office with a woeful expression on her face and the sad tale of her mean sister Kate not drawing for her anymore because she was doing math. It set the tone for my entire visit, this tearful little face with the trembling chin. She got frustrated when I didn't draw the stick figure EXACTLY to her little dictator's unspoken expectations (I drew it with hands for the love of god, what the fuck was I THINKING??). Then it was time for bed and I do believe all parents will understand the extreme, frightening, nearly bloody tantrum that suddenly erupted at the words, "Okay my darling, bedtime!" Oh well. I carried her writhing, screaming body upstairs anyway and dumped her on my bed to get her undressed.

"But I didn't get to cuddle with you mommy! I want to cuddle!" She screamed in my face. Trying to stay calm, but needing to count to ten, I said, VERY sweetly, "Oh my darling, let's get your PJs on and then we will cuddle all you like!"

"I want to cuddle RIGHT NOW!"

"PJs first, cuddle after," I said, wondering why I had made that stupid stipulation. Now I had to stick to it or be disobeyed forever because my kids will never trust that I mean what I say if I back down one iota from "PJs first, cuddle after."  Why do we put that kind of pressure on ourselves as parents? Jesus.

Well. She started to cry and asked me again, probably for the 58th time since we split up, why don't I love Daddy anymore?

"I do love Daddy, darling, I always will. But it's complicated and sometimes grownups just can't be married anymore."

"Daddy says you don't love him." OH FUCK. Now, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here because Anna has been known, frequently, to say that I said things or he said things that were completely and totally untrue. So let's just say he didn't say that to her and move on.

I took that little morsel of human existence into my lap and she wrapped her arms and legs around me like a monkey and lay her damp face on my shoulder while I held her tight and stroked her hair. "I think you may have misunderstood Daddy. We will always love each other. But what's really important my girl is that I love YOU.  You are smart and special and you will always be my girl. I will always, always love you and be there for you when you need me." As I said that last part, I choked a little because the hardest part about this is that I'm NOT always there for her when she needs me. One of us is, she always has one parent available when she needs us, but sometimes you just need your mother. And there are days where I'm no where to be found, so essentially, I just lied to my baby. In that split second, I pictured her, 14 and hooked on crack because she was abandoned by her mother at the age of four and never learned how to form lasting bonds with people which led to a life of crime. Yes, that is where my head goes.

Anyway, she calmed down and I put her to bed and lay down beside her in that tiny toddler bed and sang I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane at her insistence. Fuck, that is a sad song to sing to the baby I have to leave behind.

Later, after Kate and I had spent some time watching this incredibly cute Minecraft vlogger (she admitted that half the reason she watches him is because he is so cute and the other reason is because he has pugs), Anna was crying out to me again. I went to her room, "Anna, Anna, my darling, my love, what's wrong now? You need to go to sleep and you've kicked off your covers," I said as I leaned down to tuck her back in.

"I had a hard day today mummy," God, they know how to break your heart, don't they? So back I went into that tiny toddler bed where she "made a spot" for me and I sang Mockingbird to her. Told her she was my girl, that she was my favourite and don't tell Kate. (don't worry, I told Kate the exact same thing moments earlier, they're both aware of my duplicity).

I have no words of wisdom about how to handle this hard time except to say that I express my deep love for her whenever I see her. There is no point in explaining why mummy and daddy don't live together. She doesn't understand, nor should she be burdened with those reasons at her age. Maybe one day, if she is still interested, I will try to explain it to her. Right now,  I concentrate on developing our bond into something meaningful and unbreakable with the hope that it will be strong enough to keep her from losing her mind as a teenager and becoming a prostitute for drugs.

The Daily Chai and Dealing with Disappointment

Today's grande chai latte tasted pretty good but sadly was not hot enough so I drank it in about five seconds which meant all the foam got left over and had to be eaten like whipped cream with a spoon. Fortunately, I like whipped cream so today was a good chai day. I liked it a latte. Did you see what I did there?

On to philosophical matters. I wrote recently that I've come to a crossroads. I took the left pathway and it's been a bit rocky. I've debated how much of this I can write about here as I have funny ideas about publishing deeply personal stories. On the other hand, a blog is just that, a public diary of sorts where others might find comfort in identifying with my struggles or laughing at my embarrassing mishaps. 

So here goes: four months ago, after months and possibly years of inner turmoil and debate, I decided I had to end my marriage. It wasn't a decision I came to lightly, but once it was made, I couldn't turn back. It was like trying to believe in Santa Claus again, once you know the big man doesn't exist, you can't retrieve that wonderment back into your soul. I wasn't in love with my husband anymore and we were both deeply unhappy with our lives, both together and as individuals. There is a lot of resentment and bitterness on my side that I work on every day to resolve. It's hard to be with someone for that long and not have those negative feelings build up when you are both shitty at communicating. Most of the time I was suffocating with words unsaid and I felt like I was drowning. You tell yourself that this is life, that this is marriage and it has its ups and downs. No one is perfect and as many beefs as I had with my partner, I know he had the same amount with me. So you let things go, you soldier on, you hope things will get better, you have good days together and you tell yourself that bad patch is finally past. Until the next time you are up all night crying and wishing for the strength to say you want a divorce. The thing is with those white nights, everything looks better in the morning. So you soldier on. You make school lunches, you help with homework, you count the minutes to bedtime, you look for the positive and suppress the negative. You compartmentalize until all the bad feelings are safely put away in the file folders of your brain, marked "Do not read." You tell yourself whatever you need to tell yourself to keep going. 

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but caring for the man I shared 17 years of my life with, who I created the loveliest human beings with. I don't look at our marriage ending as a failure but as a journey that has come to an end. It's a sad end and there have been many tears in both sides about it, but what's the use of hanging on to something that no longer makes you happy? That, in fact, makes you unhappy? I look at the future as a bright possibility where we can both have the chance to begin something good, healthy and whole. Someone once told me that the easiest path isn't always the best one and that the harder the path, the better the rewards. That all this will be worthwhile. I hold on to that thought every day. And I soldier on.