Indelible Impression

I spent the day cleaning

On my hands and knees scrubbing

My dirty hardwood floors

Really they need re-sanding

But I am trying to revive their luster

With elbow grease and quick shine

Yet I feel like Lady MacBeth

Futilely attempting to erase a psychic stain

Out, damned spot, out

I can clean up greasy fingerprints

And sticky sweet spots

I can even attempt to remove the

Trails of our steps

Back and forth through the kitchen

But I cannot erase the indelible impression

That this house has made on our lives

Jonah spoke his first words here

Layla was conceived under the sunlit picture window

We parted ways here

Yet it has also been

The site of our family night dinners

My ex still does his laundry in our basement

This is our home

It has been with us for better and worse

And better yet again

I can sell it and move on

But the memories, the love

Will always remain

Just like our anniversary gingko

That continues to grow tall and proud

* * * * * * *

This post was inspired by Jingle Poetry Potluck whose prompt was Sketches, Images and  Impressions.  I have been having a hard time writing lately because I am so busy preparing my house to put on the market.  Yes, lots of feelings have arisen.  I’m just not quite ready to write about them.  But I will.

A New Perspective

Many of my readers write to me privately to tell me that they want a peaceful divorce but that their exes’ actions are causing them hurt feelings and anger.  Clearly, no one leaves a marriage feeling satisfied with their spouse’s behavior, and the post-divorce period usually makes things worse, as you have to make difficult financial and child rearing decisions.  So how do you find a way to forge peace between you and your ex?  By looking within yourself.

There is no way to control your ex’s behavior.  That was one of the first lessons that I learned post-divorce.  If I couldn’t control him when he was living with me, I certainly couldn’t once he was gone.  So I gave up trying, and that was a huge relief.

I came to realize that the only control I have is over my own thoughts and actions.  So I tried instead to look at myself and my divorce from a new perspective.  Once I was able see myself and my ex with new eyes, my world seemed a little brighter.

I just published this story today on the Huffington Post, so I invite you to look at me with new eyes and go check out the piece.  As always, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Our First Post-Divorce Holiday

I just realized this weekend that the spring holiday season is upon us.  Passover starts on Monday and Easter is the following Sunday.  As I have been making my plans, my thoughts strayed back to how stressful the holiday season was during the year after my ex and I split.  My blogger friend Melissa gave us the topic of “first” this week (I wrote on the first person to give me divorce advice), and I have been reflecting upon how many “firsts” you face when forging your post-divorce life: the first person you tell, your first night alone, your first attempt at dating.  So I thought that, like last week, I would continue Melissa’s theme and share with you the story of our first post-divorce holiday.

At the time, we had agreed to continue our now twelve-year Thanksgiving tradition of having dinner at my house with our good friends, who are also the kids’ godparents.  My ex didn’t have other plans and was excited to eat my delicious fare, so it seemed like a win-win for everyone.  I told him that I would provide everything but asked him just to bring some charcoal.  This was a simple, but important, request because I grill my turkey for a bit to give it some flavor and then I finish it in the oven.

Well, my ex waited until the last minute to purchase it, and it turned out that all of the stores were closed on Thanksgiving Day.  So I started calling around to my friends to see if they had charcoal (not a particularly easy task in November in New England).  We found some, but I got angry because I had thought that this was an easy way for him to contribute and that he had failed to do so and therefore created more work for me.  My mind started ticking off all the things that I had done to make this a nice holiday for us all, the money I spent on the food and the days of food preparation and cooking to make it happen.  In other words, I started feeling self-righteous (never a good place to go).  I got pissy with him, and, as was our pattern (oh those confounded patterns!), he got even angrier in response, and the situation got blown out of proportion.  He therefore decided that he wasn’t coming to the dinner. Read the rest of this entry »

Making It Right

Many of you know that I participate in a weekly blog carnival called Six Word Fridays, in which the organizer gives us a topic to write about.  This week the topic was “right.”  Melissa always picks a word that has several meanings, but this one really got to me because I had so much that I wanted to say.  You can check out what I did with it here, but now that I am freed of the six-word constraint, I want to share some of my thoughts with you.

This week a reader wrote me an e-mail asking me how I did it (presumably get a peaceful divorce).  She and her husband had just recently separated after fourteen years together, and she wanted to be friends with him but was also feeling a lot of anger.  She asked me to tell her that it was a process and that she would get there.

Her question made me wonder where “there” was.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Power of Anger

Last night I got angry, really angry.  It has been a while since I have felt that ugly emotion well up inside of me.  Yes, it was my ex.  Only he can really push my buttons like that.  The conflict was simple.  About a month ago we had had a difficult discussion about something and came to an agreement, and then he turned around and totally ignored our agreement, without telling me.

I know that some of you are probably thinking, It’s about time that those two had a fight.  No divorced couple can get along that well.  The good news is that it doesn’t happen very often anymore.  The bad news is that when we do have a fight, it’s a doozy.

Read the rest of this entry »