Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations

by Jessica Vivian

  If your kids are acting like normal, butt-head kids, and your exhausted ex-wife puts them to bed and you hear one of them whining through the phone do not say: "Aw, they sound so unhappy. Was putting them to bed really necessary?" and instead say absolutely nothing.

  You chose the life and existence you have now. You no longer have a vote.

  Later that Night...

  My 7 year old son, Jack, is singing "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" to the girls to help them sleep. Happening now. Cuteness overload. I might vomit from the sweetness.

  Blondie Claus

  “What's something your kids want or need for Christmas?” CBL asked me over the phone.

  “Uh, I dunno?”

  “Well, like do they read a lot? Do they need some books? See 'cause my husband and I always like to do some Christmas for my mamas because we know things are tight and the babies need something under the tree.”

  Holy shit.

  I don't know what kind of magical, magic karma is making this happen...

  Thank You 2012 – December 2012

  Despite feeling that humans, as a whole, have lost their humanity and despite my ex-husband being the absolute worst recently, 2012 has proved to be the best year of my life.

  This time last year I was living a sullen, lonely life in a dark two-bedroom apartment in Tampa, Florida. I wrote about feeling punished around that time.

  I read it now and I am glad to say that I don't even know that girl. It happened that quickly.

  My moving home was exactly the right thing to do and in a creepy, law-of-attraction-like way by just making a few correct decisions, the Universe aligned me with the right people and the right circumstances and my life is so substantially different that my chest and heart swell. I can feel my heart swell, like when the Grinch's heart grew.

  Oddly, though, the statistics of my life are actually slightly worse.

  I have even less of a job than I had in Tampa. I spend even less time away from my kids. I've had two nights away from them so far since April. I get even less child support from my ex - close to nothing now.

  But I have so much love that the technicalities simply don't burn the way they used to.

  In Tampa, I was swinging on the trapeze with no net and no one to catch me. I was surrounded by people who communicated in contempt, condescension, bitterness, self-pity and self-absorption. With exception of Kelley, Bridget and my ex's one cool sister everything was black.

  Since moving home I have crossed paths with some of the most fearless, uplifting, supportive women I have ever known. I learned more this year than I did in the 29 years before it - guaranteed.

  Here's an overview:

  The past is as relevant as you allow it to be - On my 31st birthday, I will have gone a full year without sex. As sad as it sounds, it is a huge accomplishment for me.

  My life and identity were really separated into two parts: Before Marriage and Kids and After Marriage and Kids. I have not done anything else. Before marriage I was your textbook insecure girl using sex and male attention for validation. That insecurity is exactly what led me into the arms of my ex-husband.

  He was a terrible boyfriend and an even worse husband but, to me, it was the punishment I deserved for being a careless slut. I was the ultimate slut-shamer but I only shamed myself. Even years of faithful servitude as a mother and wife couldn't cleanse me of my guilt. I felt like it was written all over me. That it was part of who I was, and that it would eventually creep back out and swallow me whole.

  I actually felt bad for my cheating, drinking ex because it was my slutty ways that forced him into a life of domesticity in the first place. I deserved his anger, resentment, blame, and avoidance.

  When I got divorced and moved to Mobile, my lack of childcare created a life of celibacy. I do not have the freedom for an active sex life. But the opportunity has presented itself a few times and I have declined. My best friend, Chris, even applauded me after I decided not to sleep with a former classmate:

  "Jessica! You've grown standards!"

  Yes, I have grown standards. I had none before, obviously. But this proved to me that my choices and actions are not "me." And those choices and actions are completely irrelevant now anyway. I'm not sure how it served me, subconsciously, to believe that I was unworthy of respect, love or effort but that twisted thought pattern is gone.

  I'm worth the wait and the effort.

  The only reason any of my past choices were affecting me was because I was allowing them to.

  If someone shows you who they are, believe them.

  I believe this is a Maya Angelou quote and it sure is the truth.

  Things change. But one thing that has never changed is my ex-husband. Sure, he has more tattoos than when I met him and he drinks less, but he is still the person I met when we were 19 and 24, only now I can see him with my "reality" eyes.

  I never had any reason to believe he could be a good father or partner. He's done such an excellent job of keeping everyone's expectations low that the tiniest showings of tenderness get blown out of proportion.

  He spent two days in our house this month and, in the words of my oldest child, "it felt like a week." He has not paid even 1/5 of the minimum child support ordered despite being an able bodied, single, good looking white male who does not have to pay for childcare and has 24 free hours in the day.

  I was hoping, by talking to him in person, I could understand why he is unable to take responsibility for the kids. Maybe there is an illness I don't know about, or some remorse, or maybe I can motivate him?

  Nope. None of the above.

  He showed up with no Christmas gifts. He contributed an entire $60 for the care of his three children this month. He wanted to discuss, seriously, his idea to move to New York to pursue dance at age thirty-five with no professional dance background. He ate my food and used my car and did not offer a penny for gas or groceries. He threw no less than three temper tantrums a day - raising his voice to me in front of my kids while staying in my house. He learned almost nothing about the kids. I watched as one of them would start telling him about their life and he would interrupt and word-vomit about chakras, yoga, stretching, essential oils, and the like. His son wrote him a letter begging him to grow up, get a real job and be a man. His response? Absolutely none.

  Bottom line: This guy is a deadbeat. Period.

  No amount of negotiating, discussion, threatening, begging, placating or ass-kissing will change it. And here's the kicker:

  He's always been. I just didn't want to believe it.

  In the two days he was in my home I felt like there was a vice on my chest. We had always been able to get along before, but that was when I was just in the shit. I didn't know there was another way to live.

  This time I just couldn't stand to be around him. I swallowed my words so many times in 48 hours while he went off like a toddler because I didn't want my kids to think I was bullying their dad.

  I don't want to influence their feelings.

  I was so pissed I spent almost six hours at the movie theater just to be away.

  It does not appear that my kids will have a good father. My ex is not meeting any of the requirements for being a parent. He is not here physically, emotionally or financially. My eyes are wide open now. With clarity and emotional detachment I can see that no amount of empathy or cooperation is going to change his behavior.

  His family couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. His kids can't do it and there isn't a crunchy, bendy, granola yoga girl in the world who can do it. Only he can do it. And I hope for his sake he does it earlier rather than later. Kids grow up fast and he's missing all of it.

  I will not allow him to affect my life. I will not use my mind or breath on him any longer. He showed me who he is. I believe him. I am taking action and I am done.

  You really do measure a year in love

  In evaluating this year to myself I tried to figure out exactly how to con
vey how much my life has changed.

  Yes, I have moved into a house I never thought I could ever be in as a single mom with three kids. But so much more has changed, and it's intangible. What is it? What has changed?

  Love.

  I am drowning in it. It's everywhere.

  Sure enough this Christmas, CBL came in the night and deposited toys and books into my garage for me to sneak under the tree “from Santa.”

  There was no way I was going to make those gifts from Santa. I wrote CBL and her husband's name on all of them. I wanted my kids to know how much the people around us loved us.

  Love is all around us.

  My mom, my sister, my grandma, my aunt, my uncle, my friends, my dad, my step-mom, my brothers, and you.

  Reading my words, whether in this book or on the blog. You are invested in me, even if it's just to see if I've fallen off the edge yet or to judge my parenting or to hate me because you like to do that sort of thing. But, I'd like to think that most of you are cheering me on like the fantasy crowd at the end of Big Fish. I can feel that investment and it may not always be love but it's something. It's more anything than I ever got before.

  It's December of 2012 and I gotta be honest I was hoping to be a light body by now, or dead from some Illuminati population-control tactic, or fighting zombies, or reunited with my alien family ('tis family lore that I creepily requested to be reunited with my real family on my "home planet" when I was about two) and none of that happened.

  So if I'm here, I'm gonna be all over the place. I'm going to do everything I can. I couldn't have done it before because the healing hadn't happened. I still don't wear red lipstick. I didn't revolutionize the education system as was my brief goal upon moving home. I wanted to create an educational resource center as an alternative for all the kids who drop out of high school. It was to be a centrally located place, rich in resources and access to information. We'd do life skills classes, career shadowing, small classes and other sorts of amazing things. I got sidetracked by my own needs. I can't revolutionize all the things while I'm still unable to provide for myself, y'know?

  I didn't learn how to play guitar, either. I didn't re-learn French.

  But I did find myself – my real self. And I got the tiniest taste of what I'm made of. And I got to see myself through the eyes of people who actually care to see me.

  And all of that is better than some silly old lipstick.

  I will end with my friend, Ella's Facebook status. It is fitting.

  "I resolve to live my life in such a way that future-me will be pleased with what I've done."

  When I decided to leave my ex it was because I was ashamed of my life's work. I was ashamed of the impression I'd left on my friends and family. If I got hit by a bus, I didn't want my last days or years or months to have been steeped in resentment, hate, shame, guilt.

  One year erased all of that.

  One.

  Year.

  I may not have accomplished much on paper.

  I have no degree to flaunt. My vocabulary is average. I have no idea what is happening in the world most of the time.

  But there is so much love, and so much good in my small world that I must be doing something right.

  Be a man – January 2013

  My son is very skilled at articulating his pain.

  The day after his father left town I found him crying to himself. When I asked him what was wrong he said to me, "Daddy's never going to act like a grown up and now how will I learn how to be a man?"

  My throat closed. I have no idea.

  I had always been sensitive to the messages sent by the media to young girls.

  Despite little change in the sexualization of women and girls in advertising, people seem to be at least aware that it is a problem. Much more now than when I was little. Against the backdrop of the "Bad Girls Club"-loving America is, at the very least, a constant conversation about how the collective "we" is influencing a generation of young girls and perhaps confusing them about what it means to be a woman.

  I come from a long line of independent women who can walk the fine line between lady and face-melting ninja assassin. I do not worry much about how my girls will know how to be women.

  But strangely, as a single mom, I have become more acutely aware of the lack of positive male influences for my son. Or rather, the constant barrage of "life is too hard for the poor, stupid men" messages in commercials and television.

  Last night, while watching some random prime time TV, I saw one commercial selling something. I can't remember what because I was so stricken with annoyance at the stereotypes.

  Mom leaves home to run errands and then comes home to the dad trying to change the baby's diaper on the kitchen island. The kitchen is destroyed because HA! Men are so stupid! They don't know anything about babies! Sigh, I guess mom's know everything. Chuckle chuckle.

  Jack immediately catches on.

  "Oh yeah, I guess men are idiots who can't be dads,” he spits out sarcastically.

  The very next commercial features a man trying to show his wife the new juicer he bought. He was too stupid to buy a decent one so when the juicer made a mess all over the counter, he was also too stupid to know how to clean it up. Thank goodness women are born with the cleaning gene and know how to handle all the problems because all men are such giant dummy-head babies, right?

  I am not simple-minded enough to think that the media is to be blamed for all the world's problems. However, I am perceptive enough to see that the "bumbling dad" trope, what was once a well-timed counter move to the "authoritative dad" of the 1950s, has become one of our culture's backfiring jokes. And since there are currently no men around for my son to see, I have to be especially vigilant in discussing these obnoxious ideas at length with my son and with my girls.

  After all, this trope is a double-edged sword.

  I am not comfortable with my daughters growing up and accepting that "lovable incompetence" is a typical male trait the way me and many of my peers did. And men, by capitalizing on this new societal norm don't realize they are only making their lives more complicated. What woman can respect a giant baby? What woman wants to sleep with a man she has to parent?

  Then lo and behold, baby-man isn't feeling respected. Why is his wife expecting things from him? Doesn't she watch sitcoms? She's supposed to be hot. He's supposed to be fat and he shouldn't be expected to actually parent. Life is too hard. He quits.

  I see it constantly.

  Constantly.

  On TV, in my life, in my friends' lives...

  In a perfect world, I'd have lots of male friends who would pop in and visit with us, and my kids could build a perfect "composite" man in their minds to create a standard of behavior for them to model and understand.

  But I don't have that.

  And yes, yes, yes, I know there are plenty of good men "out there" but they are not here right now so it's really irrelevant.

  So it stands.

  I don't know how to show them what a strong man is because I can't find him anywhere. He's become as elusive as a chupacabra.

  I like Adam Braverman on Parenthood. I think he's an excellent husband and father, but the subject matter on that show is so heavy that if I'm watching and they happen to watch with me I spend an hour discussing the complications of having a child with Asperger's, or having cancer, or being the parent of an adopted child or whatever.

  I just worry.

  I don't know how a boy becomes a man in a man-less world.

  Dear Married Mom Whose Husband is Away on Business A Lot of the Time

  You are NOT "practically a single mom."

  If there is someone, resentful or not, who you can call or count on when the kids won't go to sleep, or your car is making a funny sound, or you need to kill that spider, or move the couch or hold your hand, you are not like a single mom.

  If you can "run to the store"...ever...you are not like a single mom.

>   If there is someone who created your children with you, who calls you to see how you are doing, even if it's a chore, even if it's an obligation. If that someone who pays attention to you, at all, then you are not like a single mom.

  If there is someone who you can bounce parenting ideas off of, right there in real time then you are not like a single mom.

  If there is someone listening to you rattle off the details of your mundane selfless day, you are not like a single mom.

  Listen, bad marriages are bad. Lonely marriages are lonely. But humans need companionship and despite how lonely and how bad your marriage is, it's not as lonely as being alone.

  I remember, during marriage, when the day nearly took the air out of my lungs, and I was near tears and near collapse but I still knew there would be relief eventually because I had a husband.

  Now I don't even allow myself the opportunity to feel the pressure because I already know there will be no relief.

  There is no one to catch, or soothe, or react to my feelings. My feelings cannot exist.

  And trust, the peace of mind and freedom and Self-ness of being single is a succulent luxury compared to the choking, stifling, emptiness of a loveless marriage. I am not minimizing that pain.

  But when well-meaning women think they are going to find common ground with me by saying "my husband works offshore/travels on business so I'm practically a single mom" I want to sit them down, pat them on the head and say "no, honey...no."

  If you can giggle about how you can't wait until your husband gets home so he can fix your AC/car/garbage disposal then you've already lost me.

  My stuff breaks and I just...stand there...and know there is no option but to fix it.

  And every time it happens I have a moment when I look around the room waiting for someone to walk in and help but there's no one there.