Life is complicated

And I'm here for it

Photo by Sergio R. Ortiz on Unsplash

Yesterday evening, I tried to call my kids for the third time that day. My three boys are currently on vacation in Puerto Rico with their dad and his new partner. Our divorce was finalized two and half years ago. We’d been together for about 18 years.

So, now the five of them are darting around the island in Airbnbs. I’m glad my kids are having this experience. Frankly, I probably couldn’t afford to take them myself. But while I am happy for them, my heart hurts in my chest.

My 13-year-old is turning 14 today. So, when I tried to reach him yesterday morning, it was to wish him a happy last day of being 13. I first called and texted when I figured the hour had arrived when he wouldn’t get mad at me if I woke him up. I anxiously checked my phone for the rest of the day, waiting for him to text back. I felt like Charlie Brown staring into an empty mailbox on Valentine’s Day. Yet the tiny letters under my message never changed from “Delivered” to “Read.” [Spoiler alert: he’s fine.]

I’m a catastrophist. By the end of the day, panic had started to set in. I tried calling and messaging his brothers too and got the same cold and unsympathetic “Delivered” under my messages. I emailed their dad and asked him to let me know everything was ok. I waited for a reply, idly wondering how fast I could get to Puerto Rico from Champaign, Illinois if I had to. 

Finally, I called my oldest one more time. Of the three, he was the one most likely to answer—if for no other reason than he wanted to keep up with his BeReal, Snap Chat, or whatever the latest thing is. He answered in his standard, teenage boy, why-are-you-bothering-me voice. He sighed dramatically and said he and the youngest were about to go down to the pool. I asked where the soon-to-be-birthday boy, the middle child, was and I could almost hear my oldest roll his eyes through the phone. “I have no idea,” he groaned. Meanwhile, my youngest chirped in the background, “Is that mom? Hi mom! We’re going to the pool!”

I released my oldest from his phone prison—too much sighing and eye rolling can’t be good for his health—and I tried the middle child one more time. He finally answered. I had the pleasure of hearing his voice for about 17 seconds before he told me he had to go. But at least I now had proof of life. That was something. [Their Dad did reply to my email, confirming that all was, indeed, fine.]

This is all to say that, from where I sit, life is complicated. My kids are in Puerto Rico—surfing, checking out sea turtles, exploring the rain forest, and practicing a few words of Spanish. My middle child—the only one of the three who had the courtesy to arrive on his due date—turns 14 today. And all of this is happening without me. 

Here’s where it gets even more complicated. I’m the one who initiated and filed for divorce. So, I feel alone and sad and I also know that ending my marriage was the right thing to do. But knowing that doesn’t take away the deep sense of loss that things didn’t turn out the way I [or, I should say, either of us] had hoped.

There’s a world where we had stayed together. Where we would have gone on the trip to Puerto Rico as a family. But it probably wouldn’t have been one where we sat together, enjoying our kids and making memories. It would more likely have been one of tension and frustration, with heavy doses of contempt. That is why, in this world, I’m here and they’re there. 

Although a world where we stayed together would have been easier in so many ways, I feel a sense of liberation knowing that, overall, I’m happier out of my marriage than I was in it. I take comfort in knowing that my kids feel loved by their dad and by me. So, I’m left with a strange combination of hope and sadness. Which feels fitting. One without the other would seem incomplete—like the sound of one hand clapping.

So, when it comes to certainty in the world—and concepts like always, forever, none, every, and never—I simply don’t see it. For whatever it’s worth, I see complexity. I see gray. And I see the ceiling as I lay in my bed, aware of all these things, and think about my kids in Puerto Rico without me.