My Emo Easter

Well hello there...long time no see!

I had the pleasure of working full time all this past week, one of the paras at our school had surgery, and one had a relative in New York pass away. So I was called to fill one pair of shoes.

Holy crap..I don't remember the last time I worked a full week like this one. And once again I find myself amazed by the women around me who do this every single week. By mid-week I was pouting about not being able to work out, not being able to sit my big ass on the couch and catch up with all my fantasy television friends (RHONY started up again, and whoooo boy do I have some comments about that one. Alex is modeling? She looks like Frankenstein.). We had our last confirmation night, baseball has started so there were practices every night...I was lucky to have a few minutes here and there to do really fun things like wash clothes, buy groceries and shower.

But I am so fortunate to be in the school district we're in, to have the opportunity to be around some of the coolest kids on this planet. I'm keeping fingers and toes crossed that I can turn this into a full-time job soon.

Anyhoo. So last weekend we had a holiday. If you know me at all, you know that I dread the holidays. Divorce has ruined them for me...even the ones where I get to keep the kids are tainted with the foulness of divorce, the reminder that things are always going to be either "mom's day" or "dad's day". The knowledge that next year will be different is always there, always looming.

Aside from the whole "do I have the kids or not" drama, the holidays are also a punch in the gut because I don't have the family that a lot of people do. My dad and I are still not communicating regularly; we have had a few awkward, stammering, polite conversations but still haven't done any real talking. And my mom has never been one of those holiday dinner moms...going over to her house on the holidays usually entails me alone, or me with the kids, sitting around with my mom and my stepfather. There's usually a fight of some kind, or one of them blows up at the other, and I want to crawl under the bed in my old room and hide until everyone has simmered down.

I have two methods of dealing with my non-kid holidays: I either declare it a Me Day, and do whatever I want, or I get myself invited to a friend's celebration. The friend thing is nice, don't get me wrong, and I have never once regretted crashing someone's holiday gathering (can't say for sure if anyone has ever regretted having me, though). But it's just about impossible to describe how it feels to be a lone attendee at one. I can't stress how NICE it is to be invited, and I don't want to sound ungrateful, but there is something really sad about the whole thing. Seeing families that aren't broken, all together, cousins running around, grandparents being all grandparent-y...for some reason it makes me miss my kids even more. Makes me miss having anything in my life that resembles normalcy.

So yeah, this past Sunday was Easter. It was a Dad holiday for the kids, so I got them up, made sure everyone was showered and was dressed decently (I used to just send them in whatever they were wearing, and Big Daddy would have dressier stuff for them at his house, but now he doesn't. So I like to make sure the kids look nice.). We had decorated eggs the day before, and the old Easter Bunny had visited, leaving four baskets chock-full of sinful candy. Remind me, next year, to tell the Easter Bunny that she should have sprung for better chocolate. There is nothing worse than shitty chocolate bunnies. Palmer Candy Company, I'm talking about you. Yes, I ate some candy. I've slipped up in my No Candy rule, among others. And yes, that was me, picking up Starburst jellybeans off the floor and eating them. I'm not going to lie. They were delicious.

After the kids were dressed, the candy was ravaged and the day grew older, we started wondering when Big Daddy was going to retrieve them. Of course he hadn't communicated with me at all about pick up times. We seem to be in one of our zero-communication periods; believe me, I love it but it makes days like that one a little discombobulated. His standard time for days such as this is 10 a.m., but that came and went. The kids started wondering if he was coming at all, and more than one of them said, "Hey, if he doesn't show up, that would be cool!". Just between you and me, I was kind of secretly hoping he didn't show.

Two hours later, he pulled up. The kids walked out, one by one, and then it was just me and Walter. And four baskets of candy.

I started to feel that old familiar blackness spread over my being, like a puddle of oil slowly spreading on pavement. I wanted to just go to bed, and sleep until the kids came back from whatever brunch or gathering or wherever they were. I started to feel completely, and utterly alone again.

My BFF had invited me over for the day, she was hosting Easter and had a bazillion people coming. I was planning on going, honest I was. But I didn't. She called, a couple of times, and I let it go to voicemail. Why? I don't know. I was frozen. The thought of showering, getting ready, trying to find something to wear that didn't look like I stole it from the set of Maude or The Golden Girls, it all seemed like the most arduous task ever. It was so much easier to sit there, in my living room, yammering voices from some random t.v. show filling the air while I let the angst seep into my soul yet again. I imagined walking in, making semi-uncomfortable small talk with people who vaguely recognized me from the last family gathering I crashed, telling my BFF's kids that no, my kids weren't with me and trying to not see the disappointment on their faces when they realized it was just little old me and no children.

I don't know why I let myself get this way. You'd think that I would be prepared for these holiday blues, it's been this way for 4 years, and yet each time I find myself immersed in the same pity stew, like it's the first time.

Uncle Lorie was sans children as well, and tried her hardest to get me out of my funk. She has declared a mutiny against these Awkward Family Holiday Gatherings, and this year she made a roast and invited her mom over. She called, she texted. She gave me some pretty good advice about how I have devoted way too much emotional energy into all things Big Daddy and the havoc his actions have created. Every word she said was true, and for a minute I could see myself chucking all of this negativity into the wind, putting on a smiley face and a pastel top and marching out into the Easter goodness. And then I froze again.

After a while, when the pathos was becoming too thick even for me, I said, out loud, "Fuck it." I put my running shoes on, had Walter bring me his leash (the one trick we've managed to teach this poor neglected dog) and off we went. We walked, and walked and walked. Maybe 6 miles. It was a beautiful day, and the walk was like a therapy session/anti-depressant cocktail. When we got back home, I was sweaty. My legs were sore. Walter sloppily lapped up the entire contents of his water bowl and then sprawled out on the floor, tongue out, tail wagging.

The sun was still shining, the gloom had gone away. And then the kids came back (after only about 3 hours with Big Daddy...because why would he just keep them and hang out, ya know??).

I survived another holiday. Now I'm good until July.