The reason I was up so late last night was that I was all wound up with nothing real to do, and my brain decided to take me for a ride. I got home from gaming at about 1 AM, having had way too much sugar. I avoided the caffeine, but didn't avoid the brownies, orange pop, or root beer. At home, I stayed up, chatting with Darcy (who babysat for us) and Forest, fully expecting that he would soon want to go to bed with me.
Finally I decided that he wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, and decided to self-discipline myself to go to bed. I laid there, and tossed and turned, and tried really hard to sleep. The sound of low, intense voices and occasional laughter in the other room was intriguing, though, and I kept wanting to get back up and join them. Then Darcy started her car, and came back in. For another hour I listened to her cooling fan cut on and off, and stared at the ceiling, wishing my honey would come to bed. Sometimes bed just doesn't feel right when he's not in it.
At about 3 AM I got up, and headed out for a much-needed drink of water, and not wanting to be anti-social, I stopped in the living room to give Forest a kiss, and say 'hi'. I chatted with them both for a while, and was enjoying it a bit. It's fun to get to know the old stories and opinions of his family. Even though I was really tired, I decided to stay up until after Darcy went home, and hang out.
Then Darcy took a bathroom break, and Forest asked me very politely and quietly if I would please go back to bed, because he wanted to talk to his sister about his family's current mess, and they couldn't talk as openly if I was there. I immediately had that sinking "I've made an ass of myself" feeling, and completely mortified that I had intruded where I wasn't wanted.
Unable to help myself after all those hours of no sleep, my eyes filled with tears, and I said I would go to bed now, and gave him a kiss good night.
But he saw the tears, assumed he was hurting my feelings, and wouldn't just let me go. He can't stand it when I do something because it's the right thing, even though it hurts me. In this case, that wasn't the reason I was in tears, but he interpreted it that way. I tried to insist, but he looked at me in frustration, and said "don't piss me off."
I know he was trying to be nice, but he really needed to just listen and let me go. Darcy was coming back, and I didn't want her to see my face. I made one last-ditch effort to leave with dignity, and said "I'm going back to bed. Would you come tuck me in?"
In a frustrated, half-angry huff, he followed.
I explained that I felt like I had intruded, and felt terrible about it. We hugged each other tightly, and he explained that he needed to have a conversation like this with Darcy, because she's got the background to understand all the crap going on with his parents; and that he didn't feel like having a third person there was good, because it limited what Darcy was willing to say.
I understood, hugged him, and sent him along, tumbling back into bed at half past three or so. I couldn't sleep then, either, because my brain was going nuts trying to figure this out. Was there something that Forest didn't feel like he could talk to me about? Half of our relationship is about my being here when he needs me, and now what was this? Was I not holding up my end of the deal? Then it came back to my feeling that no matter how I talk to him about something, he always says "no, that's not it" or "you don't understand" or something along those lines. I can be a single word-definition away from understanding (you say potato, I say potahto) and he still says I don't get it. So maybe he couldn't talk to me about it because I was incapable of grasping it properly?
Sometimes I feel like no one is good enough for a Tate except for a Tate, because they have this whole idea that no one else understands them, or possibly could. They don't want to explain things, or give details, they want you to already know what they're talking about. I started at the wall and despaired about how I was ever going to fit into that family, since it seems to be their assumption that no one is Tate enough or smart enough to be like them. I'm making broad generalizations, but it was 4 in the morning, and this is what my brain was doing.
Forest came to bed, exhausted, at nearly 5. I was still awake. He asked if I was okay, and I said yeah, I was, I just had a lot on my mind. Then he wanted to know what it was. I did my best to explain the last hour of thought in a few words, but I'm sure I failed. Basically, I said I didn't know what was wrong with me that he couldn't talk about this stuff with me.
He explained that if he were Jim, and he wanted to have an hourlong conversation about chemistry, he would go talk to a friend from the lab rather than talking to Karen (his wife) about it, because Karen didn't have the background to understand what Jim was saying.
I felt vaguely demeaned by this, and refrained from pointing out that with a little sharing from Jim, Karen might be perfectly able to understand what he was saying. That wasn't the point, and I didn't want to obfuscate.
It came down to that I didn't know how I was ever going to fit into Forest's family, especially if I'm excluded from any real conversations because I don't qualify to hear them talk.
Forest reassured me that I fit in just fine, right next to him. Apparently there are divisions and fine lines among all parts of the family, where confidences exist and where they don't. There are things he would talk to his dad about, and no one else, or to Sean about, and no one else. There are apparently things he will talk to me about, but no one else. Apparently he hasn't been holding anything back from me, and feels like I've been completely holding up my end of being there when he needs me. That's a nice thing. I had been worried about that.
And he said his sister and mom felt he and I were really compatible, and that they trusted me quite a bit for someone they hadn't known for 20 years. That made me feel good, too.
He kissed me, and we snuggled, and he said "you're just tired and letting the frustration monster get you."
He was right.
Then he said, "Oh, and I wanted to tell you this, but you have to promise to think about it and we'll get some sleep and talk about it tomorrow, okay?"
I agreed. What could this possibly be?
He informed me.
Last night while Forest and I were out, Kirstin confided to Darcy that she doesn't feel like she has a home. She feels like she's always visiting me, or visiting her dad, but she doesn't feel like anyplace is hers.
Forest pointed out that since Kirstin was unhappy, we would have to do something about it, but we'd talk about it tomorrow. Soon he was snoring.
And I was wide awake, my brain stuck on yet another family thing.
I'm not sure where she gets that feeling of homelessness. She's been going back and forth from one week to the next, spending every other week with her dad and me for the past 4 years. We're careful that she has unviolated space of her own in each house, where she can keep her things, and have privacy if she wants it. She's never complained about it before, and still hasn't brought it up to me.
Of course, if she's unhappy, I want to do something about it. I just wish I understood where this is suddenly coming from.
When I think about what our lives were like before moving to Eaton Rapids, I can't imagine how she ever felt at home at my house! We were never there. Most weeks we were at a rehearsal every night, and often on weekends we were at performances. Nowadays we aren't nearly as busy, but she feels like she's *less* rooted, not more?
Maybe it has something to do with her social life. Since there aren't any other kids living in my house or in my nearby neighbor's homes, it gets pretty lonely. By the time she gets settled in on a Monday, makes a mess on Tuesday, and cleans it up on Saturday it's too short a notice to invite someone over to play in the short time left before that next Monday morning. Maybe being the only kid who is ever in the house makes her feel alienated?
I don't know. I agree with Forest, though. He says if at age 8 she knows she's unhappy, we have to do something about it. But what do we do? Would switching houses every other month be better? Every two weeks? We wouldn't want to do an uneven custodial arrangement, since whichever of us didn't have her the majority of the time would miss her and be sadly missed by her.
Last night as I drifted off to sleep at about 5:30 in the morning, this is what was on my mind. The solution I came up with in my delirium was that if Bill and I were to sell our houses, and move Kathy, Allyn, Forest, Bill, Wendy, and Kirstin along with Seth (their cat) and Leeloo (our demon from the abyss)into a single house Kirstin would be perfectly happy.
Realistically, though, this might be a sad subject on which I might just have to admit defeat. Kids of divorced parents almost always go through times when they wish their parents live together. Even as amicable and happy as the two homes might be when working as a team, we aren't a normal family. Heck, we don't even resemble one. It's more of a tribal arrangement; try explaining that to your classroom of third grade peers. I also think that on any given day there will be times when a kid wants his mom, and times when a kid wants his dad. No matter how cool the arrangement, both parents are not available to that kid when they are living seperately.
Maybe I need to make a better effort to be available for Kirstin when she's with Bill? I mean, she can call me, and I call her on the phone. Unfortunately, I work in another town, so there's no way to have lunch together. And actually, I often try to cram all the work, grocery shopping, bill-paying, errand-running, and so on into the weeks when Kirstin is gone, so that she gets more of my time when we're together. Maybe I'm off-base on that idea.
All in all, it appears that the world as we've so carefully engineered it all these years is insufficient, and I'm going to have to come up with something positively brilliant to make it better.
Home Life version 2.0, I think I will call it.
This morning 7 AM came like a baseball bat to the head. I know I was grumpy getting Kirstin off to school -- I don't sleep, I get grumpy. Period. I made the mistake of tumbling into bed to cuddle Forest one last time, and woke up again quite late for work. Happily it didn't matter, because I was scheduled to run errands this morning. Still, it put me behind the agenda a bit.
So now I'm deciding what I should do. First I want to talk to Forest and Darcy and make sure I got the whole story, not just the 5 AM sleepy-honey version of it. Then I guess I have to make some tough choices.
Sometimes, though, I can't help feeling that I'm not a kid-centered enough person. My life doesn't completely revolve around my munchkin. I have a small-scale social life (most recently dating Forest) and am active in community performing arts groups. I've been that way Kirstin's whole life. She gets some of my time when we read books, when we cook out or while I'm making dinner at night. We watch movies together, and snuggle on the couch. I make her do her homework, and clean her room, and tell her what to do and when. I tell her that I love her often, and have a short pep talk for her every morning before school.
But I don't get up and smile at the crack of dawn. It's just not in me. I'm not a morning person. I am pleased that she gets herself ready in the morning and makes herself breakfast. I tend to have to rush her the rest of the way out the door. We rarely talk much in the mornings until that pep talk in the car on the way to the bus stop. Then she doesn't see me until 5:30, when I pick her up after work. Some nights she tags along with me, we get dinner on the road and she goes to bell choir and does her homework there. A couple of times she's been to Tae Kwon Do with me, too. Other times she's spent Tuesday night hanging with Forest's mom (learning to swim) or Darcy (painting fingernails). Some weekends I am around all the time, but working all weekend on cleaning up the house, and riding her to clean her room all the time. Some weekends she goes to visit Alex on Friday night and I don't see her again until Saturday.
I always try to do something fun with her on weekends, though, to break up the monotony of it all. In the end, though, my life doesn't stop happening on the weeks I have Kirstin. I still have other commitments. She doesn't get my undivided attention every spare hour of the day. I'm not overly into planning our time together. My mom always used to plan little projects. One day we'd bake cookies together, another day I'd cut out peices for a card to make for my grandmother. We would garden together, and stuff like that.
I don't do that stuff with Kirstin. It just doesn't occur to me. If I make cookies it's usually for a reason, and it's much more efficient if I just do it myself. Besides, the one time we did it together, she didn't seem to enjoy it at all. Same with gardening -- Kirstin hates to get dirty.
I feel like she's drifting apart, from me, though, and don't know how to get her back. I'm not going to lie and give her false praise. Maybe I'm just too much of a hardass, I don't know.
This is going nowhere. Tomorrow.
