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In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.---Camus
December was the month in which the truly horrible realization of what I'd done to myself began to sink in last year. I would sit out in the cold on my porch in this weird suburban neighbhorhood while he worked inside, ignoring me as best he could. I would sit there, punishing myself with the cold, and wonder when he stopped loving me. I kept asking myself what I had done wrong. I was so sad and I felt so completely abandoned by my own good heart. It was one of the worst months I remember ever spending. My kids were gone to spend the holidays with their dad, I was living in a house with a man who looked at me like something that had been tracked in from outside, I missed my friends, my family. I felt stupid for giving up so much. I felt betrayed by how little it mattered. I tried to make the best of it, to get out and meet people, to fill those lonely spots in me with something other than regret and self-pity. Dark days, I now think to myself.
I still don't know when he stopped loving me, or if he ever really did at all. I know the exact moment when I stopped loving him, down to the very instant. I can't recall if I knew it then, but I know it now. I can see it like a pole stuck in the ground, the point at which my heart staunched its own flow and began to trickle back into itself. The kids were back and we were going to his parents for the holiday celebration we hadn't had when the boys were in Texas. I'd wrapped a picture frame for his mother in wrapping paper, that typical silly red paper with some army of tiny Santa Clauses on it. The boys liked it and had picked it out for his mother's gift. This is one of several gifts I was rushing to wrap so we wouldn't be late. We all get into the van, the engine running, and he turns to me. You need to wrap my mom's gift in something else, he says. At first, I'm oblivious. I can't figure out what he's talking about. Is something wrong with the paper? Did it get wet or torn? He tells me that he doesn't feel like the paper is "appropriate" because it's not Hannuka gift wrap. I knew his mother wouldn't care two whits about what the frame was wrapped in. She herself had even referred to the gathering as a Hannuka/Christmas/holiday celebration. I knew that this woman who'd been a teacher for most of her life would instantly recognize paper chosen by children and I knew it would make her happy that my boys had put their goofy kids' signature on the gift. But here he was, this completely agnostic man who hadn't set foot in a temple other than for social occasions in decades, making the ugliest point he could over something so trivial as gift wrap. I went in and changed the paper, seething at how stupid it all was, how petty and passive aggressive. I'm not even a Christian and here's this guy treating me like I'd wrapped the presents in Chick tracts. It was so spiteful as to be surreal, which is an apt description for much of our relationship, now that I think about it.
We arrived at his parents' house and had a lovely dinner with friends and family. After we ate, we opened presents. Some were wrapped in blue and white, some green and red. I see his sister's gifts for his mother, wrapped in Christmas paper. I watch carefully to see if there is even the slightest hint of displeasure or discomfort. There is none. It's a complete non-issue. And in that moment, looking at his mother's face, I stopped loving him. I wouldn't have said it out loud, I wouldn't have admitted it to myself--and I didn't, not for months; but that was when the tiniest spark of summer in me began to grow. It grew through the cold and the misery, it grew into a great westward highway. It grew into me and one of my best girls in a car, smoking like chimneys, blaring music, and talking shit about everyone and everything under the sun. It grew into my homecoming.
It astounds me how that small, bitter seed of misery grew into this button-popping happiness. I loved him enough to feel just fine about not loving him now. December is the month I stopped loving him. December is the month I will file for divorce. Everything full circle, everything leading me to a new winter that will be warmest I ever spent.
Oh, and the gifts this year that the kids will send to his mom and dad? Santa Claus paper, all the way, baby!
December was the month in which the truly horrible realization of what I'd done to myself began to sink in last year. I would sit out in the cold on my porch in this weird suburban neighbhorhood while he worked inside, ignoring me as best he could. I would sit there, punishing myself with the cold, and wonder when he stopped loving me. I kept asking myself what I had done wrong. I was so sad and I felt so completely abandoned by my own good heart. It was one of the worst months I remember ever spending. My kids were gone to spend the holidays with their dad, I was living in a house with a man who looked at me like something that had been tracked in from outside, I missed my friends, my family. I felt stupid for giving up so much. I felt betrayed by how little it mattered. I tried to make the best of it, to get out and meet people, to fill those lonely spots in me with something other than regret and self-pity. Dark days, I now think to myself.
I still don't know when he stopped loving me, or if he ever really did at all. I know the exact moment when I stopped loving him, down to the very instant. I can't recall if I knew it then, but I know it now. I can see it like a pole stuck in the ground, the point at which my heart staunched its own flow and began to trickle back into itself. The kids were back and we were going to his parents for the holiday celebration we hadn't had when the boys were in Texas. I'd wrapped a picture frame for his mother in wrapping paper, that typical silly red paper with some army of tiny Santa Clauses on it. The boys liked it and had picked it out for his mother's gift. This is one of several gifts I was rushing to wrap so we wouldn't be late. We all get into the van, the engine running, and he turns to me. You need to wrap my mom's gift in something else, he says. At first, I'm oblivious. I can't figure out what he's talking about. Is something wrong with the paper? Did it get wet or torn? He tells me that he doesn't feel like the paper is "appropriate" because it's not Hannuka gift wrap. I knew his mother wouldn't care two whits about what the frame was wrapped in. She herself had even referred to the gathering as a Hannuka/Christmas/holiday celebration. I knew that this woman who'd been a teacher for most of her life would instantly recognize paper chosen by children and I knew it would make her happy that my boys had put their goofy kids' signature on the gift. But here he was, this completely agnostic man who hadn't set foot in a temple other than for social occasions in decades, making the ugliest point he could over something so trivial as gift wrap. I went in and changed the paper, seething at how stupid it all was, how petty and passive aggressive. I'm not even a Christian and here's this guy treating me like I'd wrapped the presents in Chick tracts. It was so spiteful as to be surreal, which is an apt description for much of our relationship, now that I think about it.
We arrived at his parents' house and had a lovely dinner with friends and family. After we ate, we opened presents. Some were wrapped in blue and white, some green and red. I see his sister's gifts for his mother, wrapped in Christmas paper. I watch carefully to see if there is even the slightest hint of displeasure or discomfort. There is none. It's a complete non-issue. And in that moment, looking at his mother's face, I stopped loving him. I wouldn't have said it out loud, I wouldn't have admitted it to myself--and I didn't, not for months; but that was when the tiniest spark of summer in me began to grow. It grew through the cold and the misery, it grew into a great westward highway. It grew into me and one of my best girls in a car, smoking like chimneys, blaring music, and talking shit about everyone and everything under the sun. It grew into my homecoming.
It astounds me how that small, bitter seed of misery grew into this button-popping happiness. I loved him enough to feel just fine about not loving him now. December is the month I stopped loving him. December is the month I will file for divorce. Everything full circle, everything leading me to a new winter that will be warmest I ever spent.
Oh, and the gifts this year that the kids will send to his mom and dad? Santa Claus paper, all the way, baby!