the end and mashed potatoes

Today is thanksgiving. It is hard to tell. it is tropical and warm and no one is discussing stuffing. Today I am going to spend thanksgiving with my broken family. Pretend for one day like we are not broken. Like we still exist. Eat mashed potatoes. A chicken instead of a turkey, the real thing is far from possible.

I didn't really know it was over till now. The end of something sounds clear and precise but in fact is a nebulous blur of possibility. Only now do I feel like it is over. The day I asked him to move out I didn't even believe it myself. When I left for Paris and he stayed in my house with our son possibility still existed. When he started seeing her and we spent that sad week floating down the river in Borneo looking at proboscis monkeys it felt over but in fact there would be months of what if's, more tears, a lot of anger.  More pulling than if we had been using a proper rope. 

The back and forth. The I want you, I miss you, go jump off a cliff is constant untill its not.

Now it is clear, real, I know it as well as I know how to make the stuffing. I know we are done. I feel nothing anymore. the sadness is gone and even the anger seems to be drying up like a creekbed in the summer. Mashed potatoes, gravy and divorce. 

He told our son about his new girlfriend and plans to introduce them this weekend were only halted by a stick to the eye, the obvious outcome of sordfighting at eleven. 

I no longer rile in a ball on the floor. I no longer spew tears like leaky faucets. I am hollow and empty like the balinese fire truck which recently showed up to a five alarm blaze totally empty of all liquid. Ironic or just tragic, I am not sure which. 

He seems like a stranger to me, someone I don't quite recognize. His choices that of a foreigner. I look at her and understand nothing. His friend on facebook inviting him to an evening of rainbow shots. His smoking. He has been released to the world. I am no longer there forming him. He is what he chooses to let other people make of him. Rainbow shots. 

I let him keep the leftovers. I had no desire to eat mashed potatoes and stuffing the next day. It was over we are done. Polite conversation and our son is all we exchange. No Turkey. All the searching doesn't produce on on an Island with no Turkeys. Just another day. 

Practice

I drove to salsa feeling light. I felt like the world around me was mine again, not a strange empty place. I felt like I needed no one and plenty would want me if they only knew me. I felt glad, secure and confident. I felt like everything was possible and I needed no one in particular. My only focus simple gratitude for having remembered to drive my motor bike in flip flops instead of salsa heals, making stopping more reasonable. No complications. The night was hot and sweaty. I was happy. I was alone.

I sat on the big backed sofa changing into my salsa heels. Before the band started I ordered my first glass of red wine in awhile. I enjoyed the sips. Each one careful and delicious. I was alone. I was ok. Really ok.

In indonesian there is a word people use to describe not good when asked how you are doing in polite conversation. Lumian. It means just more than enough. For a long time when people asked me how I was this is all I could get out. Lumian, just slightly more enough, just barely alive, just slightly more than ready to jump in front of traffic. I was so much more than that this evening. A lot more than enough. 

Everything requires practice. I believe this as gospel. In order to become excellent or even just ok at something you have to embrace being terrible at it. Keep doing it. Let go. Be terrible. Love being terrible. 

My salsa dancing has progressed from terrible to mediocre to borderline passable. I practice a lot. I look dumb. I step on people 's feet, miss the beat and generally suck. It is less than sexy. I keep trying. 

Being alone or at least not partnered in the world and managing happiness is the same. I am practicing, getting better. I am starting to feel ok, like I can walk thru the world with no one holding my hand. Like I can do it and feel good even. 

I danced all night with different people including a very nice older gentleman who was incredibly generous with dance instruction despite my begining salsa. I had long moments when the dance was fluent. I had other moments when I totally lost the steps or missed a lead and didn't turn when I should have.

I am sure being alone will be the same again. I will faulter, slip up, get scared, feel lonely again. Loose my moments of happiness. 

I woke up this morning under my blue mosquito net, startled to be alone in bed. No child, no partner, no lover. After my eyes focused enough to remember where I was, I regained my emotional footing. The bed is empty and I am still startlingly ok. I am really astonishingly ok. I am no longer looking back with regret. I have let go. He can go on his way, I will go on mine. I am good. I am alone. I am happy. 

Ours, yours and mine

I made fried rice out of the leftovers in the fridge, added an egg. This is yours, I forgot it was. You reminded me that this is what you used to do last time I saw you. 

I painted your walls butter yellow befor you met her. You still wanted me then. Now these walls are yours. These yellow walls. Other people compliment you on them. You say thank you. No credit given, no credit required. She doesn't even know they are mine. That me and your son picked the color with love and painted them for you, using our own two hands while you were away. 

Remember that city in mexico when our son was a baby? Remember all those yellow buildings? We were there. Can't we return to that moment?

You cook our food for her. It was mine first but over the years it became ours. First when I was pregnant and couldn't stand the sight of raw food. Me lying on that old garage sale couch nautious and directing you in the kitchen. You slowly becoming a cook.  

You have pickles on your shelf that you made. They are my pickles. My recipe. Can I take them back from you? I cannot. 

We have these things that are ours. This is how it is. Now you are sharing them with her.

Is that you outlined in a shadow in her Facebook profile picture holding those pickles next to you and her? She doesn't know they are mine does she? 

Then of course there is our son. He is the perfect equal combination of you and me. Yours and mine. Your face, love for books, astronomy and a dry wit. 

My snuggliness and sense of adventure. 

These things are so intertwined, so jumbled. After this many years, we can no longer pull apart these pieces. I am always a part of you and you are always a part of me. I just have to accept that you are now sharing those parts with her. I have to accept this without feeling like a jealous toddler who is unwilling to share my toys. I have to release you. Release all that was shared. Give you away. Give it all away, to you, to her.