It shouldn't be this way...

It can be a really small thing that sets it off. Like a cup he drank from while he was here. It’s still sitting in the sink cos we didn’t have time to wash it before heading out the door. Or it can be one of his socks that I find during my frantic vacuuming session to wipe out traces that we were having so much fun, we spilled stuff on the floor – that one sock under the sofa can be the cause of the heartbreak.

That’s what it’s like to be a so called Weekend mom. I always despised the phrase. I am just as much a mom during the week as I am during Saturday and Sunday. I describe it as a small death whenever my son has to go. We’re well past the days when we cry at our goodbyes but there is – and always will be – that numbing silent pain that I feel when something happens that I wish I could change and can’t. It is not that my son is unhappy; he is quite a happy kid and functioning well ; it’s simply that “it wasn’t supposed to be this way”. The most horrible feeling of shame and guilt on my part. I haven’t been able to shake it for the past 8 years. I can’t even believe it’s been 8 years since I moved out, suffering from anxiety and depression, bringing nothing but a suitcase with my clothes.

Being burdened by guilt because things turned out this way is equal to feeling guilty for the sun rising in the morning. The circumstances of my divorce is something I cannot change and it shouldn’t be changed, therefore I have no control. I cannot change this situation so we’re back to happy family. I don’t think we ever were from the start. As much as I cannot change the fact that the sun rises, I cannot change the fact that this is the way our lives are right now. This is reality and it honestly bites most of the time.

The challenge will always be how to deal with it. How do you not only carry a burden and a pain so great but also live with it, walk with it? Maybe by transforming the pain. Looking at the source of the pain and changing my belief about the whole thing.

”This was never supposed to happen”.
Well, maybe it was.