Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations (13 page)

So in a perfect world, my single parent co-op and
I (minus the man) would gather a collection of
single
men as
it seems married men are all too enthusiastic to provide their
services. These men would take us out on dates, love on us, screw us
silly and never ask to meet our kids or stop by unannounced or get an
attitude when we don't answer texts or phone calls (sorry, busy
making home cooked meals for three demanding children) or want us to
meet their friends or, God forbid, their mothers and
always
wear protection and not feel the need to show us off and be patient
with our inability to dress properly for the occasion (we have little
paint stain/vomit stain-free clothing) or the fact that we don't
remember how to flirt because it's been years and years since anyone
has flirted with us and don't mind our mushy mom bodies.

Something like a gigolo, who pays on dates but
gets uncomplicated, no-nonsense sex.

Is that so much to ask?

Do Me

Being
“low maintenance” has suddenly become the single biggest
pain in my ass.

I had a rare night away from my kids a few nights
ago. So rare, in fact, that I believe it’s only happened three
or four times in the last two or three years. It was always my mom
who gave me the break, flying in from Mobile to Tampa to visit and
help. Their father would only take 2 out of 3 kids at most.
As
exhilarating as it should be to spend a few precious hours alone, it
typically fills me with anxiety. I’m not anxious that my kids
will be unsafe. I’m not anxious that
I
will be unsafe. I
am anxious because one or more of my girlfriends will say “Girl,
you finally got some time away. It’s time for you to do
YOU”…and I don’t know what the hell that means.

The pressure of doing my alone time
right
,
of using the time
properly
, is overwhelming and
disheartening. As the countdown to Alone Time begins, I feel –
no, I
know
– that I’m going to do it wrong. I’m
not going to treat Alone Time with enough respect.

I’ve seen and known women who can stand and
pound their chests and say “I'mma do ME!” with a kind of
candor and confidence that I do not have.

I literally do not know
how
. I’m not
trying to paint myself a martyr here. This isn’t whining. It’s
my own tomboyish, one-of-the-guys, easygoing nature punching me
directly in the face. It’s my heroic flaw. I’ve never
given weight to getting my hair and nails done. I haven’t
walked into a salon in well over seven years. When I feign girlie, I
feel like I am not myself. Typically, I am left feeling inadequate
and awkward. I have no disposable income. I am not going to shop, or
see a movie, or grab a beer without feeling the financial impact of
it for several days or even a week later. So what do I do?

Usually, I just lay around in the silence, or
sleep, or clean. But no matter what I do, I feel like I am wasting
that precious Alone Time.

Deep down, I know that laying in silence
is
me “doing me.” But I also feel like Oprah is gonna burst
through the door and make me sit down and she’ll say “this
is how you let yourself go” and I’ll cry and cry because
she would be right. It is eerily sneaky the way “low
maintenance” becomes “no maintenance.” Shaving your
legs less becomes not. Skipping one night of deep conditioning
becomes all.

I’m so utterly, completely over “doing”
that I don’t even
eat
during Alone Time because getting
up and preparing food is too much “doing something.” It’s
a damn shame, but I don’t know how to change it. It’s how
I’ve always been! Before kids and the complete emotional
mauling of divorce it was kind of refreshing to have alone time. I
was skinny and ballsy. My low-key ways were considered “down to
earth.”

Now I’m a few years away from cat sweaters
and mom jeans. It’s almost
that
bad. I just never
learned self-care. I can’t help but feel like I’m failing
at something. It’s oppressive.

Palate Cleanser

Reminisce
with me.

There is
a type of sexual partner I think is beneficial to the newly divorced.
I briefly mentioned my palate cleanser from Paraguay before but,
really, the importance of this sort of thing cannot be overstated.

Let me sidebar for a second, though, and
apologize for the highly sexual writing right now. It's as if there
are unique stages of grief or stages of recovery or something and now
I am in the “undersexed and horny-crazed stage.”

It was really important to me not to allow myself
to hop into another relationship until I was good and emotionally
healed. I think I'm halfway there. I feel stronger, but still
committed to just courting myself.

The sex part, however, is not so easily brushed
aside. It seems to have affected all of us in my single parent co-op.
Sex, or lack thereof, is all we talk about. But, for the newly
divorced, it's all so complex. The last time I went on a date there
was no such thing as Facebook or texting or Tweeting or sexting.
There's a whole new realm of flirting and interacting that I don't
know anything about and taking your clothes off with someone new is
really scary...

...but that's
exactly
why you need to have
sex with a "Palate Cleanser."

Let's start with the definition of "palate
cleanser" for those who do not think about food as much as I do.
When you go to a fancy restaurant you might be offered a palate
cleanser between courses. This is supposed to cleanse the taste of
the last course and ready you for the next.

In sex, and in our discussion now, it's that
person you sleep with and want nothing more from than to help you
forget your last relationship. My ex-husband actually started as a
palate cleanser but I'm ridiculously fertile and was unbelievably
irresponsible. I'm lucky all I got was pregnant, y'know?

But anyway, I'm a firm believer that everything
is
everything
. As in, the way you perform your duties, the way
you eat, how you regard sex and sleep and booze and relationships and
everything
is just a mirror for all the emotional
gobbledy-goop that you're carrying around inside.

Typically, if you are a divorced person, you've
experienced a few years worth of crappy sex because it's a common
symptom of all the other junk happening in the relationship. Maybe
the sex is mundane, or a little violent, or you've detached
completely, or the lights always have to be off, or you won't go down
on him.

All of it is a tiny version of the
big
problem. Your apathy, your resentment, your boredom, your insecurity,
your hatred, your lack of respect is all evident in the way you have
sex - or don't. So it's safe to assume that we,
people-who-are-divorced, had some dysfunctional sex in those final
months or years. That's why it is my recommendation that you sleep
with someone new who has no desire to be a part of your life to help
you remember how to actually enjoy sex again!

My
palate cleanser was a chef from
Paraguay. We worked together and I could tell he was interested in
me. He got on the elevator with me just to talk, taking a 22-floor
detour from his destination. I invited him to see a movie with me,
just to see where things went.

And things went to my car in the parking lot.

It was that exciting, frenzied, frantic,
desperately-panting sex that is so elusive once you are in a settled
committed relationship – especially a failing, miserable one.

He was quiet and reserved but when he spoke he
was very, very succinct. I was a divorced parent. He was a divorced
parent. We both knew what was going on. We skipped all the fluff.
Often, rather than wasting money on drinks and flirting and the
dating ritual, we spent that same money on a hotel room a few blocks
from the one where we worked.

And the sex was ah-mazing.

I was freer and more uninhibited with him than I
ever was in my marriage. We did all kinds of stuff I would never have
done with my ex-husband. And why?

The chef hadn't had an opportunity to completely
lose my trust.

Sex is intimate. Sex is vulnerable. You're
completely exposed.

And once someone has hacked away at you,
emotionally, you are hesitant to give very much of yourself no matter
how horny you are.

Not in every marriage, but in some, sex becomes a
duty. It something you have to do to shut your partner up. Or it is a
weapon. Or it is a manipulation strategy. There is little to no
enjoyment left.

While I think it's noble and romantic to just be
celibate until the next Mr. Right comes along, I think it's good to
just find a willing, enthusiastic sex partner to help you erase all
the sexual baggage you are probably carrying around with you. But
only for a little while or your lonely, broken self will start to
confuse things and get attached. No one deserves to be a human
band-aid.

It's been seven months since Chef from Paraguay
and six months since any other sexual contact. I feel like a crazy
person and have developed a really dependent relationship on my
battery-operated-boyfriend.

As one of my single friends said, this
post-divorce, battery-dependent sex drought is like being a starving
person eating Cheetos to get full. Sure, you won't
die,
but
you're not even close to being satisfied, and day after day of a dull
unfulfilled hunger is enough to drive you mad.

The fear is a little paralyzing though. And the
lack of access. It was only when Chris and his boyfriend were in my
house a few weeks ago that I realized I live in an almost all-female
environment. Their male height and deep male voices were alien in my
living room.

There are few men in my everyday life. Just one,
actually. I mostly see women and babies. All the time. I know nothing
of flirting and sexual tension. But I do know that sex can be honest
and fulfilling and hilarious and athletic and adventurous and
educational and tender and absolutely nothing like the tired sex of
Broken Marriage that clouded the last 5 or 6 years of my existence.

I wonder what the sex equivalent of an
amuse-bouche would be?

Cautiously pleased

So for a
few weeks, my ex said he was going to plan a small beach trip so he
could see the kids. To my surprise, it actually happened.
We
drove to Destin and met him at a hotel. He'd rented two rooms. We
spent the weekend swimming and boarding and eating.
I was
nervous the kids would be angry or that he would be high-maintenance
but none of that happened. We had a great weekend. It felt like we
were co-parents. He didn't try to hold hands or get intimate like he
usually does, but we definitely felt like teammates.
If it stays
like this everything will be excellent. He definitely made up for not
calling all those months.
He still definitely has not made up for
not paying child support but...baby steps...

Adulthood –
October 2012

This
is short. It's just a random thought.

So, I'm thirty but people often think I am
somewhere between nineteen and twenty-four.

I haven't decided if that's flattering or
insulting yet.

But, at any rate, when am I supposed to feel like
an adult?

I do adult things. I pay bills. I care for three
children 24 hours a day. And I care for them well with, like,
playdates, balanced meals, limited electronic entertainment and all
that jazz.

But I still feel really small and insecure and
young and goofy and unfit to wear heels and all that...

...just wondering when that is supposed to wear
off.
Things Jordis Says
"I've
been jumping around too much and my philophogus hurts. My ugulus
does, too. And also my donbulus,” so says the youngest child.

I think
she goes to the Ron Burgundy School of Science and Medicine.

Stages of
Loneliness
Being alone is hard.

Most people who get divorced aren't alone for
long, gleefully flinging themselves into one anesthetizing tryst or
soon-to-fail relationship after another.

But those of us who lean toward masochism choose
to hunker down and run headfirst into "dealing with our issues.”
After evaluating with my single parent co-op I have decided that the
ebbs, flows and pains of the “hunker down method” have
clear and defined stages.

I present to you The Stages of Loneliness.

Let me start by saying that the stages of
Loneliness and the stages of Grieving are not the same. I remember
the "holy shit, I'm really going to get a divorce. Where's my
Ben and Jerry's?" grief period well. And I believe, deeply, that
experiencing all the Stages of Grief will help you get through a
divorce with minimal thoughts of suicide and/or murder. But my
personal experience and unscientific observation has led me to
believe there are several distinct stages of Loneliness, the first of
which being...

Nostalgia

Shortly after
moving into my own apartment, and long before my divorce was even
filed, I began reminiscing, fantasizing and torturing myself over
every ex I let go and every crush I never pursued. Facebook became my
worst enemy. I stalked like a madwoman. I pictured alternate
storylines where I dated alternate men and had alternate babies or no
babies at all. I blindly ignored all the reasons I broke up with
these exes and never-pursued crushes. It's masochism at it's finest.

Torture yourself. Feel like an idiot. Feel
ungrateful for the life and children you have. Deny all reason.
That's the post divorce nostalgia.

It was around this time that I began sleeping
next to a five-foot0long teddy bear I named "Joe" because
it was a good default name. I'd never collected stuffed animals, not
even when I was a child, but the vastness of my empty bed was
unbearable (punny, no?) and I needed something to fill up all that
space.
So here's my repentance. Sorry for stalking you Jason F,
Joe B, Patrick H, Dan C, Jimmy H, Danny M, Clay G, Ryan H, John R,
DD, Russ G, Trey C (I know, weird), Will J., Chad N., Jordan B. (two
biggest middle school crushes - yup, went back that far) Rich W and
Bill H.