Expressionless

parle pas.

When you're someone who likes to share it's more than just imparting information that makes you tick.  It's a sense of connection, of vitality, of life.  When I share I get to feel how I make others feel, how my stories might resonate with them or make them laugh.  I love to see people bowled over from my ridiculous (true) stories or to feel their support in warm smiles and tight hugs.

But I can't share anymore.

I'm cut off from my heart, my emotions, my will to pretty much do anything other than put one foot in front of the other. 

But I like to think you'd be shocked to know it. 

I make a good show of it; the whole "fake it till you make it" thing really does work.  I'm feeling better this week than I have in months and I have been socializing with new and old friends regularly, giving myself a break, all while doing the hard ass work of sledging through divorce terms such as "custody," "community property," and naming the fucking cats in the divorce decree.  -- Yeah, Digby and Lola will be in ink on my divorce papers.  Lovely.  --

I know I don't hide it all all the time, but I try.  A select few have called me out for not being myself and I've asked to be allowed to go through my process my way and promised to do my best to stay connected to them.  They've agreed; they love me and are worried I may never return to my old self.  The truth is there is no way on earth I could come out of this the same person I went in, but I don't want anyone to worry unduly.  I'll be a new and improved version of Jessica on the other side of this.  I'm convinced of it.


Hawk and I have rounded the corner of Mommy-Hating that we were swirling around in like an eddy in an angry river.  When he's with me he's 100% Team Mommy, when he's with Rooster, it's Team Daddy.  I'm beginning to understand that he has no recollection of the two of us together, and when Rooster and I mix company on off weeks Hawk's whole equilibrium gets shoved out of whack. 

We've stopped so much mixing and things have stabilized and my heart doesn't break each time I hear, "No, Mommy, go!  I don't want you here!"  Well, that's a goddamned lie, it does break, but not with quite same vigor as it did before I figured it out. 

I've been holding so much back I imagine this is what it feels like to be male (sorry, dudes).  I never cracked when Hawk hurled toddler slurs at me, I never cry when my friends ask me how I'm doing.  I talk about the divorce, its proceedings and status, like it's my taxes. --  I stubbornly admit that I cried when I saw I had to name the cats in the divorce decree.  It was salt in my wound, the last straw.  I was a broken-backed camel, with a salty wound. -- I am in more control of myself now than I ever have been and not sharing is the key... well, that and being dead inside.

Bears hibernate and so do I.

But I'm luckier than those hairy bastards because spring comes each time I look into Hawk's eyes and when he tells me how very much he loves me.  Any disagreement, slight, or complication that's been on my mind ghosts away the second I am brought back to real life: to my son.  The one and only creature on this planet that matters.  The one for whom I'm working so hard for.


There's no accounting for the path of a life, but we can count on love.  For me, it's the love of my baby, my sweetest little one, and his for me.   This much I can share.  I can shout it from the rooftops and feel more human for it and not at all vulnerable or sad.  It's invigorating and life-affirming. 

Being with him is like coming up for air.