I was pacing and looking out the window waiting for her to pull up. I was sick to my stomach and had that anxious heart racing, frog in throat feeling. The kids were ready to go and she was about to come by and pick them up. I was so angry that their dad had left me alone to be here when she came to get the kids. He knew how I felt about it. Of course, did I complain or say I wasn’t going to do that? No, because I wanted to pretend that I was strong and could totally handle this. As the minutes ticked by I got more and more uncomfortable. What do I do, get the kids outside or tell her to come in? I didn’t want her to come in at all and wanted the interaction over as soon as possible. The uncomfortable realization sunk in that I was actually the one intruding because I was in her house. Their home, the one they purchased together and lived in together. What was I doing? I can’t believe I signed up for this.
When she did pull up I urged the kids to get up because their mom was here and I braced myself as she came up the stairs. I opened the door and we both looked at each other and said ‘hi’ in a quiet and reluctant way. Before I could decide what to do next she let herself in, took off her shoes, and proceeded to take the kids down the hall to the bathroom. I stood there speechless as she began to do their hair and I thought to myself ‘I guess I should have done their hair? I can’t braid that well. I usually need a helper to hold one of the pieces. I am not a hair person and I didn’t think there was anything wrong with how they looked. The other thoughts running through my head ‘Should I sit down? No don’t sit down you will look too comfortable which will probably upset her and you have to stand your ground’. So I just stood there. I said nothing. I did nothing. Then when she felt that she had grabbed enough items from the kids rooms and their hair was done she led them back to the door. I muttered an awkward good bye to the kids as they followed her out and I don’t even remember if either of us acknowledged each other again. I think that part was fuzzy because I couldn’t hear much over my heart beat pounding in my head. Once I shut the door I sighed a sigh of relief and listened to the silence. I turned around and looked at the house. As I waited for their dad to get home the uneasiness came back in my stomach and I felt more and more alone waiting in a house that they shared together, one that wasn’t mine, that would never feel like mine and I cried.
I never once thought about how she felt until now. What would that same situation be like in her shoes. I was so wrapped up in how I was feeling and how unfair it was to me that I never considered for a minute how she perceived the whole thing. It was the first interaction we had where it was just the two of us. Looking back I remember I could see the uncomfortable look on her face as I opened the door. Her lips were slightly pursed and I did not get the warm fuzzy smile that I now know and love. She may have been just as uncomfortable as me. We more than likely were both upset with the kids dad for leaving us to do this together without him there. She was walking up the stairs to ‘her’ house to pick up ‘her’ kids from someone she barely knew who was now a part of her life and her kids lives. Even though she hadn’t lived there for quite awhile and the two of them had called it quits before I was in the picture can I really blame her for marching in the house? It was still her house and her kids. So maybe she felt just as out of place as I did. Maybe she felt threatened, sad and angry too. I don’t know if she meant to make me feel inadequate by doing the girls hair while I watched but it worked. Maybe she wanted me to feel as awkward and inadequate as maybe she did walking into that house.
The kids must have felt the air weighing heavy on them during this entire time. I also never thought about that until now. This really makes my heart break because every situation where I felt uncomfortable and over the top sick and anxious the kids must have felt that ten fold. We never uttered any words under our breath to each other during that interaction and we never said anything mean, but kids are like little barometers. In this situation feeling anxious, awkward, sad, inadequate, confused and alone were the both of us and three little kids.
I’ve eluded to the fact that when you are ‘in it’ you can’t really see the other side. It’s hard to have empathy with people who are making your life hard and stressful. It takes a long time. I would like to go back to the me from that day and tell her to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is the hardest but most rewarding thing to practice. Vulnerability makes us human in everyone’s eyes. I wish I could have expressed to her that day how I was feeling so that maybe her walls would come down and she would simply see me as another broken person, just like her, lost and alone, running on love and grit, with no idea how to navigate this new life.
