Another Look At A Year Later.

I’m sure I’ve overdone the “one year later” thing, but since I’ve never been one to get while the gettin’s good, here’s yet another of my navel gazes at my divorce, one year later.

My wonderful nanny, Morgan, (Aside: I am not a fan of the word “nanny.”  It sounds … entitled, or spoiled, or something, although I think she prefers it.  And I get why—she is so much more than a “babysitter.”  She keeps my children while I work, but she also teaches them and guides them and challenges them and mothers them when I cannot.  I need to coin an appropriate term.) is on vacation this week.  Casie has filled in, and it’s been enlightening.  I do love those eye-opening moments.

Casie was our sitter last summer.  She was the first regular-schedule part-time nanny/sitter I ever had.  I hired her when The Ex filed for divorce.  I knew there were going to be meetings with attorneys and court dates.  I knew I’d have to go back to work.  I knew there was a truckload of emotional stumbling blocks coming that would require more of my time and focus and energy than I had to give.  Casie came in a few days a week and provided me with the assistance I needed to deal with the anvil dropping on my head.

Sometimes, I think people are put in the middle of your path for a reason.  Sometimes, there’s just a congruity of purpose and a fit that fills exactly the need you have at exactly the moment you need it filled.  Casie was that fit last summer.  Her parents had divorced when she was younger, under circumstances remarkably similar to mine.  Casie knew what I was going through because she had watched her mom go through it before.  She knew what my children were going through because she herself had experienced it.  She was there the day I went to court and got divorced.  She knew how hard that day was.  She was there when my kids needed to tell someone, ask someone, relate to someone.  She knew how it felt when your parents divorced (I didn’t, and still don’t) and she was the listening ear and voice of understanding for my babies during a very confusing and tumultuous time.  I was grateful … still am grateful … that she came into our lives at that much-needed moment.

We haven’t seen Casie since last summer.  She was away at school and she’s back for a few weeks and filling in while Morgan’s away.  And it’s been such a nice bookend.  She was there while it was crumbling, while I was crumbling.  She saw it razed.  She was witness to my slate being wiped clean.  And to see her and talk to her this week, to hear her say the things I think myself (the things I want to believe), to have someone who was there then flashforward to here now and express amazement that I am fine, that the kids are fine, that The Ex and I are civil, that I am happy, that the dust has (mostly) settled, that I have taken bad and made it good, that I am doing my best to make the best of things … well, that’s felt pretty damn great.

In a way, it makes me wish that I could’ve seen that flashforward a year ago, that I could’ve been shown it was going to be ok.  Of course, seeing it then probably would have made it feel much less valuable to me now.  And I wouldn’t have wanted that, because it is so valuable to me now.  Being ok feels rich.  Feels lush.  Feels proud.  There is satisfaction and contentment at having tried (and succeeded more often than I’ve failed, which may be the best I can hope for) to do the “right” thing.  To be mature.  To be a good mother.  To be the better version of me.  To embrace my life.  To grow.

I wonder what Casie will see if she comes back a year from now, how things will have progressed. I wonder what will be, where we’ll be … because I’m definitely not done yet.