He Ain’t Heavy …. March 8, 2011

Avery and Owen have always been close.  Though they are two years apart in age, they’ve always traveled the same orbit.  They play together a lot.  When they have friends over, they invariably include each other and usually get along quite well.  More often than not, each really seems to enjoy the other’s company.  Don’t misunderstand—my kids also fight a lot.  They constantly drive each other to distraction and I referee their squabbles over inanity ALL. DAY. LONG.

But they have always loved each other fairly fiercely.  They have always protected each other (as in, THEY are allowed to beat the crap out of and psychologically torture each other, but no one else is).  It occurred to me last night how much more they have begun to rely on each other since the divorce.  We were in the kitchen and I was scrubbing cabinets in my seemingly never-ending and greatly-daunting quest to get our house ready to list.  Owen needed help with his reading homework.  Aside Numero Uno:  Owen HATES to read.  So much so and in such an aggravating and aggrandizing fashion that I pretty much stopped doing his nightly reading homework with him back in like, October.  Bad Mom.

Plagued by inexplicable recent guilt about this, last night I insisted we do the reading because APPARENTLY, that’s what good mothers do.  He brought his book into the kitchen, dragging his feet the whole way, and plopped pissily down next to me on the floor.  Thus we began.  Within milliseconds he was so frustrated that he was on the verge of tears (as was I) or violence or spontaneous combustion or something equally unpleasant.  The high-pitched whining and the quick breathing and the “I hate reading!  Why do I have to do this? WAAAAAAAAHHHH!”

Aside Numero Dos: At that moment, I just didn’t have it in me to properly parent.  I’m surviving on very little sleep these days and very little food (because damned if I haven’t had to put my ass on an actual DIET).  I am trying to sell one house and buy another.  I am cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning (and I could write an entire post about how The Ex deserves his own entire episode of the show “Hoarders” for the condition in which he left our garage, no lie).  I am taking carloads of donations to Goodwill and carloads of trash to the curb.  I am working, though not enough, and parenting and calculating and negotiating and repairing and updating and staging and calling and signing and stressing.  I am a one-armed juggler.  I am overwhelmed.

I sat there listening to Owen begin his melt down and failure smacked me full in the face.  I realized I just can’t do it all.  I can’t get the house ready to sell and cook everyone’s meals and do the laundry and work and pay the bills and clean up and clean up and clean up and clean up and paint and scrub and change diapers and give baths and help with homework and attend school Open Houses and talk to realtors and talk to lenders and go to the orthodontist and go to swim practice and drive carpools and entertain and create memories and set boundaries and teach lessons and provide good life experiences and and and and and.  I just CAN’T.

and yet i have to.

In that mini-freeze moment as I sat there staring at all of us sitting on the kitchen floor and watching all of us about to lose our shit, I just couldn’t formulate the right plan of attack fast enough.  I felt tapped.  Trapped.  Drained.  Spent.  And very, very solo.

It lasted only the briefest of moments, then Avery sat down next to Owen and in an exceedingly patient voice said, “I’ll help you.”  Everything shifted.  She helped him sound out words and I encouraged and praised them both.  I kept scrubbing and they kept reading and Amelia kept climbing over and amongst it all.

It made me think about all the other times lately when they have stepped in and stepped up.  Not just when they have helped me, but when they have helped each other or consoled each other without being asked.  When one has coerced a desired response from the other that I was unable to bring forth.  These days, they do it a lot.  It made me wonder if the divorce has strengthened the bond between my children and made them more dependent upon each other … tied them more closely to the brother or the sister who is always there while simultaneously loosening the strings that I still want bound so very tightly to me for at least a few years more.  The fact that they have realized they can’t always have Mommy when they want and they don’t always get to see Daddy when they’d like is painful.  It makes my soul ache.  But the fact that they have figured out they always have each other, no matter which house they’re sleeping in?  That gives me great comfort.  Circumstances dictate they can’t rely upon me for everything, at every time.  But they can, and do, rely on each other.  With any luck at all, that will last a lifetime.

Avery interrupted my thoughts, suddenly indignant that Owen’s kindergarten reader contained a really tough word.  She showed it to me, I agreed, and she asked, “How in the world is he supposed to read that?!”  “Sound it out,” I said.  Owen, ever the don’t-do-anything-for-free kid, asked, “What do I get if I read it?”  Certain there was no chance in hell he’d get it, I told him, “Popsicles.  And we’ll call it a night with the reading.”  Avery sat back down next to Owen and pointed at the word.

Owen read, “atmosphere.”

And then we were all laughing and eating popsicles on the kitchen floor, forgetting the reading struggle until tomorrow.  In the middle of all of life’s current craziness, it was a good moment and a good realization.  I can’t do it all.  I’m not even sure I’m doing any of it very well.  But my kids are all right anyway and when I can’t do everything, they have each other to help pick up the slack.