I am reminded today of a line from the movie As Good As it Gets...the 3 main characters are having a conversation in a car, and Jack Nicholson's character says, "some people have memories, nice memories, of picnics and boating and friends and noodle salad...just no one in this car.." That is how I feel today. I am growing to hate holidays..does this happen to all people who are suddenly thrown into being divorced and have to reinvent their life to somehow make it work in the new life they now have..I don't remember anything earth shattering the last 5 years or so for 4th or July, but I did not care. We were together, we did small things, mostly I did NOT have to have a plan that made it feel like a holiday, like I was really using the day, because it did not exist like that for me.
But now, as the holidays go, my little one is gone today, with people I do NOT like anymore, to make it worse, and my older one is with me and I feel bad for her for this boring day, and I feel awful because I don't have my inbox full of invites or my phone ringing off the hook with things to do. I don't have much excitement to offer her, and I don't feel like creating it, as I so often feel like I just need to breathe through the days these days, as they all melt into days that I no longer recognize or really have plans for, and I don't want the stress of "having plans." When you are a couple or a family, the plans just happen. But when you are no longer married, and often alone if your chidren are not with you, there is this tremendous pressure to have "plans" and I just don't even want to deal with it.
And it seems achingly so the older one gets, the doom sets in. I don't want plans with people like me, the idea of hanging out with other people who need "plans" makes me want to crawl under a rock. I just want to be like it was before. If we had plans great, a little bonus, but if we did not, no one even noticed, because we were the plan. And now there is a huge silence that descends me and my life and a huge horizon that I look out to, that I am not excited about and find quite stressful. And please, for the most part, people are couples or are actively seeking to be so, so the life of the one alone is not some great adventure where you can finally do what you want--that is just something people invented to say so they would feel better about the state of being.
I very much feel like I am in that car right now.
But now, as the holidays go, my little one is gone today, with people I do NOT like anymore, to make it worse, and my older one is with me and I feel bad for her for this boring day, and I feel awful because I don't have my inbox full of invites or my phone ringing off the hook with things to do. I don't have much excitement to offer her, and I don't feel like creating it, as I so often feel like I just need to breathe through the days these days, as they all melt into days that I no longer recognize or really have plans for, and I don't want the stress of "having plans." When you are a couple or a family, the plans just happen. But when you are no longer married, and often alone if your chidren are not with you, there is this tremendous pressure to have "plans" and I just don't even want to deal with it.
And it seems achingly so the older one gets, the doom sets in. I don't want plans with people like me, the idea of hanging out with other people who need "plans" makes me want to crawl under a rock. I just want to be like it was before. If we had plans great, a little bonus, but if we did not, no one even noticed, because we were the plan. And now there is a huge silence that descends me and my life and a huge horizon that I look out to, that I am not excited about and find quite stressful. And please, for the most part, people are couples or are actively seeking to be so, so the life of the one alone is not some great adventure where you can finally do what you want--that is just something people invented to say so they would feel better about the state of being.
I very much feel like I am in that car right now.
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