Splitting Christmas.

The painful reality of shared custody on Christmas Day.

*I wrote most of this last night, but thanks to a bit too much “coping” Prosecco, I didn’t quite land the plane until today.

It’s Christmas night, and I’m home alone. My kids left with their dad around 4:30 this afternoon. I think that was the time, I do my best not to look at the clock because every hour that ticks away is another closer to when they have to leave.

Closer to when they aren’t here. They aren’t with me. On Christmas.

And the more I think about that, the sadder I get. It’s Christmas, they’re supposed to be with me, I don’t know where that’s written, but it’s got to be written somewhere official-ish, because my brain, heart and whole entire body have been under this very distinct impression since they were born.

You see, I had always believed that on Christmas, my babies had to be with me the whole time. And because of that belief — no matter how toxic and painful and destructive my marriage was, no matter how miserable or even suicidal I may have been as a result of said marriage, that I had to stay. Because the mere suggestion of hugging them goodbye on Christmas was too much pain to possibly bear. Because they were the best things that had ever happened to me, and the only reason I hadn’t yet run my car into that telephone pole I kept eyeing up as I passed by it any time I was driving alone.

So, I pushed past all of my own misery, I pushed it back down to that place far enough down inside of me, down there with all the other horribly painful shit I didn’t want to grapple with, and I smiled that forced smile knowing that I wouldn’t have to think about hugging them goodbye on Christmas. And “soldiered on.”

It doesn’t make a whole lot of rational sense, I know that, but it’s how I was feeling once upon a time. It was what I was willing to trade in order to be with them from that first present peek to that ‘what was your favorite present?” goodnight kiss.

I was willing to stay in a marriage that was killing me. Because I thought the sacrifice of losing time with my kids on Christmas was a price tag that was too high for me to bear.

And I have a feeling, that as emotionally irrational and nonsensical as that seems to a lot of people reading it, that there are a great many folks out there who have either walked that same walk, or might be walking it right now. The same seemingly “binary” choice that from the outside looking in, appears easy. But from the inside looking out, feels literally impossible to make.

Before going on, I just want to take a second to mention that at nearly 50 years of age, I have reached a point where I am very open and honest about my story. My life. My ups and downs. Good news and bad. Wins and failures and everything in between. I’m a book still being written and rewritten, but it is an open book. There is no point in hiding, obfuscating or lying. It doesn’t serve me, and it’s of no use to anyone else.

I can only tell my own utterly imperfect truth. I can’t tell anyone else how they should feel or what they should do about anything. But maybe if they see themselves in what I share, they can feel less alone. Less afraid. Something which I always longed for, but never had.

But back to this new reality of hugging my kids goodbye on Christmas, how I got here, and how I’m working on getting better about being here.

I talk about this a lot, but I have been working really, really hard this last year to get into a better place mentally. It’s meant a ton of work actively making my mind process things differently.

The goal is to interact in a healthier way with myself, with others, and with whatever circumstances I may create or encounter. There are a metric shit ton of bad habits in my filing cabinet of dysfunction. But I’m trying every single day to discard them one by one and replace them with something less self-destructive (she says after many glasses of palliative Prosecco.)

But that’s the thing — I’m far from done, and I both acknowledge and accept that fact. It’s ok to need to keep working on myself. It’s ok to know that I’m wildly imperfect, stubborn as fuck, and thanks in large part to the abuse I suffered when I was little, very much a child in the way I process feelings.

And tonight sucking for me, my kids being away from me on Christmas, is my truth. Struggling to keep it together when they’re packing up their things to leave for several days is fucking hard. Knowing that they’re going to be enjoying family traditions I once participated in with family no longer mine, is hard.

Their absence on this day still makes me feel acutely alone. But it’s not nearly was bad as it once was.

And it’s helpful to me to work through and unpack all of this by writing it down. So, that’s what I’m doing, as I wipe away the tears in order to see the screen as I type.

The first year (2020) I was a fucking wreck. Their dad was an hour late and I must have lulled myself into some delusion of totally unrealistic wishful thinking that he wasn’t going to show up (I knew he was going to show up), because when the kids’ faces dropped as they read their texts from their dad, and they looked up at me with distress in their eyes while I was, until then, blissfully gathering up arm-fulls of crumpled paper… when I looked at them it hit me like a 2x4.

My eyes instantly welled up with tears, and I was so mad at myself for that. I had given myself so many damn “Not only CAN you do this, you HAVE to do this.” talks that I guess I actually believed that I could avoid crying as my chest filled with panic, and my eyes darted for some sort of rescue from the tsunami of sadness and my heart shattered into a million trillion pieces and I understood that there was no cord to pull, or a bad dream to wake from, or prank to realize.

My babies were leaving me on Christmas Day. My whole world. My everything. My reasons for existing. My keys to survival, literally… they weren’t going to be with me for all of Christmas Day. And I was leveled flat.

And yes I know now, as I knew then — that this is not unique to me. This doesn’t make me “special”. I’m no first ever of its kind parent to have to navigate the painful awful awkwardness of split parenting on holidays. But I can’t tell anyone else’s story, I can only tell mine. And so, here it is.

That first year was really dark. I couldn’t get off the couch for the better part of three days. I questioned every choice I had ever made. I was convinced that I had made terrible mistakes I couldn’t undo. It felt like a movie where you’re screaming at the main character because you know that they’re doing the wrong thing and YOU know the inevitable outcome is going to suck but they don’t yet, so they do it, the outcome unfolds and you’re like “She should have listened…”

I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to see anyone. I just wanted to be alone. In my pajamas. On the couch. Crying.

Crying on the couch for hours in the dark is fucking hard. Going down dark paths in a silent house full of empty boxes, asking myself questions about my own choices and whether or not they were “worth it” when I’m so goddamn sad is fucking hard.

It’s hard. It’s Fucking hard. It’s not losing a child hard. It’s not off to war hard, it’s not even off to college hard as I imagine it, but for great many of us, this Fucking sucks. Big time.

And when the sadness and loneliness and the blaming myself got really bad, I went back to that place where that telephone pole started to look pretty good wrapped around the hood of my car. I was hurting the kids. I was hurting myself. And it made me feel useless. And as I was lying there, drowning in self-pity, I said to myself, “Look what you have done. You destroyed your family. For what? For what? They’d be better off without you. They’d be better off if you were dead.”

And I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want to be away from them for 4 days, let alone forever. But in that sea of sadness and self-loathing, it felt like it was true.

But it wasn’t. Those words were coming from the same woman who had stayed in an incredibly difficult and damaging marriage for far, far too long. A woman who, over the course of decades, had allowed her spirit & sense of self-worth to be whittled away down to nothing like a piece of soft wood. A woman who had lost her voice and lost her way.

A woman who was dying inside, and felt the outside needed to match.

What I had to realize, what’s taken years really of work and therapy to realize, is that I don’t want or need to be listening to that woman. I didn’t drive my car into a telephone pole because I didn’t want to BE that woman. I had to understand that having to miss my kids on Christmas was the trade off for me leaving THAT woman in the past. And choosing to live now, in the present.

And as I have said, it’s not without its challenges, even on year #3.

But here I am, writing this truth of mine, being able to recognize that my temporary sadness will pass. That missing my kids will hurt acutely. But that it will be ok.

And ultimately, that it isn’t a price tag too high for me to bear. Because it means that I chose to live. To live a life where I have regained my spirit. A life where I get to rebuild my sense of self-worth. I am reclaiming my voice, and slowly but surely, I am finding my way.

And I had to make some really tough choices to get here. Choices I thought I’d never be able to make.

But we can make the hard choices when we have to. We can endure temporary pain. We can get through questioning ourselves. We can do all of that and come out of it stronger, wiser, happier and more whole.

I know I did the right thing in ending my marriage. I know I wouldn’t have and couldn’t have survived much more of it.

I’m working on not blaming myself for hurting the kids. I’ll get there, I’m just not there quite yet.

But I know that they’ll be back home in a few days. They’ll have fun stories to tell, and that I’ll be here to listen. With a real smile on my face.

And I’ll remember why this ultimately rather small sacrifice, was so very worth it in the end.

As I’ve said, I know this experience ain’t exclusive to me, and I’m sure as shit not the first parent to go through it, and I won’t be the last, but if you are grappling with this, if you’re feeling like you have to choose to stay miserable over losing time with your kids, I see you.

You’re not alone.

And your happiness matters too.

And if you’re feeling like I thought I did about not wanting to be here anymore, don’t stay with those thoughts alone. Not just on Christmas - on any day. Reach out to someone you trust. Or:

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (formerly the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline)

www.988lifeline.org

You can always talk to someone by calling the Lifeline at 988.

Talking through your feelings is incredibly important.

That’s what I had to do, and have to do even now.

I’m not glad to miss my kids every Christmas night, but I am glad to be here to get to miss them. Because there was a time where I thought I didn’t want to be here at all anymore.

But here I am. And boy am I glad for that.

Maybe MAGA’s not, but I am.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Next year’s goal is a little less Prosecco for me. 🥴