Browsing Tag

growing

Binders, Guest Posts, motherhood

The Other Side

September 10, 2015

By Debbie Weingarten

The afternoon brings long rays of sun through the window, and specks of dust float around us like stars. We live in a home the size of a postage-stamp, and it is full of a baby and a toddler, a broken mama, one dog, one cat— all growing, healing, mucking through the days together.

I have begun to think in motivational phrases:

Orient towards the light. Take a step. Repeat.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

We are never given anything more than we can handle.

This is a brand new year, I say to myself, through the lull of the afternoon. The baby stretches in his sleep, as if he knows that new years are for waking up.

With the second child, time does not seem quite so cavernous. It’s like walking a familiar path, recognizing this crooked tree, or that patch of wildflowers, or the wooden bridge just beyond the rhododendron. The baby will cut teeth, learn to walk, say bird and dog, sprout little blonde hairs on his legs, ride a tricycle, finally sleep through the night. And I— tired rings below my eyes, yoga pants for days— will marvel at how time has somehow robbed us and kept us prisoner at the very same time.

I could feel the divorce before it came. It circled us for two long years, disguised as stress from sleep deprivation, an infant, a demanding business. It has been a year since I woke up to the abuse and control, since my son and I fled in our pajamas, the baby still the size of a fist in my belly.

I have been ushering us through the weeks, each one its own journey and wall of grief, each one bringing new layers of deconstruction, clarity, documents from the lawyer. For a time, I am set adrift on my own solitary raft, letting the warm ocean wash over me. I am tired of crying, and I cannot eat. Instead, I spend time sorting through all of the lies told to me so casually. I turn them over like seashells, put them in a bucket, scream. It is all one big mindfuck.

I have embraced things I was never allowed: a frivolous coffee routine, afternoon naps, frozen foods, shitty milkshakes. I find comfort from things I never thought I would: signs of synchronicity, self-help books, kind sister strangers, internet support groups, old songs with new meanings. Continue Reading…

Family, Guest Posts, motherhood

Alone.

November 23, 2014

beauty-hunting-jen-logo-black

By Shannon Brugh.

My oldest son E turned to me today- out of nowhere, in the middle of lunch- and said, “Mommy? When I’m big, can I go everywhere with my family? I want to stay with my family. I don’t want to be alone. I’m scared to be all alone.”

And my heart broke into a million little pieces.

***

Earlier today, he and my youngest son W, ran ahead of my husband and me in the hallway of our apartment building. They jumped into the elevator before we had even turned the corner. They’re normally so good about waiting for us. But this time, this time they forgot. And as we turned the corner and the elevator doors closed, I heard E yell quietly in surprise, “Nooooo!!!!”

We ran as fast as we could, but we couldn’t get to the elevator before it started moving. They had already pushed the buttons inside when the doors closed. My husband bolted down the staircase and I waited where I was, in case they followed the directions I had once given them to stay where they were. I was hoping they would come right back. But they didn’t. I could hear E whimpering softly. He was scared. I listened as the elevator stopped at this floor, and then that one. I didn’t know which. And then I couldn’t hear them anymore. And I couldn’t hear my husband.

I started to yell through the elevator doors, hoping they could hear me.

Continue Reading…