Honeymoon

Thank God a honeymoon is in the offing. E and I haven't been alone since our wedding. It's been non-stop kid action, and our kids require a lot of attention and entertainment. One of A's refrains is, "What are we going to do that's FUN??" I hope we're not in real trouble, because they are typical children of divorce who expect each parent to go all out all the time. The three of them are particularly hard to handle all at once . . . and I'm going to have to . . . which is pretty scary.

I'm also going to have to handle being worked around kid schedules - baseball, violin, karate, volleyball, guitar, etc. I rarely see E in the summer; he's at a baseball game almost every night. Meanwhile, it is time to get A more involved in activities, and the challenge there is to find what she's good at. You want to give your children the best opportunities, but it is hard to know what they'll love. This past year A complained, "I don't want to do Drama. I don't like Drama," and it almost broke my heart. Her father is pushing for ballet and swimming is necessary so that doesn't leave us a lot of time. An overprogrammed kid is not my idea of good parenting.

The problem with living with E is that we do not have compatible parenting philosophies. He's all about activities and then lets his kids watch TV to their hearts content when they are "off." I've never owned a television and spend most of my time playing with A, with select activities thrown in. I think the biggest challenge will be how to maintain these two distinct cultures in one home. Thankfully, she'll have a room out of the fray of the basement, where the television and computer are. I'll try to make it a bit of a sanctuary for her and for me (I'll put my office in there).

What am I going to do in that office, with my life? That's another challenge. I'm not going to think about that until after the honeymoon.

Clearing

Both E and I are in the process of clearing out our spaces. I have to rent mine and he has to make room for us in his. This morning he successfully gave away his early 90's acid-wash, black-mirrored bedroom set to a Gatineau used furniture store. They came with a big truck and struggled to get the monstrous suite out of the basement guestroom. E then gave them some cash to move his daughter's bed down to the empty room, which saved us the major hassle of trying to do it ourselves. That leaves her room free for A's stuff. I'll try to move that over soon, so the room will become her bedroom/my office. This might work.

Everything still feels pretty iffy to me. Am I really re-married? I'm having troubled believing it. I'm still too fatigued to process anything clearly. I'm at my house, doing my usual Monday night thing with A. E is doing his usual baseball thing with his son. We're married, but separate, which is why this move to his place does make sense, despite being so unexpected. I really thought we could do the bi-provincial marriage thing, but now . . . it makes more sense to dive in, which is maybe what we should have planned for to begin with.

How do you make a blended family work? I' ve been scouring webistes. I read a book about stepmothers and I know I have my work cut out for me. We made some progress today when E consulted with is ex about her bedtime routines. If we can maintain a consistent routine at his place, I may be able to handle the nightly television fest, because I'll keep A out of the house at the library or violin lessons until it is safe to return home. Her Waldorf education doesn't jive with his permissive parenting.

I hope we can work it out. We're both too aware of the odds against us. 60% of second marriages end. The first year is the hardest. For me, the first 24 hours were challenge enough.

Anyway, we're both pretty tough, so I'll bet on us. but I'm sure I'll need this space as my ever-present pressure valve.

Idyll

It was a beautiful few days in Montebello. I was worried it would rain, but we had three days of sun, and the weather was perfect for our evening outdoor wedding. We were a little late arriving because we went out the wrong side of the hotel, but we soon joined our officiant at the gazebo and began our intimate little family wedding. I tried to focus on every part, to listen to the kids play their various musical pieces, to hold E with my eyes, to appreciate the river and the view, to clearly express my own love. There was the little issue of E's best friend running out of film when A was singing, the blaring rock music from the marina during E's daughter's violin solo, E's son dropping his ring, and my stumbling over my self-penned vows, but these aren't the things we'll remember. The post-wedding photo session was a little long, but we finally arrived at the dining room to prime seating, great wine, and a leisurely extended meal. The girls were begging for bed by 9:30 pm, so I took them back to the room while the "boys" drank whiskey. By the time E rolled in a while later, I was crashing. Needless to say, the wedding wasn't consumated, because with three kids in our hotel room, and our plan to pass them off to a supervised movie at 7:30 pm thwarted, we just gave in and attempted sleep, even though it was slow to arrive.

A had her meltdown today after we returned home. I haven't seen E since we parted at the parking lot this afternoon. But despite the frustration of managing the kids and the witnesses (thank God they were the only people we had to worry about), it was fun. We'll always have a special place in our hearts for this lovely summer idyll.

The Sleep Pause, Pre-Marriage Jitters

Okay, not really jitters, just nerves. I'm getting married (again) this weekend. After 5 years of living as a single mother, I'm going to be a part of a much larger blended family. E and I have been together for 3 of those years, so I'm not rushing into anything this time. There are many differences this time round. Let me try to enumerate them.

1. I'm not pregnant.
2. I'm happy with E.
3. We know and love each other really well.
4. We are both reliable and capable of long-term commitment.
5. We honour our relationship and our children.

Oh, there's a lot more to it, but it is almost 5 am and I'm about to go back to bed. As usual, I woke up at 4 am and now I'm ready to sleep. I have so many last minute things to do, but I've done not much but assemble forgotten items and piled them in the hall. A isn't here, so that's easy to do. I just hope her father drops her off as promised tomorrow morning. I received a message last night wherein she said, "I hope you have a great weekend!" and my heart sank, because all I could think of is that X is trying to ruin my wedding by keeping her. Anyway, E reminded me that at our court appearance X seemed eager to have A attend the wedding and things seem to have thawed somewhat. At least I'm getting phonecalls!

Okay, I'm done. I have worried sufficiently for this sleep pause. I can wake up tomorrow and do it all again.

Moving

I'm having a hard time getting my head around moving again. I thought I had a year, and now I'm looking at a month, maybe two. Perhaps it is best this way . . . it forces me to make hard choices and move on emotionally from all the stuff I've been accumulating since my first marriage ended . . . and all the stuff I've carried around since . . . I left home initially. Why can't I let go of stuff? A basic sense of insecurity, I guess. I'm not exactly a hoarder, but I have a lot of stuff!

E and I are both puzzled by the fact that the contents of my one-bedroom apartment filled this house. I mean, that's incredible, if you think about it. I think that apartment had a lot of storage space . . . and of course, I've acquired a lot since . . . but still, a lot of what I have, books, clothes, paper . . . I've had all along, or at least for the past 5 years . . . I didn't have that much stuff before then because I was living in bachelor apartments. What happened?

Expanded expectations with my first marriage, my daughter, and then the crushing blow of everything falling apart and the pressure of having to support my daughter alone.

Now, thankfully, I won't be alone with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I'll have E. I'm so very grateful for that.

I'm also grateful that E is a cleaner . . . he's so domestic. He love to cook and clean, which are not my favourite activities. He's so very efficient at everything he does that I can't hope to keep up to him. I only hope he'll abide me.

I'll have to stop hoarding. Maybe living with him will make me feel less like holding on to everything for dear life. That's how it has felt. I kept anticipating everything disappearing . . . and I suppose that now that the almost worst has happened (my teaching contracts have dried up), I am going to have to learn to deal yet again . . .

I do keep wondering why all this is happening. I can't really see myself, I guess. I guess I've been preoccupied and unhappy, and that can't make me effective as I'd like to be . . . but I also think that maybe I haven't been doing what really makes me happy.

I've stopped writing, for instance, which was a mistake. I'm trying to start again. I'll try to write here everyday, which is something that may help. It is something I used to be able to do . . . before the reality of my life became too upsetting.

Last year, in the midst of doing things I thought would make me happy career-wise, I realized that I wasn't really having any fun. I wasn't enjoying what I thought I would. I was struggling to keep my head above water and I was slipping in again and again. I think that as much as I love teaching, for example, I love teaching through relationships. I can't handle teaching hundreds of people who I can't really relate to making really unreasonable demands . . . like expecting A's for mediocre work. I like my small, year-long classes where there are no grades and no expectations of extrinsic rewards. Okay, so I realize that.

What else? I can't handle too many different teaching environments at once. I like to be part of one organization or unit. Last year, I taught at three. That made it hard because I was trying to meet the expectations of three very different constituencies. So, no more of that . . . I have to try to find one place I like to be.

The problem with that is . . . it is hard to find full-time work.

That's really the problem for me. It has been years since I've even tried . . . but now I'm going to have to.

Maybe this is what the Universe is encouraging me to do. It's time, but I'm scared and I'm tired and I'm insecure. I wonder how to deal with that.

Going to get married . . . .

This coming weekend, E and I are getting married, after 3 years and many challenges. It has been a long, hard year for me. I couldn't look up and around. My nose was ground down and I'm still recovering from it. This summer, this heady, heated summer was a welcome break . . . and things have shifted and settled. They will continue to, as I prepre to move in with E and move forward with blending families and lives. Am I ready? I have to be.

Perhaps my blank schedule, so unforseen and seemingly unfortunate, will be a blessing in disguise, as I try to negotiate this new reality of being married and living with E in another province with his kids and mine . . . it scares me even to write that down! I just finished reading The Marriage Plot. I loved it. It was the perfect antidote to the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy that I finished on our trip to Spain. It was about lthe draw of love and sprituality rather than pure sex. Of course, there was some sex stirred in, but sex as part of a whole complex of longings. I like books that depict how difficult it is to be truly alive.

That seems to be my challenge now. I've been just surviving since my daughter began and my hopes for love dwindled . . . I was so devastated by the loss of my idealized future and family, that I've been barely aware of myself for these past 5 years. I know E and I helped each other heal from our losses, but we are still healing, and I am still sleeping so much of the time .  . . and I have to shake myself awake, or just grow up. I am so naive so often. I wonder how I've got along thus far. How can I possible get on now?

I think I've always longed for a love that would make me feel secure and I've never had it until now. Maybe now I can stop worrying and begin to focus on being myself. That's what I hope for me. E doesn't have any problem being himself, but I hope he can stop worrying, too, and become more self-aware. That's what I hope for us.