It is November 5th, a blustery, golden day outside. The leaves rustle, emanating dancing flames. The sharpness of the day is too much for me to bear. I try to take it in but am simply inept, lodged in a cocoon of self-preservation.
Yesterday, my partner, and the kids’ stepdad, moved out. This is my first day on my own while the kids are at school. I work part-time from home, but am between projects at work, doing housekeeping tasks and keeping my training assignments in order. These do not fill me with…well, much of anything.
The last few days, I have noticed how infrequent and fleeting the truly magical moments in relationships are. I have snapshots in my memory of some of these shining moments, my mind desperately attempting to convince me that these moments represent the relationship as a whole. But the truth is, life and relationships are primarily filled with unremarkable moments.
What is the importance behind these unremarkable moments? What should we take away from preparing food, cleaning the bathroom, or driving the kids to and from school? I do my best to be fully present in the moments of my day, but sometimes I just need to check the fuck out. I need a break from waiting for the shining moment to come, for a deep belly laugh shared with a friend, for witnessing a brilliant moment between my partner and my daughter – I am perhaps addicted to these moments.
Am I too intense? Too desperate? Too hard on myself? Too hard on those I love? Is my gauge of what is healthy or unhealthy out of whack? Do I expect too much of others, of myself? Who decides what too much is? I am more intense than most, expect more than most, accomplish more than most, am more disciplined than most – what does any of that mean? At the moment, it means that I have a small, dispersed tribe.
It means that I am intolerant of patterns that I recognize as unhealthy, in both myself and others who are rooted within my life. What pattern was I breaking when I asked my partner, and the kids’ stepdad to leave? I was breaking my own pattern of conveniently placing my relationship between myself and the terrifying desires of my soul. I began this pattern with my first boyfriend in high school and have continued it up to the present. I only hope that I can remain steadfast and allow myself to uncover what they are, that I can press on and take action.
Separately, yet not secondarily, I was breaking the pattern between my partner and my son. They were endlessly locked in a push-pull power struggle, with each of them vacillating between feeling connected and valued, to taken advantage of or unloved. My daughter and I were always caught in the crossfire of their ebbs and flows, both sinking into the background.
The thing that’s been the hardest for me as I work through this transition, through the grief and loss of a relationship, and another shift in our family dynamics, is how desperately I had clung to the belief that a relationship, could BE those shining moments. I am grieving the loss of the family of four I imagined. I know this is required in order to make space for a new vision, but that doesn’t make it easy.
As much as it hurts to close the book on what could have been, I have those golden moments stored away. In sparkling moments, we were heroes. We bonded deeply when my son cut his nose badly at the park and we had to leave within minutes of arriving. We cried and laughed together the night we told the kids that my partner would be moving out. And we have all those unremarkable moments when we knew we were loved, even if we weren’t particularly inspired or dazzled.
I hold those moments close and do my best never to take them for granted.
Quinn Steele 