So, my relationship with my new (2 months now) girlfriend is going really well. And with both of us in our mid-thirties, it is necessary for us to continue to ask the questions about long term compatibility. This brings up conversations about what we want for our lives including marriage, family, kids, etc.
Now, I already have two kids who are now 12 and 13 years old. They do not live with me. I divorced their Dad when they were 6 months and 2, mainly because the dynamic there was unhealthy and abusive. I simply could not raise my kids in that environment. The kids lived with me until I decided to go to law school when their father challenged me for custody, and in a small, conservative county on the outskirts of Austin, won. He was remarried and I was at that point presenting as a single lesbian who was about to move out of state and start law school. The court decided that even absent any assertion of abuse or neglect (which is supposed to be the standard) to overturn custody.
Now, this was an extremely painful time in my life. It felt like some guy with absolutely no knowledge of me or my parenting skills, or the abuse involved in the relationship in the first place and the potential damaging situation my kids might be in looked at me and said, "You are not good enough. He, the one with little education, a temper and malice is a better choice than you." I spent two years and my life savings trying to fight for my kids. Mostly never wanting them to wonder if I wanted them, cared about them, or tried to keep them out of what I saw as a harmful situation.
The years spent dealing with that forced me to confront layers of grief, guilt and fear. Learning to live with the reality of NOT tucking your kids in every night, not knowing what they eat in a day, not having the privilege of looking into their eyes to check in on their souls everyday... it's a really hard thing to do.
But in the meantime, I was afforded the opportunity and time to look into my own eyes. And that made me realize there was a lot of sadness there. I knew that I had been a good parent to my kids. I know I started them out in life right. They are well grounded and happy kids, despite all the weird stuff they have been through.
I felt, and sometimes still feel guilty, that their lives are not "normal" because I am not "normal." I was numb for so much of their younger years. Just trying to do what I knew I had to do everyday when I woke up... to feed them, teach them, pray with them... but I was dead inside. I did it out of love... sheer will to put one foot in front of the other, to cook one more healthy meal, to coach one more team, do one more load of laundry, read one more bedtime story, fake one more smile.
And I have mostly tucked that guilt away. I have thought in the abstract about having more kids, being a dad. I want to be a husband and father, to have the chance at the life I tried from the other side that crashed and burned and never quite fit, though I had no idea why. But now, now that there is someone to actually picture having this future with... someone who wants to be my wife and the mother of my children, new layers of fear, guilt and confusion come peaking out from their respective holding places.
I am so much more alive now. So much more present. I hate that I wasn't here sooner for my kids I already have. I know I did the best I could. But will being able to feel a new child only make the fact that I wasn't emotionally present for them so much more obvious? Do they know? Do they or will they feel cheated? Will they understand? Can they forgive me?
I am trying to work through the process of giving myself permission to be happy. Truly, bone deep happy. Not only today (which I am getting pretty good at) but also to allow myself to hope and dream for tomorrow. To know that a bright future does not have to drown out the past. I want to be free to move forward, to love with all my heart and live with all my life, to bring the positive parts of the past forward into today and tomorrow while leaving the pain behind.
But unfolding ones wings can be painful. And those first flights can be treacherous. Believing in love, in forgiveness, in forever, in myself...I hear that flying is much easier when you glide in the currents of the wind rather than trying to fight it. I guess it's time to find out for myself. It's time to soar.
