Let love in.

Since my children live about 14 hours away, nearly halfway across the country, I don't always know how to picture my future.  I never know when they'll move back here, or if they'll move back here, or when they do, if they'll live with me or their dad, or if it'll be a split custody arrangement.  There's no way to know.  So most of the time, it's easier just to pretend like they'll live far away forever.  It's just slightly less heartbreaking than getting my hopes up that they'll be back to live in my house one day, and then realizing that maybe they won't.  So when I think about the future, I envision weekend visits and holidays together.  I try not to think about waking up on school mornings to fix breakfast and get their coats and backpacks on before they head off for the day because it's too heartbreaking to think that maybe I won't have that one day.  It's too painful to let the happy thoughts in, so I close up and I close off to letting anyone and anything. I don't want to be a weekend mom.  I don't want to be an across the country mom.  My kids have a wonderful father, but they need their mama too, and it's hard to envision living with them once again when they're just so far away.  I was a stay at home mom for three years.  It was exhausting and wonderful and playful and yeah, sometimes a little bit too much to handle mentally.  But I provided everything my littles needed day in and day out.  When Daddy was gone training up as a soldier, or working long shifts as a policeman, I was there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for my littles.  It's been a hard adjustment to go from stay at home mom to across the country mom.

Anyway, all of that brings me to the thought that spurred all of that.  When I've tried to picture my future relationships, I've questioned to myself whether I'd ever live with a man again, or whether I'd ever marry again.  For that matter, I've wondered whether I'd ever want to live with someone before marriage, or if this time, I'd wait until the rings were on before moving in together.  I've wondered whether more kids will come along one day, be it by birth or marriage.  It's weird, I guess, to think about what my kids' lives will be like as they grow up.  I remember what it was like when my parents remarried, and I first gained two new siblings, and later, three siblings more. So I wonder now how many brothers and sisters my own kids will have, whether step or half..  I wonder if they'll have a stepmom and a stepdad. I'm not especially close to my own stepparents, but as an adult, I can appreciate the roles they played in my life as I grew up.  I always lived with my mom and my stepdad, but I never appreciated the hand my stepfather had in helping me become an adult until I was already an adult.  I never lived in a house with my stepmom, and I've truly never had much connection with her either, but I can appreciate the support she gave to my father after my parents' divorce.  My mom has been remarried for 14 years, and my dad for, I believe, 12 years.  I'm not yet 24 years old, so those marriages have lasted for a significant period of my life.  So I wonder now, who the people are that will one day be a part of my child's lives everyday.  I wonder when or if my ex husband will remarry, and if my kids will like her.  I hope that one day I'll remarry, and I wonder if I'll have stepchildren, how those kids will like my kids, and how they'll interact.  I wonder if, when I'm looking to buy my first house, I'll be looking for a three bedroom house for myself and my two kids, or if I'll be looking at bigger houses.  Will there be rooms for stepchildren?  Rooms for more children that, maybe one day, I'll have?  It's a lot to ponder, but it's fun and it's scary, and I love it.

 I don't think that anybody could ever love my children the way that Jesse and I do, or that I'll ever be able to love another man's child the way they he loves his own.  But the way I see it, everybody in the world could use more love.  You can never get enough, right? So if my ex husband can find a woman who will even try to love my children the way that he does, or if I can find a man who can try to love my babies like he loves his own, I'm happy with that.  I'm inviting, with open arms, the opportunity to let those in who can love my children as they grow through childhood into adolescence and beyond.  I'm letting love in.  For me. For my kids.  For my life and for my future.

Living by.

I'm in the middle of this weird internal frame of mind where I have the blogging bug, but at the same time, am facing some impenetrable mental block. So instead of writing things straight from the brain, I thought maybe I'd just start a little collection of all of the quotes and lyrics and mantras that have gotten me through the last year plus.  When I got a new phone last week, I ended up looking through some of the notes I'd saved with the quotes, and it made me realize I wanted to save them all for posterity, so here goes...
 
"The clock never stops, never stops, never waits.  She's growing old; it's getting late." - Ben Folds

"Everybody knows it hurts to grow up, and everybody knows it's so weird to be back here." - Ben Folds

"We're all okay, until the day we're not.  The surface shines, while the inside rots. We raced the sunset, and we almost won. We slammed the brakes, but the wheels went on." - Rise Against

"It happens to everyone as they grow up.  You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on." - Nicholas Sparks

"Just know, when you truly want success, you'll never give up on it.  No matter how bad the situation may get." - Unknown

"Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination." -Roy Goodman

"The powers of this world are very strong. Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all into the current." - Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

"Remember, then, that you are not managing an inconvenience; you are raising a human being." - Kittie Frantz


“Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that." - Ally Condie


“'Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere - be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.' - Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

And my two very favorites for last...

"You know what? Just move on. Move on with life, and leave those who don't care about you behind. Don't stress over anyone anymore. Don't continue to hold on to those words and promises they once told you. They proved themselves wrong; all it did was hurt you. Just keep fighting. Move on because they were just a chapter in the past - but don't close the book. Keep your head up high, and just turn the page." - Unknown

“Your 20’s are your ‘selfish’ years. It’s a decade to immerse yourself in every single thing possible. Be selfish with your time, and all the aspects of you. Tinker with shit, travel, explore, love a lot, love a little, and never touch the ground.” - Kyoko Escamilla

Two days post-op.

My surgery was yesterday, and it ended up being pretty brutal.  Once my surgeon made the incision and looked around with the scopes a bit, I guess he discovered the damage to the patella and the underlying cartilage was far worse than what the MRI had presented.  So he cleaned me up, stitched me up, and here I am, on my way to being almost as good as new.  I stayed overnight in the hospital, and my mom stayed with me throughout, which was not only helpful, but comforting.  My sweet Spencer also visited me when I was in post-op recovery, and brought me a beautiful orchid to make my sterile feeling hospital room just the slightest bit homier.  Recovery hasn't been too awful so far, but the variety of pain meds I'm on are keeping me as comfortable as I can be, following such a big surgery.  I had IV meds in the hospital, paired with a pain pump into my femoral artery, and oral meds.  I was worried once the IV came out, the pain would become intolerable, but I've actually managed it okay thus far.  

Spencer stayed with me last night, which sort of blows my mind a little bit.  After all, we haven't known each other all that long, but he stepped right into the role of caregiver, and has been absolutely wonderful.  I can't move around much without help, since I'm hooked up to a nerve blocking pain pump and an ice pump that wraps my knee, not to mention the pain, exhaustion, and dizziness that keeps me pretty bed bound.  But he got up with me each and every time, unhooking everything and guiding me right onto my crutches without hesitation.  It's unbelievable to me how helpful and comforting he has been to me since my injury, but particularly during this post-operative period.  Hopefully I'll come up with someway to show my absolute appreciation for his reassuring and comforting support.

As I write this, my apartment is filled with the amazing smells of fajitas and all the fixin's, as Spencer cooks up his own chef's specialty, which just happens to be of my favorite Mexican variety.  I am, of course, laid up in bed, but comforting sounds surround me, giving me an undeniable feeling of peace and happiness.  From the pots and pans clinking as he sautés his way through the kitchen, to the occasional cracking *shwick* of a Bud Light being opened, to the dreary plipping of the raindrops outside of the window, and especially of his fingers on his guitar, I am far more cheerful and serene than ever would be expected at only 48 hours post-op.  

This life, I am so happy for.

All that I am.

I've been swirling my last several relationships in my head all day, wondering how to make them stop affecting my life. I realized though, after much thought, that the only way my last relationships won't affect my present and future relationships is if I consciously, day after day, don't allow them to. At least that's what I have to do for now. I'm sure, once my past isn't so closely past, that it won't be conscious at all. But right now, when my past isn't really all that past for me, it's something I'm going to have to work at. My past relationships destroyed themselves, so why should I, even for a moment, give them the chance to destroy anything else? I've touched on why my marriage ended, but not really my relationships since.

In each scenario, things ended because, at the end of the day, who I am wasn't enough for the person I was with. Whether it was one rash decision to choose another woman, or the baggage, if you will, that my marriage handed me, or just some physical aspect of myself that someone didn't like, I wasn't enough. But I'm trying to teach myself that that's okay. If I wasn't enough for that person, the relationship would never have been a happy one anyway. But to someone, maybe I will be enough. Maybe, just maybe, the man I'm with now, will always find that I am enough, now and henceforth. It's tough because the inner, self conscious, low esteemed Hilary likes to repeat in my brain the many reasons why I'll never be enough. But the strong, confident Hilary tries to shush her down and tell me that I am enough. Who I am and the baggage I hold is exactly what someone in this world will love one day. It's a battle fought day by day, even hour by hour, but I won't allow my past to dictate my future anymore. I am enough.

All I Desire.

What a weekend it was!  I got to spend the last three days with sweet Spencer.  Since I woke up with conjunctivitis on Friday, our plans to go to our favorite little dive bar that night were nixed, and instead we spent an evening at home.  First though, we went on a hunt to search for an inexpensive dart board to put up on my patio.  Hey, what better idea could we have for two people who like to have fun on the cheap?  We really did have a great weekend with the little investment that was the dart board and cheap beer, as well as some great tunes on the iPod.  He makes me laugh so much that I don't know if I ever stop smiling when I'm in his company.  I'm sure that sounds just as pukey and lame as it does sweet, but I mean it - it's true.

We may have enjoyed the alcohol slightly too much last night, so I woke up with a killer headache that luckily didn't last too very long.  Later on this afternoon, I got to meet little Fox Rocket, Spencer's little dude.  He was adorable, and I could see his daddy in both his features and his actions. It was a bit of a strange situation for me, and I wasn't quite sure how it would act when it happened.  I've never dated a single dad, so I've of course never had to meet the child of someone I'm interested in.  It was so nice though - to not be the one doing the introducing, but instead get to be the one being introduced, and getting to watch my boyfriend interact with his son.  There's something about parenthood though that changes a person.  It changes you on a grand scale, of course.  You're never the same once you become a parent, but it changes you on a smaller, day-to-day scale too.  I got to see the daddy part of Spencer for the first time, and it was adorable and endearing, and made me a little weak in the knees.  What's not to adore about a man who is so clearly head over heels for his child? 

Boyfriend.  That's what I called him a few sentences back. I like the sound of that.  Love it, actually.  It wasn't intentional.  In fact, I didn't realize I'd typed it until it had already flowed from my fingertips.  Boyfriend.  I'm still wrapping my head around it a little, I think, but it's new, so I'm sure that's normal and I'm rolling with it.  Sometimes (read: all the time), I wish I could peer into his skull, and see if his lines of thought run parallel to mine. It's a clever kind of love, I think.  This clever love won't tire.

Kinship.

I heard this notion once that the men a woman loves, from her first love to the man she loves at her dying breath, all have this kinship amongst each other, something like a fraternity of sorts.  Each of those men know that woman a little differently, maybe a lot differently, but they've all loved her, needed her, and wanted her at some point.  Whether they hate each other or know nothing about the others in that fraternity, they all have an unspoken commonality.  It's the same way with the women a man has loved, like it or not.  The complex network of those you've loved, and those your loves have loved, is unbelievably interwoven. 

Who are your fraternity brothers?  Your sorority sisters?  Have you ever stopped to think about the likenesses among the other people your significant other has loved?  Maybe it seems pointless and counterproductive to some people, but when I stop to consider who the other women are, it gives me some sort of satisfied, respectful feeling.  Whether those women hurt the men I've loved or whether the men I've loved hurt them, at one point, they were all that person wanted for some moment in their lives.  They were each others' worlds, and when I think about how life has brought me here, to this moment, I have this unexplainable respect for how fast life moves.  How did I get right here where I am now?  How have those other people shaped the men I've loved, and how have I shaped the men who will one day find their own soul mates, the person I wasn't for them?  It's interesting for me to think about, I guess.  I've pictured so many possibilities for my future; envisioned distant, cloudy images of how things might unfold with one person or another, but at the end of the day, my own personal hopes and expectations have little impact on what actually unfolds.  Moreover, I think all of those women I've got kinship with have a bigger influence on how my future turns out because they've all played a part in shaping the men I've loved, or do love, or will love.  And that, to me, is a respectable, fascinating position to be in.

It's not over.

I freaked out a little bit last week, the night before my divorce was finalized.   Obviously, I’d seen it coming for over a year, but when you’re actually looking down the barrel of that gun, it stops you in your tracks.  It’s the finality of knowing your greatest fear is here, and the trigger is about to be pulled.  I expected I’d feel a sigh of relief, but that’s just the opposite of what I was feeling the night before.  Luckily, my close friend was there for me, talking me down from the edge and reminding me that everything was going to be okay.  His confidence in me led me not only into the next scary morning, but through it.  My breaths of freedom hit me the night of the divorce, when I realized I could finally take the dog-ear out of that chapter, and turn the page to something new.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve gone on lots of dates in the last year.  Lots of first dates, plenty of second dates, and very few third and beyond dates.  I’ve only dated one guy exclusively, and only for a couple of months.  It was a rough breakup on me, probably derived from the fact that I sometimes get too close too fast.  But I bounced back and delved back into the dating pool.  After only a couple of terribly written introductory messages from possible suitors, I received a casual, cool (properly spelled and grammatically correct) message from a guy named Spencer.  He seemed nice, smart, laid back.  His pictures didn’t scream “douchebag” and I wasn't fanning myself over love at first sight. He was just a friendly, handsome guy, and that was enough to spark my interest.  We exchanged quite a few messages back and forth, and then progressed to texting each other.  Soon enough, we agreed to meet up at one of my favorite spots in downtown Greenville.  I wasn’t expecting anything phenomenal, and really didn’t even consider it a ‘first date’.  To me, it was more like just potentially making a new friend.  I wasn’t, after all, quite over my last break up at that point.  Little did I know, we’d end up sitting, laughing, and very likely over-sharing for more than three hours that night.   I don’t know that I’d ever opened up so quickly as much as I had to him, but he made me comfortable and he made me laugh, and apparently, that’s how you snake your way right into my heart.   Although it started out in my mind as just a friendly meeting, I found myself having to stop myself from leaning in for a kiss before he headed to his Jeep to go home. 

We hung out a couple more times before I took a trip to Fort Polk to see my kids, (and I pretty quickly got that first kiss… and second… and third…), and I found myself texting him for hours upon hours on end during my whole trip.  When I saw him again after I got home to South Carolina, I felt unbelievably close to him, and I realized I’d gotten much closer to him than I had initially intended to at all.  It was more than a little scary, but I’d also realized among our long conversations that Spencer wasn’t quite ready to be in a new relationship.  He not-so-long-ago separated from his wife of six years, and he was going through all of the stages I’d so very clearly remembered going through just a few months ago.  In a way, I saw it as a blessing in disguise because I had another guy waiting in the shadows.  The other guy, K, was a friend I’d known for nearly a year through letters and emails and text messages and phone calls.  I’d helped him through Air Force basic training and his subsequent schooling, and we’d found ourselves dreaming about meeting and dating and having a future together.  But K was living many states away, and it was more of a pipe dream than anything I was actually pursuing.  Except that right about the time that I realized Spencer wasn’t quite over his last relationship, K presented the idea of coming home on leave to meet and stay with me for a weekend.  I told Spencer about the other guy, terrified of hurting his feelings, but aware that he’d hurt more if he felt I was leading him on in any way.  Much to my surprise, he supported me with no catch and calmed me down in my nervous chattering before K came for his visit.  He was, no doubt, the best friend he could have possibly been for me.  He was my shoulder to lean on, my ears to babble into, and a warm pat on my back to calm my nerves.  He was exactly what he needed to be, and he stood by my side, even in the face of his feelings for me, as I pursued another guy. 

To make a long and not very exciting story short, K came to town, and we had a lovely time.  I think we both felt a spark, but it fizzled quickly when I realized that we had a few personality quirks that probably never would have meshed.  But that’s okay.  It was what it was, and that was all it was.  The whole time K was in town, I found my mind wandering to Spencer, wondering what he was doing with his son, and whether he was thinking about me.  I missed texting him every few minutes like we very nearly had been for weeks by this point.  It had only been a few days since I’d seen him, but I missed him.  When K left and I realized that our fun weekend was nothing more than that, I started evaluating why I’d missed Spence so much.   We’d talked through separation and kids and divorce and life, and I could actually see him moving, before my eyes, from the depressing, terrible side of separation to the happier, positive, maybe-good-things-can-happen-to-me side of separation.  I began to slowly leak the feelings for Spence that I’d bottled up before K came to town, and the more I thought about the kind of guy it would take to stand by my side like Spencer did, the stronger I felt them rush out.  The thing is though, I think they’re still rushing out because every day I find myself feeling something new for him.  Something different.  It’s nice, and I love it.

We laugh so much together.  We make silly faces and take silly pictures.  We tell each other funny jokes and listen to each other’s stories.  We don’t divide our attention between a million different things when we’re together.  When I’m with him, he’s all I even care to think about.  I feel little butterflies when I think about seeing him, and I find myself leaning further and further into his kisses every time he touches his lips to mine.  His hands give me chills and his voice makes me smile.  He’s a single dad, and soon to be divorcee.  He’s Spencer, and he’s exactly what I didn't realize I’ve been looking for.