Candy in the bathtub

It took almost a year for me to realize our chutes weren't opening and the only thing left to do was brace for impact. 

When my marriage hit the ground in an anticlimactic thud, it displaced the earth under every piece of my life and broke all the bones in my psyche. Anyone who says I was lucky to survive has never spent time in a full soul cast and confidence brace.

I send a weekly newsletter about writing, creativity, and making space between who we are and who we tell ourselves we are. This week was about how I forgot that murderous rage was permanently etched on my calendar and enjoyed a holiday by accident.

I was mad. Mad at being manipulated and lied to and abused, mad that every kindness I brought to him was sharpened and used against me in passive-aggressive warfare, mad that my vision of what we could be blinded me to what we were. Obviously, I broke things; I burned things. I threw things out windows. I yelled until my ribs were sore and induced asthma attacks. I became a werewolf of hate, howling at the moon and tearing anyone in my path into human tartare, only realizing when I woke up naked at the zoo with pieces of maintenance man in my teeth. I mean, what would you do?

Anger is a loud, inconsiderate tenant. It hasn't paid rent in months and is always fighting with its shady girlfriend in the hallway. It needs to go. Yes, it would be nice if it packed its bags quietly and left with dignity, but in my case it had to be dragged, screaming, down the street in the middle of the night wearing nothing but black socks and wax lips.

I wrote, I cried, I painted, I yoga-d, I surrounded myself with people I loved and shouted until it was the only sound any of us could hear. Until all the noise about how this was supposed to look, or how I was supposed to feel, or do mom-ing, or have any sense of social awareness faded to a high-pitched whine. And I let it. I couldn't carry it.

I looked to a shorter higher power, the tiny deity that was my four-year-old son. I gave over to running in playgrounds, emptying my wallet at ice cream shops, standing in toy aisles as my little guru sped from one thing to the other, pressing buttons and driving trucks. Why say NO when everyone has a much better time when I say YES?

YES to candy in the bathtub.

YES to toothbrush embargo.

YES to spray painting my bathroom ceiling.

I stripped away every unimportant thing — washing dishes, wearing pants, cooking nutritious meals. I crouched in a Superman play tent wearing a tiger puppet on my hand as junk piled up on the floor and furniture, dust settling on us like a fuzzy blanket of dirt. Surrounded by chaos, nestled together, we read stories in monster voices and replaced double AA batteries in laser guns. Loud ones. They don't make any other kind.

Then, one morning, it was Christmas.

And I forgot.

I mean, I forgot to dread it, I forgot to feel bad about it, I forgot to be sad. I forgot to pay attention to the raging fire in my belly. I just wrapped presents and made plans, as if I wasn't in the middle of a great tragedy, as if everyone wasn't supposed to feel sorry for us because our lives were shattered.

And when the noise in my head wanted to remind me how mad I was supposed to be, because of course it did, my son shot it with lasers, and the people I loved helped push it aside. They reminded me what was important, and it wasn’t the mad, it wasn’t the noise. It was this. This stillness, this joy, this hard-won prize for the two of us, this gift we hadn't dared ask for. I would not let the noise steal it.

Because the noise is persistent. But so are we. And the less we listen, the more we get.

More freedom, more peace, more candy in the bathtub. Thanks, Santa.