Au Revoir, Au Revoir, You Probably Don't Even Know What That Means

"The past is only the future with the lights on."
                                                                   --Mark Hoppus

Irony--an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.


I've had a really hard week. Really hard. Harder than I've had in a long, long time.

For the first matter of hard, on Tuesday I got divorced. If you read my blog, you probably don't think that's a very big deal. You probably think I've entirely moved on and am super happy about things being over, and while yes, I'm happy to finally be able to move on once and for all, I'm not happy about saying an anticlimactic goodbye to somebody who was in more than half of my life, someone I kissed goodnight probably 6,500 times (times of separation and everyday fights were taken into account when calculations were made) between 1994 and 2014, someone I have two children with, someone I used to love. I'm not happy that relationship has evolved to a text-only relationship because my (not soon-to-be, not almost, but actual) ex-husband never wants to hear my voice again, that my sort-of happily ever after ended up not happy in the least, that for the first time in almost forever, I'm entirely alone. I'm not at all happy about any of those things.

But don't--really, don't!--think I think I've made a mistake. On Tuesday night, when I cried for the first time since last summer about all this; when I listened to the playlist I made about Glenn over a year ago, Songs That Make Me Want to Kill Myself; when, in my emotional, nostalgic funk, I picked up some old pictures lying around in an attempt to feed the sadness, instead of feeding it, and being all, Oh! I remember when we did this! And Omg, look at this picture of us in Chicago! We'll never go there together anymore, what went through my mind was, There I am, pregnant in Chicago. This is the time Glenn tried to kiss my sister, and There I am, with Glenn and my best friend when we were younger. He was fucking her right around the time this picture was taken. And I knew I didn't make a mistake. I knew I didn't feel sadness for the person I lost or the specific relationship that was over but for the unexpected, unwanted turn taken in my life.

Speaking of which--

In my last post, I wrote about the best time of my life, the summer when I was twelve, and the best time of my adult life, the summer that just passed. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned something about this before, but that summer, the one I was twelve, the best time of my life? It came to a screeching halt right around September 5 when those friends I loved so much and spent every minute with decided they no longer wanted me in their lives. The friendships that had meant so much, that had given me so much not only were gone, but in true twelve-and-thirteen-year-old-mean-girl style, they decided to make my life hell by starting horrible rumors about me and getting pretty much every person at HD Perry Middle to take part in my ostracization (because you know, abandoning me completely wasn't awful enough).

Well, this past summer, the one I loved so much? A lot of it was because of my new found independence, yes, but another big part of it came from a group of friends, who, while nowhere near as close of friends as that group of friends I had when I was twelve--one of them is North Star, after all--were maybe just as significant, maybe not for any reason other than the time they appeared in my life and what was happening during it, but really for reasons I can't--or choose not to--explain at all. Really, you probably wouldn't get it even if I did.

But, anyway, those friends? I guess mean girls don't have to be twelve and thirteen. Or, for that matter, girls at all.

This Is Home

And now, like it does year after year, my summer has come to an end. School starts Monday, and as I greet it with not so open arms, I really have no choice but to face forward and tell my summer goodbye.

But first:

I'm pretty sure I've written in this blog about how much I loved being twelve, but really it's not all of twelve that I loved. It was actually only a few short months, the summer between seventh and eighth grade, that I loved and was almost definitely the best time of my life. With zero responsibility, a small group of super close friends who never left each other's sides for a second, and parents who worked all the time leaving us to do all the typical twelve-year-old stuff we did--you know, typical twelve-year-old stuff like sleeping till noon, watching hair metal videos, listening to tapes loud enough to bother the neighbors, trying to steal my father's car and drinking his Jack Daniels and little bottles of Bacardi in the middle of the day, smoking Marlboro reds that we somehow got the guy at Cumberland Farms to let us buy, sneaking out in the middle of the night, hanging out with much older boys--it's a time of my life I'll probably never top.

But this summer I very nearly did. In fact, I think it's safe to say that this summer, the summer I christened the Summer of Run, was the best time of my entire adult life.

Can I just--

(I can)

The Summer of Run

1. I'll start with the obvious. I ran. Literally, and not in the way everybody says literally now when literally isn't really what they mean. Just about every day, in fact, in almost every state up the East Coast as well as parts of the Midwest. And as you already know, it was the best.

2. I ran. Figuratively, in the sense that I was pretty much constantly having to get things done, things like searching for a hot water heater compatible with an out-of-date fuse box installed barely after I was born, taking sick dogs to the vet, going to my lawyer, going to court, running stupid errands that apparently parents have to run (who knew?) like going to two kids' worth of  pediatricians and orthodontists and dermatologists and dentists, driving Griffin all over Fort Lauderdale now that he's in love, shopping at three stupid grocery stores every stupid week, and really any other running around that comes to your mind? It was probably done.

3. I ran. Away from my marriage, away from the man I used to consider my Glenn. Away from that sadness, away from that conflict, away from that life.

4. I ran. To a new life, to a new light. To a new morning every day instead of the constant loop I used to live.

5. I ran. From here to Kansas City, to Boston and back, I went as far as I could as if distance traveled could somehow differentiate me from the girl I used to be, which in a way, it did.

6. I ran. With the new persona I created, the new Kelly I had no choice but to become. I just kept on keeping on. I made my own decisions and was entirely responsible for me, my kids, my house, my dogs, and a whole lot of stuff in between. Did it suck not having someone to help me with the day to day? Fucking duh. Do I care? Okay, well, yeah, maybe I do, maybe a lot of the time it really kinda sucks (it can't all be coffee and hydrangeas, people!).

But I'm pretty sure I'll be all right.