This is Temporary

I'm sad and a little angry for a little boy I love. You know, Chris and Colin have been living with me and Chelsea since last July when they returned from vacation in California. The plan with last year's move was to rebuild Chris's house so that we could all fit in one house. But we've been having too much fun just living our lives, going out, playing disc golf, taking trips, and dealing with the daily things of life to bother with that just yet...

So this year's plan is to move in together to a 3 bedroom rent house, thereby merging our belongings anyway, while rebuilding Chris's house. It's almost exactly like the original plan so don't think too long about what were the differences.

However, the other night Colin got to drive by the new place and Chris said he talked to him about the new plan and the rebuilding. We don't know if the whole scene that ensued was directly related to rebuilding the house or if it was some type of child-of-divorce drama to play Chris against his ex-wife or what but Colin had a fit. A scary fit. The kind where parents sit across from each other staring helplessly into each other's faces not knowing what to do and suggesting that he might need to see a counselor - he's obviously broken and needs fixing somehow. Colin screamed and cried, hit walls and threw things. He said he wanted to live with him mom because she made him a quilt and gave him more back scritches every night.

I was so very torn as to how to feel about this freak out. Part of me wanted to get in line behind Chris and Chelsea to take turns trying to calm him down like the line that forms behind the hysterical woman in the movie Airplane. Part of me wanted to have a little fit right along side him because I had not had a good day that day at all. In fact, the whole way home - about an hours drive - I had been dreaming of getting in and asking for a little attention myself. My feet were swollen up and I had started my period and wasn't in a good mood. Colin was getting all the attention and I felt like competing with him for about a split second. Part of me wanted everyone to just leave him the hell alone because he didn't really need the added attention and would probably have calmed down a lot quicker if everyone's attempts to calm him had not fueled his outrage. In the end, this is what happened. He cried it out and hiccuped himself to sleep. The next day Colin was completely fine and behaved as if nothing had ever happened. He was his usual 8 year old boy self, laughing and getting into little discussions about monsters and legos and giving out hugs and telling me and his dad how much he loves us. In fact, he is falling asleep right now and the last thing he said was "Melissa, I love you!" as he sighed to himself.

So why the outrage? What is going on with him? Was it a ploy for attention? Was he really sad about the house he hasn't lived in for the last 10 months getting knocked down? Had he just had a really bad day and started coming up with anything and everything he could think of to be angry about to play out the fit? I wonder if he has these fits at his mom's house and if he's ever told her that he loves his dad more.

I don't have a lot of experience with divorce. My parents are still married and I've never been married so obviously never been divorced either. But I do know people who are divorced and it never seems like it's a good thing where it concerns children. Sometimes when I think about James and giving him up I get a little sad. I think I would have liked to mother him and could have done a good job of it somehow. Sometimes it gets to me and I think that it was my last chance to have a baby and I threw it away. But when I think about the realities of keeping it him it always comes back down to a few key points and one of the main ones was Noe.

There is no way in hell I would have wanted to be linked to Noe via a child for the rest of my entire life. The child support battles and the visitation bullshit and the birthday parties with two families and worrying with him off on trips to Mexico to visit with his biological father's family. I've never had to deal with any of that with Chelsea's father because he's so much of an asshole that he's never even met her. But Noe, asshole that he was, at least kept up with all his kids and supported them (at less than he should have with the money he made) and visited them. He also had to deal with their mothers and it sucked. I did not want to be involved in that at all. So I can sort of understand what it's like for divorced people because I actually gave a child up for adoption to, on some level, avoid that whole scene. Maybe that's callous but everyone has to decide for themselves what they can live with.

I think that people need some type of support system with kids - like training wheeels - something to lean on if we think we're falling that helps to steady us so that eventually balance can be achieved. Training wheels for life. The element that I plan to keep with me and remember for the next outburst like that is that this is temporary. Just like 2 year olds get cranky when they are too tired, or 3# year olds get cranky when they've had a bad day at work - the next day everything will come up roses again.