…when you are standing at your kitchen sink, hand washing some dishes that you could have put into the dishwasher, but the light plastic containers fly around in there so badly that its pretty much not worth it. As you lightly scrub at the assorted ziploc containers, absently noting that the number of lids does not match the number of containers, (and why is that, and where in the fuck do they all end UP anyway?) you will think that this might be a good time to open and rinse the new set of containers you got from your ex-husband.
He handed them to you the other day, in his living room. He jumped up from a conversation saying, “Hey, that reminds me, I bought you a ‘present’!” He comes back with a new set of Rubbermaid containers. A couple of weeks ago, your daughter overheard you bemoaning the fact that all the containers you use to pack lunches were suddenly gone, and she completely threw her beloved Daddy under the bus, saying they were all at his house. And yes, after 3 years of sharing your children, a lot of objects have traveled between houses, some staying in the home from which they did not originate. Obscuring boundaries, lines of demarcation you thought were very important to establish.
The need to erect these borders even informed your choice of boyfriend, after the split. The man you chose to be with post-break up did not like one bit of the time you spent with your ex-husband. Publicly, he would congratulate you on what a great job you and the ex were doing, being amicable. But what bothered him, what inflamed his insecurities, was the undeniable inkling that it wasn’t a “job” for you and your ex to be amicable. But amiability just served to confuse, and at first you welcomed the voice that silently whispered to you to stay away from your ex, that he was bad, and the only way to move on was to cut him off completely,like a tumour.
You knew that wasn’t right, though. This ex of yours, who you grew up with, went through emotional distances with, had given up hating and resenting, and just felt a mixture of understanding and forgiveness and occasional disinterest and overall like for, you needed to be able to experience all of that.
That boyfriend didn’t last.
And as you sat there with your “present” in your lap, laughing, saying you hope the ex knows you don’t actually think he stole your containers, and he assures you he doesn’t, just saw them on sale and thought you could probably use them is all, you look over at The Boyfriend. The one who gets it, got it from the start. He understood completely the crazy,complex place your ex holds in your life. The father of your children, an old friend, a guy with whom you and your boyfriend will go on what are essentially double dates with him and his extremely quality girlfriend because you are all awesome and all like each other quite a little bit.
The containers are rolling around in the sink and you find yourself grinning. At all the good in your life, how this is not how you planned it, how 3 years and change post marital break up, you still have a sense of whiplash at how much things went off track. And how delicious a place “off track” really is. The Boyfriend comes up behind you, wraps his arms around your waist, you have about 5 seconds to enjoy it before a kid NEEDS something.
And your only regret is that you couldn’t have shown this to yourself 3 years ago. Seeing this would have made things so much easier. You know it might not, probably won’t, always be like this.
And you know you appreciate it even more for the soap-bubble fragility of it all.