Comments - The Mother of the Boy
Yes, the negative bias thing is so real. I have a decent co-parenting relationship with my kids' dad, but it has become strained because he moved to a different city recently. He's only a little more than an hour away, but I have a lot of feelings of anger because I have a hard time accepting his justification for moving (feels like he created the situation that made him want to move by his bad choices), he is not prioritizing his boys and being there for them on a day-to-day basis, and his move has left me as a single parent most of the time when before we shared the time with the kids equally, which has massively altered my life and theirs. Because of this, I have not wanted to interact with him much. But I notice that when we stop communicating and interacting for a while, it leaves this void that can easily start to fill with negative thoughts and emotions, which just creates more strain and distance. I am working to overcome that because I don't want to exist in my anger all the time, and the fact is we share our kids and our history and it feels really important to continue to stay connected with him. Like you, I have been doing a lot of work on myself the past few years, trying to find healthier ways to address/live with my depression and anxiety that have been with me since I was a kid and some traumas I went through as a young adult. (You wrote a little while ago about your journey with finding Adyashanti, Alan Watts, and Sam Harris etc. I have been on that same journey for the past 2 years with those same people and using Sam Harris' meditation app - I love all the Alan Watts talks on there and have been making my way through them every early morning when I'm drinking coffee and making kid lunches. Also, Rebecca Woolf is the one other former mommy blogger/internet persona that I have closely followed over the last 10+ years...I was floored when you recently wrote about your relationship with her!).
I feel for Serge for the acute suffering he must be enduring to make the decision to cut you out of his life like that, and all the stories he must have running about you and your shared past. I really hope for his sake that he can move through it and reconnect with you before too much time has passed, because he is losing so much. Like you said, the hour glass on childhood runs out rapidly. It sounds like you're doing your best to navigate the internal and external realities of what is a deeply painful situation with some modicum of compassion and self-awareness. I think I remember you writing about how you stayed in Pennsylvania where Serge's family was after your divorce because you were prioritizing your kids, even though you wanted to move back to West to be closer to your friends and family, which must make his ghosting of you that much more painful. I'm really glad that you have found a loving partner and built a life there, though. And yes, you need to let it go, but letting go is not a one-time thing, right? It is a constant daily, sometimes moment-by-moment practice. At least it is for me!! I'm definitely still a novice at the whole letting go thing...
It is so good to hear that Violet is doing well. They sound like a really awesome human. Jack is doing well also. Those first several years when he was little were pretty hard - honestly, a huge part of the difficulty was my own anxiety about what the diagnosis meant for him and his life/future. But over time I have come to see that he just is, and always has been, his wonderful sweet self. He has some pretty significant learning issues, but he has had an IEP since pre-school and some of his issues have seemed to improve over the last couple of years as he matures. Also, he is such a lovely soul that every teacher adores him and is motivated to help him. Socially he has been doing great, though I worry about the transition to middle school next year. Overall he is this really self-possessed, kind, caring person. He is the sweetest big brother to Henry (they do fight, but I have never seen an older sibling be as loving and caring to a younger sibling as Jack - I even apologized to my younger brother for being such a bossy asshole when we were kids after witnessing how Jack is with Henry!). I 100% agree with you that the aspects of him that comprise the autism diagnosis are also the things that make him so deeply and wonderfully who he is.
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