Emotional Prep 3.
Sometimes I can tell when Sam’s departure is going to be a bad one well in advance. That was the case during the visit right before his most recent one: after about four days, my dominant emotion was dread. Dreading looking at his odious grandparents, the thieves. Dreading the long and exhausting ride back to Philadelphia. Dreading the cleaning up of toys and dishes. Dreading going to bed that evening without songs and stories. Dreading the crash that was already rushing toward me like a steam engine bearing down on Pauline.
Emotional preparation in this case usually involves girding for the depression, warning my friends and family that the shit’s going to hit the fan, and trying to treasure the time with Sam before everything goes down the toilet for the next however many weeks.
And by the way, I can already tell that his next departure is going to be crushing. He doesn’t even arrive until the end of the month and I’m already feeling the dread.
On a side note, at this weekend’s festival someone made an innocuous remark about the schedule I’m on with Sam, and my response was inadvertently sharp and unpleasant. I forget what exactly was said, but it was something along the lines of “None of this was my decision: this is all his mom’s idea, every last little bit of this bullshit fucking nonsense I put up with.” I refuse to take responsibility for my ex’s stupid and harmful decisions, and I continue to rejoice that she had to drop out of school and is using her Ivy League degree to wait tables.
