Humpty Mabel: A Tale of Divorce

I'm finishing up Mindsight--so much to share with you guys! But I can't highlight stuff in this old kobo of mine, so I'll have to come back to the book later and find things to share.

The author (psychologist) asks each patient to tell him about their childhood, not just for content, but for clues in how they tell the story. One of the standard questions is do they remember being separated from their parents, how did that feel. So here's my separation story.

My parents divorced when I was 7 years old. We moved back to Alberta and they had shared custody. When my dad was home from being a pilot we'd stay with him, and when he was away we'd stay with our mum. (She was doing a library science degree.)

At grade 4 we moved back to Manitoba, because my dad and his girlfriend (my step-mommy) wanted to move in together, and she was a flight attendant based there. I loved my mother a ton, but Step-mommy was wonderful and I came to love her too. For New Years and in the summer my brother and I would go to stay with my mum in Alberta.

This pattern of visiting my mother continued for the rest of my childhood and teen years, though in the summer my brother and I would visit at different times. And I continued for the rest of my adult life to visit my mother during my vacations from school/work.

Somewhere in here this Horrible Feeling began. I dreaded the end of my visits with her. When the last few days came, I started to get a sick feeling in my stomach, and sometimes I'd cry at night. It was all I could do not to cry at the airport, and the flight home felt interminable. When I got home I'd be depressed for several days. I would call Swiss Girl the very first day cause I knew she'd have stories to tell me about her boyfriends and mother, and she'd want to go out, and I'd have a distraction. I would still cry sometimes at night.

I think I did pretty fine with the divorce of my parents, and they were very civil about it. But this was the worst effect--this horrible separation from my mother. All three of my parents knew about this feeling, though I may have downplayed it a bit so they wouldn't feel bad. And it's not like no good came from it, cause my mother made those visits wonderful adventures, and she gave me advice and taught me about life, and she's always been funny and entertaining. We'd talk once a month and I'd tell her EVERYthing in my friends' lives and she'd give us advice.

The only other thing comparable to this Separation Depression was when, in grade 5, my step-mother moved back to Quebec for a few months. I pined for both of my mothers. Step-mommy sent me a card for my birthday that you could turn into a mobile, and I cherished it as much as the letters from my mom. I cried many nights. I turned, as I had since I was little, to my cat Ernie and my stuffed animals for comfort. ...I had a nice babysitter, and my best friend's mother, and of course my daddio. But luckily we moved to Quebec that summer and I got La Step-mommy back.

I don't have regrets or recriminations about any of this. It's not to make my parents (who read my blog) guilty about it--I'm the sum of these experiences, and I don't dislike who I've become or where I am. Just having some Thinks. And in these Thinks I realized the following...

The dread and depression of separating from my mother stopped in my early 20s: The first year Fernando and I went out together. The desire to get home and see him was strong enough to offset the sadness of not seeing my mother. After that, I had occasional pangs, and of course I still missed her.  But I was also madly in love Fernando.

- Here's the New Thinks part - 

It's like he helped me transition out of the pain of childhood, and the pain of the divorce, to become an adult alongside my parents. I'm sure I grew some neural links that connected the ending of that pain, to Fernando. I'm sure my brain has a deeply ingrained connection between Peace and Wholeness, and Fernando. It's almost like separation caused separation in me too. Fernando glued Humpty Mabel back together again.

Hm. ...Well that explains why I'm so stuck on him.
 



Song of the Day - my Fernando song in those days.