Sunday Mornin', Comin' Down

Ol' Kris Kristofferson wrote it. I think the album was "Silver-Tongued Devil". It's a drug-abuse song.

Sarah has gone off to Julian Smith Casino, and I am fresh-brained and full of calm reflection this morning. No false stimulants - save two cups of coffee - are coursing through my bloodstream. My comin' down is born only of having concluded that I am OK with the sensibility of the first three blogs. Their directness has been of concern to me all along. When Mackenzie reads these with her adult grandchildren, I want them to carry a reasonable tone to the ears of my great-great-grandchildren. (Since I am writing these things, that is something over which I have some control.) ("Hi, kids! I'm long-dead, but I love you in my own way. Is it 2079 now? If you are reading this, I guess the nice people are still fighting off the totalitarians. Do each of you have parenthetic middle names, like your Grandma (Harmony), and your Great-grandma Grace (Water)?") The traditions and values of my family are at stake. This acceptance has not come easily, and is not to be regarded as permanent. Like the pretty girl that I have become, I reserve the "woman's prerogative" to change my mind.

Somewhere in the album - or maybe another one - in a song called "The Pilgrim (Chapter 33)", there is the lyric, "He's a walkin' contradiction - partly truth and partly fiction", which - while appropriate in describing each of us - must be acknowledged openly by any self-aware blogger. Disclaimer: I am a walking contradiction - partly truth and partly fiction. I encourage you to respond to these blogs as serves your best interests.

As the individual letters erupt in sequence in this window - spit out on the monitor by the seeming whim of my fingers and thumbs - each completed entry leaves me feeling that what has been written is "not the facts; just the truth". I wonder whether conveying intent and content - at the expense of "factual accuracy" - is appropriate where close relatives are concerned. This morning - having re-read the first three entries, I am resolved to slog on, blogging through any dissonant bog in which my self-declared poetic license might land me. The mire covers me. It sucks my energy, as I strain to extract my truth from the saturating "facts" all around me.

As I was divorcing, I was greatly aided by a psychiatrist - Doug Ewing. His name will doubtless appear throughout the coming eight months of this school year, and explanation of his credentials will likely be distilled to "Ewing says" or "Doug says". This is not to suggest that Dr. Ewing has assumed an unhealthy interpersonal position in my reality. It is to affirm that his guidance has alerted me to new keys for centering my life. I was not trained as a child to protect my feelings from manipulators. I have had to learn this in midlife, and I am a clumsy and fledgling practitioner. ("Robotic", in the word of a hostile former dating companion from whom I declined to receive verbal abuse, after I said to her, "Stop, you are hurting me.".)

Perhaps the greatest challenge I experienced while divorcing was knowing how to best convey the goodness of my children's mother to them, while not discounting the importance of my own perceptions and beliefs. Doug says it comes down to Janice and me being "not a good fit", which I now describe as "we have fundamental differences". We were not such an ill fit that we could not live together in wonderful intermittent harmony for nearly 20 years. We became a poor fit when one or the other of us disagreed with the other, and the importance of the need of one took pre-eminence over the well-being of the marriage. The "not a good fit" part actually expresses itself there. When push came to shove, self-indulgence was more important than being married to the other. It was only in fundamental disagreement that the mismatch became apparent.

As Doug listened to my attempts to understand what was happening, as I tried to separate everything I understand from all the things I never will, as our family was being degraded by the moment, I asked what was the best strategy for communicating with the kids why things were as they were.

"You have to work to express whatever you say in age-appropriate fashion." This part I knew backward and forward. I had been living this approach on a daily basis since Laura was born.

"And there are two lines of thinking about what -and when - to tell them. The more-traditional one is to tell them as little as necessary throughout their childhood. The thinking here is that you can help them understand when they have similar experiences as adults.

"The other way is to tell them as much as it is appropriate to tell them. The thinking here is that kids have great 'bullshit detectors', and if they sense that you are not being completely forthcoming with them, they will not trust you, and will not listen to the stuff that is true and important."

If you have read to this point, is it necessary to state which path I have chosen for communicating with my children about their parents' divorce?

We have now come to the point where the consequences of that divorce can be argued to include Mackenzie's birth. I am beginning to feel that - as stressful and difficult as this matter may be - our family is now more able to be like it was from Laura's birth until May, 1997, when our family began to occupy two buildings. The kids are nearly-adult, and there is a new generation in their midst. The way their rearing began can be repeated, in the fundamental beliefs that guide Mackenzie's upbringing.

Her upbringing will be one of partly truth, and partly fiction. The emphasis will not be on facts, but on truth - especially in that nebulous area where the edges of honesty, fair-mindedness, respect for the rights and property of others, and accountability are defined not by words, but behaviors.