Divorced Easter

My neighbours asked me what my plans were for Easter. I wasn't exactly able to respond to them. I just brushed it off, vaguely stating "meh, divorced holidays" and then we were distracted and the topic was quickly forgotten. Like most parents with young kids, things are forgotten, only to come steal your thoughts when you should be doing something else, like sleeping or doing work.

A divorced Easter. What is the big deal about Easter? I mean its just chocolate bunnies and plastic eggs that I must not forget to send in to school. correct? Or is it the whole redemption thing, Jesus giving the greatest gift he could give, laying down His perfectly clean life, to save us dirty sinners from an eternity of gnashing teeth.

Divorced Easter is a time when you're furiously driving down the highway to send one kid here, one kid there, to meet ex in laws for this, to spend five minutes here with another family member, to go and pick everyone up again. It is where you let bygones be bygones. Where new traditions are formed.

On the front steps of my horizon are new beginnings, new forays, a new family, a new life. I will be someone else's wife. On the back steps of my memories are my most precious moments, moving to America,  having my girls, buying this house that I inherited in the divorce (also symbolically this is our 10th year in the house this month, my twelve year old was just a tot when we moved in), all soured by the presence of a broken marriage, a family torn apart, visitors seeing family members instead of the organic innate family we once had, lives forever changed.

Some have said, my whole life, that I live too much in the past. My whole head is a jumble of things that are and things that were. I seek symbolism in things that have passed, things that can be, things that are. My life, a whirl of opportunities and memories.

Divorced Easter. I buy my ex husband a bag of goodies from his girls. They will pen their names in a card and deliver it to a man who once lived here.

Divorced parents, vying for influence, vying for their five minutes worth. Children growing up quicker than weeds. The time we have with them is the only thing that matters.

I drive to gym and my head is just a jumble. I cant think much anymore. I walk in and there is my friend, Mr. Zebra Print Leggings. He greets me, we meet before his workout. We speak briefly about the amputee guy at the gym and how incredible he is in his work outs. Then he says to me out of the blue (we hadn't even been talking about this) "I have been divorced you know. " (I didn't know that). He said "I wont tell you it gets any easier, but I wont tell you it gets any worse". He has kind eyes.

Later on we sit on our Keisers, he is three bikes down. I see him on the treadmill as I leave.