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Christmas Shopping with The Child, Part 1

02.25.2013 by J. Doe // 1 Comment

In the end, my father did not send The Child an envelope full of cash; instead he wired cash up to her via “your local Wal-Mart.” I explained that there was no Wal-Mart near us, but my father insisted otherwise, bolstering his assertion with a link to the address on the Wal-Mart website.

I remained suspicious, but we went there one Saturday, and sure enough there was a Wal-Mart there, with some cash waiting for The Child at the service desk. The Child announces that there is something else I am wrong about – not only is there a Wal-Mart near us, but it’s a wonderful place. She bolsters her assertion by pointing to her newly-filled wallet.

I admit defeat and take her to the Mall. She needs to go shopping without me, she says, and so, after ensuring she has her cell phone and it is charged, I let her loose.

I wander through an electric car dealership and the Apple store and a cooking store, all of them selling things I don’t need or already have or can’t afford, and often all of the above.

I pretend I am not worried about The Child, on her own in the mall.

She texts me: What is the name of your brand of Christmas Village?

I tell her, and hope she is not buying an $80 collectible houses that you can get on ebay for $10 plus shipping.

She says Thanks! and not long after, texts again to ask if I am hungry yet.

Yes, I could die of starvation at any moment, I tell her.

Where are you? I’ll come find you! she says.

I tell her, the shoe store.

And I wait.

And wait.

Fifteen minutes, then twenty. Then a panicked text: I am lost.

I find out where she is and tell her to stay there. A minute later, I find her, and catch just the tiniest glimpse of fear before she spots me and lights up.

Do you want to see what I bought? she says. I can’t wait to show you!

I want to be surprised by my gifts, I tell her.

Oh, she says. It’s not for you. It’s for The Dog!

She shows me a sack of dog-biscuit mix decorated with a little bone-shaped cookie cutter. She’s beaming.

We’ll make them for him on Christmas, I tell her.

Categories // All By Myself Tags // holidays, single parenting

Marriage Fail, IVF Bail: A Quick Recap So Far

02.19.2013 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

For those of you who are trying to keep up, here’s a quick recap, in a more conventional, linear-narrative format:

I got married once. It didn’t work out, but the failed effort did produce The Child.

I got married again, based on the usual promises (love, honor, cherish, etc.) and one slightly more specific one: We would have a child. I wanted one more.

For seven years, he found excuses and arguments and sudden new preconditions that had to be met … and the promise went unkept.

At age 42 I said, I want my baby: it’s now or never. We were beset by a series of sometimes inexplicable medical issues that kept me from my desired goal, not to mention increasingly expensive fertility treatments.

When my ovaries and the savings were completely exhausted, three days before the completion of an in-vitro fertilization procedure, he walked out on the flimsiest of pretexts.

In the 14 months that followed, he used the legal system to harrass me and force me to run up a pile of debt (exceeded, evidently, by an even larger pile of his own debt).

In the 14 months that followed, I held on to the idea that there was, somehow, a magical answer to my problems, signing up on match.com and meeting a strange array of people. If you’re thinking, “You know, dating isn’t really the obvious thing to do in such a situation,” you’re probably right.  I couldn’t find a book or even a blog post titled “What To Do When Your Spouse Cancels The IVF Cycle That Was Your Last Hope.”

Yes, I looked. Google has the answer to many questions, but not that one, it turns out.

I distracted myself. I learned how to economize. I baked some things – according to my scale, a lot of things. I remembered I was actually a capable person who could do things for herself.  I noticed that my child had grown up when I was paying attention to all this other stuff. Somewhere in there, my dog had a stroke and my cat died of cancer.

I cry sometimes, but I think not enough, or maybe not at the right time.

No, I have no idea where any of this is going. If I was the sort of person who could figure out where things were going, would I have ended up here in the first place?

 

Categories // All By Myself Tags // dating, divorce, IVF, single

What We Say In The Dark

02.12.2013 by J. Doe // 2 Comments

We are driving to IKEA and I’m completely focused on rush hour traffic. The Child fiddles with the radio and then gives up; no station is playing the song she wants to hear just at that moment, so she shuts it off.

After a while, she says: I’m glad you didn’t have his baby.

I wait, but she says nothing further, so I inquire, Why is that?

Because you would not have loved me as much anymore. He would not have let you. And that baby would have been the reason.

I want to tell her she is wrong, but I can’t.

Categories // All By Myself, The Divorce Tags // divorce, IVF, single

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