6/11/2025. #136

I don't read or prep these ahead of time. So...wow. Kind of loaded and difficult one to answer tonight. I can think of hundreds of impractical gifts my husband bought for himself, while unable to recall such activities. For me? I purchased a divorce. As a stay a home mom, with two significantly disabled children - no one really understands the impractical extravagance of that decision. I had a comfortable life. However the moment I pushed that button - it would no longer be comfortable and I was already burned out. Hard to describe that emotional code. Foolish willpower. [I'd find a way to make it through.]

I did.

It's been nearly five years since I pushed that button. Lots of time to reflect and one thing became clear - I made the right decision. Every now and then, usually when I'm sitting at a traffic light, I feel the happiest memories wash over me - I remember looking down at the notarized divorce paperwork on the seat next to me. I smile.

Other times I look at that empty seat and wonder many things.

In the NICU, a nurse joked about how 99% of parents with disabled children get divorced. Sixteen years later - that percentage now seems low. I wanted to be that one 1%. Facing significant life challenge only encouraged me to bond more with others, including my own marriage and heal rifts with other family members. However from my perspective - I was the one attending the wide range of therapies with the kids. Learning every day. Growing, healing and problem solving difficult impossible scenarios to meet their needs. Meeting incredible and inspiring people in that process. My ex focused on his career - without it, we wouldn't have high quality insurance for therapy and life saving medical care. It was an awful tug of war. And his career in natural gas is demanding. Didn't help, the ever increasing risk of domestic terrorism that we faced every day. There are real life considerations when media hysteria takes over. We lived it. Especially during that period in our life.

So the challenge we faced as a couple?

Beyond the initial traumatic birth situation with the kids - it stands very clear in my mind. The kids were in the NICU and stable, enough to the point where there was a good chance they would survive. We left the hospital and went to a late lunch/dinner at Applebees. We had important things to discuss in that booth. He had been laid off from Cessna and we had no idea wtf we were going to do. We were about to lose our medical insurance, as well as our only income. Maybe even our home. And we had the tiniest micro preemie survivors depending on us. No clue on what their future held.

Layoffs in aircraft manufacturing happen. We knew that. He was the very last one laid off in his department and would be the first recalled. We had that going for us but the damage was done. We didn't know it was possible to personally face that kind of scenario, at what seemed to be the worst possible time. Everything was cascading into the unknown. Aircraft manufacturing pays very well. It's difficult to find a career that matches or can replace that income. Now with twins and the whispers of disability challenge - as well as their daily needs in the NICU, medical bills estimated to be in the millions. To lose insurance in the middle of that? Was to be facing imminent bankruptcy. So it wasn't just about the job loss. We had to live the reality of insurance stability being ripped away. Personally I was about to lose insurance coverage and I had just survived significant medical trauma. Could even wind up homeless. There was just no way to know.

So yeah - that day in the booth, I consider that to be one of the biggest challenges we faced, despite enormous daily challenges. It was the awareness and facing the situation head on. We looked each other in the eye. What is going to happen to us?

That question lingered. We didn't have the answers back then and some days it still seems frozen in time. If I could look back, examine the amount of complex life horror and what we would need to do just to survive and the slow reality of that coming to fruition - heartbreaking because I can now see the split. The attitude that kept us propelling forward through that tragedy - is the one that destroyed us.

We took separate paths. We relied on our inner strengths. Today he is a highly trained gas technician over a large metro city and fully capable of handling the emotional complexity of the job itself. He can arrive in an emergency situation, has the confidence to deal with difficult, scared people and the volatility of gas. He's saved lives. This on call demanding career - took him away from family time, often. I can respect that sacrifice and grieve it at the same time.

For me? I fell in love with intensive behavior therapy and caregiving. It too is a demanding career. Same kind of emotional conditioning and responses though. Life is never boring. If things aren't crazy in my life - they are in his. I think the divorce helped separate the sheer volume of 'extreme' because when we were together - that was insane and it was heavily one sided. As the stay at home spouse, I supported his career and that could have worked but to not help others, to not use these hard earned life skills? Writing compensated but it's not the same as action. Something else I slowly realized over the years.

So very deep of a prompt but I'm running out of time tonight. Spell/grammar probably awful. lol.