Doing...

The holidays bring something fresh with it, regardless of whether or not I keep them.  Who doesn't take advantage of time off to just breathe and exist?

I am still edgy and nervous.  I think that will be with me for a long time. But, two things occurred last week that sort of put some reassurance I guess, back in the picture.  It was a big thing to me, because as much as this family is blending, I still sort of retreat into solitary reactions and actions.

We stand in the kitchen, today I cook the proteins, he cooks the carbs, tomorrow I cook the carbs, he cooks the proteins, the day after, he cooks alone.  I feel the melding and meshing and would be lying if I didn't think it felt damn good.  Real good.  Homey.  We sit with the kids and laugh and share.  Family...

Last night, just us, no kids, (fast asleep in their beds), I am bombarded by a slew of thoughts in one itsy bitsy second.  I don't know if words can dare to explain it.  But, as we horsed around, chasing each other, screaming, laughing, gazing, daring, I remembered those moments when we were first together.  The laughs, the fun, the underlying intensity and security.  And simultaneously, I think of my ex-husband, the way that the laughter and freedom was there, but didn't last long, and will that happen to us?  The mind is an amazing thing.  Split second.  Split.  Second.  I am in his arms in a wrestling lock, screaming "Uncle!" and I am carried back into time and cracking jokes with my ex.  Swiftly.  Those years did not laugh long.

We've been sort of inseparable since last week.  After a week apart that gave me time to think and consider and mull and ruminate and yes, even sulk, the rhythm and routine was forming again. Home to me after work,    chilling out and lazing around.  Gone, back again.  With christmas coming up, I knew this would be an interesting observation.  I am not that naive not to know what this time is for couples and how some women put a lot of weight on this.

Christmas eve was work time.  Junkanoo time.  Day after day passing and we are there in our own worlds.  Then he sacrificed two days of things he had to get done to keep my kids.  Kids that he calls his.  Kids he defended at Junkanoo, and later on Friday night at the Chinese restaurant.  Inside I swelled and beamed.  A little bit more security sneaking in, but not enough to knock me off guard again.  I am still a bit rigid in how I feel otherwise.

Two more days of saying he was going, and sat right there with me.  Then work, then home again.  And more bonding with the kids.  Scrabble, dinner, Xmas morning a big breakfast spread because I know it was important to him to have something like that.  Then today, work tonight, and he says he'll be there tomorrow.

I try to slough off and act unaffected, but the truth pricks me.  What can I say?  What can I do?  I am back in observation mode.  I can play cool enough to not make him think I am being overbearing, but some days my mind is screaming.

I am laughing, almost all the time.  And  it feel so odd...