Transition day. I used to dread this day. I still do, but it’s no longer crippling.
The day I pack all my kids up, fit them and all their stuff they’ve gathered into my car, and drive them over to their dad’s to spend the next week with him.
I remember the first time that happened. There was a pit in my stomach all day. Tears were gathering in my eyes.
But you can’t cry. Not in front of them. They love their dad. And at that time, my house was new. Our OG home was a street away from my ex’s parents. I couldn’t stay there living so close to his family. So, he kept the house, and when the kids would describe where they were living, it was “Home, with Dad” and “Mom’s House, with me.”
This is the home I brought them back to after birth. The place where they all took their first steps, said their first words, the growth tracker in the doorway, the place I raised them. And I no longer lived there.
That whole day, I’d slip into the bathroom or hide in the pantry for a moment, pretending to look for something so they wouldn’t see me wipe away my tears.
No one can prepare you for this moment. This moment where your world actually crumbles.
When you walk in the door, the loud, tornado-like noise and chaos of 4 kids are gone. Replaced with deafening silence deep in your soul. You think you hear someone calling — who is it? You think you hear laughter or arguing, a hair dryer or music from a bedroom. You think you hear SOMETHING, but it’s all just echoes dancing across the walls filled with their drawings, on the counter where their cups still stand, their rooms with empty beds.
I took another divorced mom’s advice and set an alarm for 2 hours after dropping the kids off. I gave myself 2 hours to cry and then I was done. Then 1 hour, then 30 mins.
Over the course of a year, I was able to get it down to tears on the drive home, then a deep breath as I walked through the door into the silence.
I still hear their echoes. The chaos and clutter and cups and clothes — it all still hits me when I step into my house. But eventually, I came to see them as reminders of what we did that week. The fun we had, the family life we have built.
It’s the moment when someone asks, “But you’re happier now, right?” that hits you in the gut, even though the answer is, “Yes, I am happier. AND I still miss my kids.”
I’ve often said to the kids: you can miss me AND still have a most fantastic week. Life is complex, filled with opposites: joy, sorrow, loss, and love.
It’s no longer about surviving the transitions; it’s about thriving in the space between, finding peace in the solitude, and rediscovering the multifaceted parts of my soul that make me, me.