Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations (8 page)

I have enough gas for the week but not enough
money for laundry. I could do laundry at Kelley's or I could take an
extra shift over the weekend. If I don't pay the power bill this
month I can stock the pantry. And so on and so on.
A few weeks
ago, I assessed a particularly empty pantry and found that all I had
was flour, baking powder, bread, frozen peas an egg and a quarter
stick of butter.
I cried for a bit and then realized I could make
pancakes. The peas and bread would have to wait.
They'd be really
watery, sad pancakes but poor kids don't have sophisticated palates.
I found enough change around the house to grab a cheap bottle of
off brand “syrup” and went to pick the kids up from
school.
My youngest asked, as she always does, what was for
dinner.
“Hmm...I dunno. How about PANCAAAAAAKES!”
My
kids were elated. They were so surprised their taskmaster mom was
“letting” them have pancakes for dinner. They had no idea
there was no other choice.
The kids happily scarfed their sad,
watery pancakes and went to bed thinking I was the coolest mom in
Tampa.
We eat chili, beans and rice and pancakes for days and
days on a rotating basis with various toppings depending on how much
cash I have.
Somehow, amazingly, the kids still thing pancakes
are delicious. I don't know how long I can keep this
up.
Exit Plan

Since my heavenly
weekend with Chris in Mobile I've realized
the
best plan for my kids and I would probably be to move back to
Mobile.
Outside of Kelley and one of my ex's sisters I don't have
friends or support. In Mobile, I have my mother, sister, grandmother
and aunt. I have lifelong friends who were excited to see me and who
have been rooting for me from afar through the blog. I cannot earn
enough money to support us here without childcare. Moving is just the
most rational decision.
It'd be easy to justify staying if my ex
was more involved but he is not. When I brought the idea of moving to
his attention, he did not argue with me. He did not necessarily
like
the idea but, as with most things that release him from
responsibility, he felt it was best. He said he'd be able to focus
more on finding work and then spend quality time with us when he came
to visit.
I am looking at leaving in March because that is when
my lease is up. That is a strange time to pull the kids out of
school. I'm not completely convinced I want to put the kids in school
in Mobile for just the last few months so I am entertaining the idea
of homeschooling just through the end of the year.
To
research I decided to join a Mobile homeschooling group on Facebook.
The women are so nice and so welcoming and so encouraging and
helpful.
There is one woman who I'm really drawn to who I'll
call CBL which is short for Crazy Blonde Lady.
CBL is very vocal
and opinionated and knowledgeable. Her energy seeps through the
screen. She is a powerhouse. She is straightforward and brash but not
so much so that it's offensive or off-putting, at least not to me.
She's like Ouiser from Steel Magnolias with less hot sauce and more
sweet tea.
When explaining why I wanted to move back to Mobile
from Tampa (shocking) I just referred her to my blog.
She read a
few posts and sent me a PM saying “I'm gonna add you to a
secret group.”
She added me to her group on Facebook. It
was a whole community of women comprised of single moms and other
women who'd helped them. Then CBL introduced me to the group as
Jessica “the one we gotta get the hell out of
Florida.”
“Listen,” she said, “if you
just
get
here. You and your kids WILL be taken care of. You
will have clothing. You will have food. Just get here. My passion is
women and children...especially mamas. I have a huge network. I know
just about everybody in the whole damn town. Most of them just call
me 'that crazy blonde lady'. But all of them know I get shit done and
I mean what I say.”
I don't know why but I believe
her.
Numb – December 2011

People
ask me how I handle my stress, my ex, my kids and my life without
medication.

The truth is I turned my feelings off years ago.
I'm terrified that I can never get them back.

It is common for people who are facing
distressing circumstances to hear these well-meaning cliches:

When God closes a door He opens a window.

God will never give you more than you can
handle.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree and
not because I am religiously unaffiliated. It's because I see people
crushed and battered by their lives all the time. There are
industries dependent on it.
Klonopin, anyone?

My life
should
be crushing me.

I am single. Big deal. I have three kids under
the age of ten. The cost of after school care negates my ability to
work full time so I make jack squat for money. I have no washer and
dryer, which seemed like a small issue when I hastily chose this
apartment, but that means I have to take three or four laundry
baskets (depending on who peed and who spilled and who threw up) down
a flight of stairs, load it and my kids into my sexy minivan and
spend money that I don't have on doing my laundry at a laundromat. I
make just enough money to cover my utilities - no more, sometimes
less.

The week I realized all my underwear had holes in
them and I decided like a selfish, indulgent, wasteful person to buy
new underwear, it put my entire month's budget off and I ended up
paying my car insurance late. The same thing happened the next month
when I bought shampoo and razors.

I am no longer under investigation by the
Department of Human Resources and my food assistance has been
restored but since I have a job we get around $400/month. That means
I have to feed the four of us for around $13/day.
Not per
person.

Altogether.

I have no savings, no life insurance, and no
health insurance. All of this should make me upset.

But I don't feel anything.

I can list it and I can look at it from outside
myself and say "wow, that seems stressful!" but none of it
registers in my body. No elevated pulse. No lump in my throat.

Nothing.

I slipped out of myself years and years ago.
Right around the time of that panic attack with the garbage can.

Feelings, I decided, are a nuisance and I don't
have time for such a distraction and therefore I am done with them.
And that was that. I discarded the ones that don't serve me: anxiety,
sadness, despair, desperation, hopelessness, hope, elation, joy,
bliss, ecstacy.

I am a robot. I am programmed to care for my
children. I am programmed to drive my car. I am programmed to perform
my boring job. I am programmed to be pleasant and witty when
necessary for the former in-laws. I don't remember how to do anything
else. I don't remember how to
feel
anything else.

A woman I know well found out she had cancer -
again - for the second time in five years. She was to undergo surgery
and endure six months of chemotherapy. When I found out I was pretty
unmoved. I was some
sort
of upset. Angry, maybe, but not
particularly downtrodden. I was as removed from it as I am everything
else.

That scared me (but not really, as I cannot
feel
fear anymore) because I wonder what will have to happen for me to to
jump back into my body.

I have been floating a safe distance behind
myself for quite some time - letting my body take all the blows and
watching from far away, assessing the damage intellectually and
clinically and logically.

And trust me, my body shows the damage.

So what if everything gets good again?

What if the clouds part and things are okay? What
if I can afford to feed us and have a little left over for cute
underwear again? What if I am so far removed that I can't feel
that
either? What if I can't feel the
good
stuff?

I'd like to fall in love at some point. I'm
pretty certain I've never experienced it. But I'm worried I won't be
able to, because I will still be floating somewhere in the ether,
miles away from Earth and touch and breath and pain and hope.

The only time I register feelings is in the
evenings with my children.

It's my youngest child's hammy performances and
wet kisses. It's in her sparkly eyes and her soft, soft hands and her
lisp and her living room performance art.

It's in my son's dreamy long lashes and
gray-green eyes and constant rambling. And his delirious, flute-trill
of a giggle. It was that giggle the doctor said was probably gas when
I pointed out that I was
sure
he was giggling at me when he
was 7 weeks old and still cross-eyed.

It's in my oldest child's sideways glances and
floppy, scarecrow lankiness and Care Bear cheeks. It's in her
one-liners, her giant worried eyes and the gentleness she tries to
hide.

With them I feel peace and warmth and calm in the
wee hours when I let them stay up late just because I am not ready to
tell them goodnight.

I need them, so I know I'm still alive.

The Watcher

Bridget is the
eyes in the sky.
My apartment complex is like every other
low rate apartment complex. We are all too close together. We hear
everything.
But while most of us kept our heads down and hurried
to and from our vehicles, Bridget sat calm, cool and idly on her
second-story balcony, rocking in her chair, smoking a cigarette and
seeing everything.
She is there when I leave to take the kids to
school and she is often there when I get home with them at
night.
When I hear ruckus in the parking lot, she is still on the
balcony, no longer sitting but erected and peering like a meerkat.
The next day she'd have a full report and as soon as we left for
school, she'd holler down the details and assure us that everything
had been handled or warn us if they had not.
She looks like Cyndi
Lauper and has the same nasal New York accent. And she was always
watching.
She was like a ghetto Gatsby. Everyone knew of her and
she threw the most amazing parties that spilled out of her apartment,
onto the balcony, the parking lot, the nearby lake and sometimes
wandering to the pool beyond the operating hours.
“I've
lived here fuh-evuh, whaddathey gonna do?” she'd answer when
asked about breaking pool policy on hours of operation.
And sure
enough, the apartment manager would usually join the revelry. Bridget
is just the boss.
She invited Jack over to play with her son
once.
While he was there my ex's mom came by to “spend some
time with her grandbabies.”
This is usually where she sits
in my apartment on her phone, telling people how much she loves her
grandbabies only to leave 20 minutes later.
“Where's Jack?”
she asked.
“He's playing with a friend.”
Bridget
hollered from the balcony, minutes later, asking if Jack could stay
for dinner.
I hollered yes.
I noticed my ex's mom was
disappointed.
I didn't change my mind because my introverted son
is rarely interested in interacting with other kids. This was a small
miracle.
Later, when Bridget brought Jack back home she said to
me “I nevuh see them come help you. Nevuh. They take you all
for granted. Jack was having fun and I'm glad he stayed with me
f'dinnuh...you know, to
show
her.”
Suddenly, I
realized Bridget was an ally.
And it wasn't long before I needed
her again. This morning, I went to take my morning piss. When I got
up and turned around to flush, right on the back of the toilet was
one of my no-I-don't-think-so's: a lizard. I froze in panic. I can do
a lot of very brave things like, oh, say leave my poisonous marriage
with no money, food, furniture, education or job.
But pick up a
lizard?
No.
Just no.
So frozen, I holler to Jack to
please go to Bridget's apartment and ask her husband to come help me
catch this lizard. I knew crazy/hot Spencer was probably asleep and
would come with a gun and the other single mom always looked like she
didn't want anyone to talk to her.
Shortly after, Bridget's
husband, Mark, came by. He called from the kitchen, asking where a
cup was so he could catch and release.
He came and did just that.
I thanked him. He “any timed” and I took the kids to
school.
A few hours later there was a knock at the door. It was
Bridget.
She got very near me and spoke in a low
voice.
“Listen, I really hope you don't take this the wrong
way.”
That's never a good start.
I
nodded for her to continue.
“Mark came back from helpin'
you this morning and he was a little upset. He said he looked in yuh
pantry and that you guys don't have any food.”
I wasn't
sure where she was going with this. Oddly, we had more food than we
usually do and I told her so. But I hadn't seen our situation from
the outside. As long as I could manage a peanut butter sandwich,
sometimes on one slice of bread folded over and beverage, we were
okay.
“Listen, Jessica, I don't wanna offend you or get in
yuh business but it really upset Mark's heart and...I just wanted to
ask you. Would it be okay if Mark and I buy ya just a few
groceries?”
Tears welled up in my eyes.
I had never
experienced anything like this from a stranger...ever.
I'm not
ignorant enough to let pride get in the way of my kids being able to
have a full belly.
I accepted her offer and sure enough, a few
hours later they were filling my pantry with all manner of edible
things: Pasta, cheese, milk, applesauce...
It was a much needed
break.
She hugged me tight and said “I used to see him come
and go all the time. He don't bring his kids no food or
nuthin'?”
“He does sometimes and he gives us a
hundred dollars here and there,” I trailed off.
“A
HUNDRED DOLLARS HERE AND THERE!? Nuh uh, ain't gonna cut it. I
see
how he is now. He and the rest of 'em. You know, Jessica. I see
everything that's going on.”
You do, Brigitte. Thank
God, you do.