The Ghost of Me

Image credit: Photo by h.koppdelaney on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

This summer, I've been keeping the kids busy by running them around outside and spending lots of time splashing around in the water. The idea has been to wear them down so that they go to bed on time (an idea which totally has not panned out because apparently it only works well on adults, like me).  Driven by the clamor for something continually new, we've abandoned our familiar haunts and set off for the great, fun unknown — well, at least as far as the kids are concerned.  To conserve my own energy and research time, we're actually spending time in places we haven't visited in years, places the kids have quite forgotten but that remain familiar to me.  However, this return after long absence sometimes leads me to see the ghost of me, some earlier me, here and there.

You see?  There I am on a weathered wooden bench there.  It is July 18, 2003.  I know the date because later tonight I will sit my husband down on the sofa and grill him about all the little doubts and inconsistencies that have built up over the years of our relationship and he will admit to his sex addiction.  And that's not the sort of thing one easily forgets.

I'm pregnant and I'm watching my son try to climb a ladder while my husband helps him.  He needs to be held and steadied and told which foot to put where, which rung to grasp with what hand.  When he gets to the top, he slowly makes his way back down again, then starts back up.  He's a little human resistor in the smooth circuit of other children looping up the ladder to the slide.

He continues to climb with my husband's assistance (and traffic control) while I make notes on a scrap of paper.  I write things like "$70 for a single phone call for her birthday?" and "drink receipt for two when you were out alone?" and "wanted to meet woman from adult chat?" and "messages continued and got worse in secret after you promised you'd stop?"  I want to make sure I remember and ask about each item.  I want to see the weight of them all together.  I don't want to get confused.

I chew on my pen as I watch my husband and son together.  "Honey," I say, "I need to talk to you tonight about that disk I found.  And some other things."

He looks up and says, hesitantly, "Okay."

I continue writing, while Mark watches me now out of the corner of his eye.  "I want to make sure I remember everything tonight," I explain.

"Honey," he says, "I'm scared."  And he looks it.

I smile and say, "Everything will be all right," because I think, right then, it will be.  We just have to sort out this confusion, right?

Six years later, my kids dash right past the worn bench and the ladder to the "baby" slide, and I leave my former self sitting there, knowing I did sort out that confusion, just not in the way I imagined I would.

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This post was originally published at The Second Road on August 27, 2009.