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Through The Fire: Toeing the Party Line
Through The Fire is a series of reader submissions. It offers people a safe, anonymous place to tell their personal stories of separation and divorce, with the intention of fostering empathy and compassion around the shared experience of having a marriage fail. If you would like to submit an original story to this series, click here. Today’s guest post is by Starbright.
I talk the talk. Everyone thinks I’m over my divorce. That I’ve come to believe things are better this way. I joke with friends about how much easier it is to raise these girls on my own. To start with, I only have to do it half the time, and then when I do, there’s no negotiating anything. I’m in charge. Sometimes it means I get madder at them than I should, like having another adult around might make me behave better, but sometimes I know it spares them a fight. Because that’s what he and I would be doing if we were still together. That is the party line, you see?
My eldest, whose life she compares to a tragedy since the divorce, who I know suffers greatly because of it, cries about it still, fantasizes about the perfect little life we had before. She places herself between us during soccer practices and games: the few times we’re actually together. She’s like an electric wire and we are the two diodes and standing between us, gripping our hands, she comes to life. I’m not imagining this. I’m not creating an image out of what she does. She tells me herself, says, “this is perfect, to touch you both at the same time feels so good.” Always been so incredibly good at expressing herself, she has. I’m not saying those moments bring me to life. It’s been too long, my fantasy of a life with him isn’t even a fantasy anymore. He’s not something I want anymore. He’s a stranger. It’s that life that I fantasize about.
Food Love: French Macarons
This post is by the baker boyfriend, Charlie.
Sometimes folks will pretend like things are harder than they are.
My friend Hank, for example, used to blow these really pretty pieces of glass. I’d ask him how he did it and he’d get all cagey and aloof. And when he did talk about it he’d always use obscure hobbyist terminology, and grin a little like the cat who ate the canary.
The world of french cooking and pastry is kind of secretive like that, too.
Augusten Burroughs on Why Memoir Writing is Important
And why, as Einstein said, there is no “preferred point of view” in the universe.
Sing it, Augusten, SING. IT.
(Yes, I’m being all fangirl-y today, shut up.)
Stuff I Love: This Is How by Augusten Burroughs (+Giveaway)
Sometimes – rarely – you finish reading a book, and immediately want to buy up several hundred copies and give it to everyone you know.
People? This is one of those books.
