Unhappy

If anyone ever asked me advice on divorce or marriage, I would say Stay. Stay together. It's not worth it. Divorce is the most stupid thing anyone ever has invented, particularly in our modern society of fleeting relations and fleeting love. I used to say that people split up too easily and that people weren't willing to work enough on their relationship. I still think this more than ever. I think we didn't give our relationship the chance it deserved, but I guess I mostly think he didn't. I initially moved out because things weren't working at that time but I never wanted to be divorced and I never wanted not to be with him. But after three months he apparently didn't want to try anymore. I didn't believe him when he said that but should probably have listened. Because he was never the person who said that people don't work enough on their marriage, he was never the one who said people got divorced to easily. So there you go, I married a guy who didn't learn anything from me. I learned one thing: Trust no one.  

New Year resolutions

Many years ago I made a "new years resolution" that I was never going to make any promises for the new year because they were only just gonna be broken. I would try to live healthy for two weeks, then back to my usual regular chocolate and too-busy-for-the-gym lifestyle or I would promise to work harder, get up 6 am each morning to write a bit more on an article, only to do it for three days before I got back to snoozing until 7am (I do actually recall two enjoyable weeks where I did get up super early and went into our freezing kitchen our California apartment with a shawl and a cup of coffee to write on a particular paper). But I do better without telling myself that this year will be different, this year will be better because I know I do my best every single day. I do the best that I can do that very day and that might be different for different days, but I rather want to think that I'm good enough, just the way I am. Every day.

But I do wonder how I ended up in such a ridiculous situation as I'm in. I should be excited and happy, I am certainly better off than many others (why do people always say this btw? If I should be happy just because I have a permanent job when many others don't, if I should be happy just because I have a stable place to live when others don't, then when all comes down to it, nobody would be allowed to be unhappy or *strive towards more* unless they were close to starvation with no family or friends. I honestly hate people who tell me I should just be happy with what I got); but I'm terribly unhappy. My brother asked me yesterday if I had any New Years resolutions and I told him, as usual I don't. Instead I have wishes. Wishes for two big things that I hope and pray will come true this year. Two things that will make me happy and make up for all the things I have lost the past couple of years. And no, love is not one of my wishes. I'm nowhere near over my marriage and still wish that we could figure things out. I wish he hadn't given up on me after three months, but that's what I got. It seems to me that guys move on swiftly if there are any problems and never look back.

My New Year wishes will be expensive but I'm not giving up. In fact I have a large printed poster in my living room with those words: Don't give up. I'm bringing the poster to New York.

The crib

I teared up as I carried the pieces of the white Stokke crib into my apartment from the elevator. The paint had chipped off some places on the top, evidence of a baby biting into the edge while calling for her mom. The wooden bars had screw marks by each hole on each level. The crib had been used at each level from top to bottom. Each piece I carried in reminded me of the days in California when we lived in the two story condo and the crib had been upstairs. It had moved from our bedroom into it's own bedroom, back into our bedroom and back to the baby room again. It was on wheels and I knew how to quickly screw off the side so it could go through the just too narrow doors. It had been dismantled by the moving people and moved to Stockholm where I had put it together again. But the last adjustment I hadn't done. The last adjustment of taking off the side panel so the little girl could get out herself was done by her dad. Because by then I had moved out and the crib had stayed. I couldn't bear taking anything because I wanted Zoe to feel that at least there was something that was the same. But girls grow and recently her dad bought her a 'big girl bed' even though the crib could have been extended with a new mattress. I don't think he knew.

It was less difficult to pick it up than I had feared. I entered the apartment that we had bought together, where Zoe's dad still lives, and went straight to her room. Yet, I couldn't help peaking around on my way out. It is such a nice apartment, I mean, I chose it too. It was weird seeing the furniture we had bought together, some that I had even bought on my own like the red arm chair and the puff. I had never asked for it since none of it would fit in my apartment now. But I missed it, like I missed him and our life together. I considered for a moment if his friendliness earlier when he gave me the key had meant anything. Anything more than 'we can figure out how to be friendly co-parents'. I certainly know I am not over our marriage yet and concluded the other day that it was very likely that I never would get over our split. Just like you don't get over losing someone close. You move on eventually but you don't get over it. I'm doubtful I have even moved on. We still have a ghetto divorce*, so something keeps telling me he thinks the same, but then again, he is not the one to bother about paperwork so it might just be me.

I put the crib pieces in Zoe's small room because they would be picked up even before Zoe would get back in a couple of days. I took a deep breath and thought about how much that crib meant to me. I wouldn't know where to start. The arguments we had over me wanting this lovely crib that cost 900 $ and Zoe's dad not wanting to pay that, only for me to buy it anyway? The millions of times I sat next to it singing songs for a little baby who couldn't fall asleep? The way I would come into a the room with a baby girl standing on her toes to reach up and bite the edges, having paint around her mouth? In any case that part was over. I was handing it down to a dear pregnant colleague of mine who I felt was the only one in this world who should have this crib. I wouldn't sell it for money, I wouldn't give it away. Instead I told her she could borrow it as long as she would help me pray that I would need it back. Because that was probably the greatest sorrow right now, the fact that I didn't need it back myself. 

Instead my colleague will pick it up on Saturday and it will once again be used for a little baby now that my baby is not a baby any longer. 

*a ghetto divorce is a separation without actual paperwork; technically we are still married. One of the consequences is that if one of us dies the other still gets the money and insurance. I have no problem with that.