What Gratitude Really Looks Like After Divorce
Chronicles of the Determined Divorcee — My ex-husband didn’t go to our twins’ 5th grade graduation and I’m okay with that.
Friday morning I checked my work email and prepared myself for the day ahead. I was working remote and my supervisor was already aware of the fact that I’d be busy that morning. My twins were graduating from fifth grade.
The school framed the ceremony as a “promotion,” but I prefer to use the word “graduation.” They are moving forward, leaving one school for another larger one, where preteens bump into each other in busy hallways, use foul language, and learn about what it means to grow up. Do I have concerns about my twins going to middle school? Of course; my own memories of my years at the very same school still pop into my mind every now and then, bright and accusatory.
My dad and I went together to the ceremony; he wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Frankly, he’s spent more time with my kids than my ex-husband, their biological father, ever has.
My ex-husband didn’t go to the ceremony, didn’t even know about it. He didn’t even want to know about it. And as terrible as it is to type that out, it’s a relief. I don’t want to be silent about this any more. I do the work of two people every day. I take on the emotional work, the physical work, the demanding work of…
