Vacation is No Vacation...

All week my house has been pretty close to spotless. All the clothes are folded or hung up nicely, all the beds are made, all the pillows are on the couch, all the blankets are put away, all the toys are tucked neatly in their proper spots...my house looks really pretty awesome if I do say so myself. My house has also been very serene and peaceful. The tv has been off most of the week. I have spent countless hours reading in the stillness and the silence that has surrounded me. Occasionally I would get on my computer and the tap-tap-tapping of my fingers on the keyboard would echo through the house but for the most part other than the swirling sounds of fans or ticking of clocks my house has been pretty silent.
Some of you would think this week must have been a great one for me...and some of you know that this week has been almost pure torture because you too have had to deal with weeks when your child was gone. Whether they are gone for camps or visits to grandparents or to see their other parent the fact is your child is not home.
In order to survive times like this many of you might turn to my strategy. During the days you keep yourself so booked up and so busy you barely have time to think. When the evenings roll around you either schedule time to catch up with friends and family you don't see very often or you have a to-do list of errands a mile long that you hope and pray will last until bedtime.
Unfortunately there comes a time when I have to go home. I have to walk into my perfectly clean, amazingly straight, super quiet, Dottyless home. And this is simply not the home I want to live in. Every night I hold back tears or sometimes let them fall. Every night I go to bed early just so I can be done with one more day and be that much closer to Dotty's return.
I know I am lucky it is only a week I have to do this each year. Some of you endure much more, much longer and I simply don't know how you do it. I guess just like anything else in life...we do it because we have to and because we love our kids.
I know Dotty is having a wonderful time with her Nichols side of the family just like she has a wonderful time with me when we go on vacation. I also know that when Dotty and I are gone for long periods of time on our trips Tony feels just like I do. He feels like a piece of his heart is missing.
I laid in bed last night thinking about how in a little over 10 years Dotty will go off to college and this will be my world from that point on.
I almost got physically sick at that thought.
Then I began to wonder if you could home school college kids...then I began to wonder if it was too late to enroll her in MSU now and go ahead and pay for it that way she couldn't get too far away from me...then I began to wonder how to make time stop.
Sadly many of you parents will soon have your babies heading off to college and my heart breaks for you! I have a decade left to prepare but I know even that will not be enough time. Even with 10 years still to go I will still want more time.
(Of course I have heard it said that the reason why teenagers are so bad is so parents are glad to see them leave the house at 18 but hopefully Dotty's teenage years won't kill me or us or our relationship! Hey a mom can hope!!!)
It has been five years since Tony and I divorced. Five years since we started sharing our time with Dotty. It hasn't gotten any easier. It perhaps has become the new "normal" but it has never gotten easier. Like I said (and simply can't say enough) I know how blessed I am that Tony and I can get along as well as we do and that we even have a highly functioning dysfunctional family that does a lot of stuff together. I know how good God is to have Brittany and Dylann and Baby Boy Nichols in Dotty's life and in mine. I know how lucky I am that I can still talk and laugh and get along with my ex-in-laws. Trust me...I know in the grand scheme of things I have it pretty dang good.
But I also know that seven nights without my Dotty is hard on this momma. Divorce is never good...it is never easy...even in my case where my divorce is about as good as they come. The fact is there is still hurt and pain in divorces...long after the papers are signed and the case is closed there are still nights with tears and there are still broken hearts.
Someday I want Dotty to know that both Tony and I encouraged her time with the other parent out of love for her. In a true act of selflessness we gave up what we wanted so she could have the best childhood a kid with divorced parents could possibly have. Tony and I let our own hearts break so Dotty's heart could be filled with the love of three parents (yep...Brittany loves my kid just like her own and for that I will always be grateful...and I pray to God that someday He adds a fourth parent...a step-dad who will love Dotty like the rest of us do) and countless other family members who care for her in ways she won't ever really be able to understand until she becomes a parent herself.
To say I dread the first week in August every year is an understatement. To say I cherish the other 51 weeks of the year is my goal and solemn vow to Dotty.