Election Day

There is a scene in a movie called “Something New” that struck me the minute I saw it years ago. The two main characters are arguing in a supermarket about issues coming up in their biracial relationship. They reach an impasse in their disagreement. He says “So maybe this isn’t what you want. Maybe it just isn’t gonna work.” Sanaa Lathan’s character responds, “Maybe it’s not.“

A man in line in front of them makes a face while looking the male character up and down, shaking his head disapprovingly. And then they both stand there waiting in line to pay for their baskets of groceries, silently standing next to each other, looking around anywhere but into each other’s eyes.

I remember seeing that scene and laughing, thinking it was a perfect example of the absurdity of breaking up and still being stuck together, forced to act civilly. It looked funny in the movie, and brought a slight smile to my face tonight as I stood on a line for voting with my 13-year-old next to me, my 22 year old behind me in line, and my husband behind him.

Not 30 minutes prior, I had been yelling at my estranged husband on the phone, yet again, about a separation agreement he had been refusing to sign for almost a year. Trying to shield the kids from overhearing (that ship had so sailed), I found myself for the hundredth time walking around our suburban neighborhood block yelling into earphones. The echoes of my yells could be heard throughout our quiet neighborhood and likely within our house as well.

“Were the windows open?,” I thought to myself through my dizzying rage.

A neighbor passes, walking their dog. I nod and smile at them as I continue yelling into the phone in utter frustration. These social niceties must go on even when your world feels like it is crashing down.

I try so hard to explain. To stay calm. To regulate my emotions. To keep my focus.

And he continues to say the most egregious things. His emotions constantly dysregulated. Very little self-awareness. Accountability and consequence not something he is comfortable with. True empathy evading him.

I move into the backyard, laying on my hammock, trying to rebalance myself. Get back to calm clarity, focus. Try to explain to him what he demonstrates he is unable to understand.

Don’t feed his supply the experts say. Don’t give him your emotion, your attention, your energy. Stay calm. Be brief. Non-emotional. Hold your boundaries. Do Not try to rationalize with or explain yourself to him.

Skills to master.

Some days, I take pride in my progress.

Today, not so much. Like an elephant with his trainer, after years of abuse, I blew today. Again. Not the first time, but hopefully getting closer to the last.

Accept and allow myself to be human. And at the same time, strive to behave more in the manner I aspire to, tomorrow.

For tonight, allow myself to be held up by my 13-year-old holding my hand as we walked to the voting poll, and my 22-year-old smiling at me, reassuring me with my statement that this will not be carried into 2024. Both my kids bravely standing up to the Dad they love, for themselves, for their needs, and for me.

As awful as my husband has, and continues to treat me, in the end, I find solace in that I get to be and live with myself, with the person I have grown into. And he will have to live with the self he has evolved into on his own.  My optimistic nature has me continuing to hope he will get the help he needs, while his toxicity is no longer welcome here.

So here I stand in line with him to vote. I smile at the poll worker, while still feeling the residual racing blood rushing through my tense body. I hear him laughing with a former colleague. Minutes after we were screaming at each other at the top of our lungs, accusing one another of unfit parenting. One of many present and future moments of social niceties I will undoubtedly find myself in, as well as in the key moments in my kids’ lives.

Like most romantic comedies, the two characters from “Something New” eventually find their way back to each other for a romantic, comical ending where the two dance together at a high society event. Her, dressed in a white ball gown, and he, in a sky blue t-shit and red mariachi costume several sizes too small for him. In a cinematic blend, we see the two marrying in her beautiful backyard he had landscaped for her.

Unlike these two characters, it doesn’t look like my awkward wait in a line, post separation, will be getting a cinematic happy ending. I’ve reached out to my husband in big romantic gestures a few times throughout the ordeal of the past couple of years, literally holding my hand out for reconciliation and a new start. When I reached to him as Sanaa Lathan’s character reached for her love in the movie, mine pulled away.

So, comfortable I must become in standing in lines and attending events with the man I’d chosen to spend the rest of my life with, while he averts his eyes to not look into mine.