Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations

by Jessica Vivian

  To notice.

  To show concern.

  It didn't happen.

  Then I went to college.

  I was confused. I didn't want to be there. I had a hard time relaxing and feeling like myself and finding my place. My need for male attention ruined my friendships.

  I was scared and insecure and intimidated and lonely.

  I did what lonely girls did.

  When I found out was pregnant and I told him he said, "I will take care of you."

  It was music to my fucking ears. So I stayed like a puppy waiting for my reward. But he wasn't capable of keeping his promise. So I had a baby in a strange town with a strange, lukewarm family.

  Fitting in and being accepted by them felt like playing a game I'd never learned the rules of and frankly didn't even realize I was playing.

  So I wasn't informed and wasn't invited.

  I stayed in an apartment with a baby. Alone. For two years.

  There was no one to talk to. I didn't know anybody. And he spent every available minute away from me and my pathetic, bottomless neediness. I turned off the part of me that needed attention, or affection, or respect, or acknowledgment.

  Then I had another baby.

  And there was no one there.

  And I cried alone in the shower.

  And I cut into my skin.

  And then I had another baby and we moved to my hometown away from the people who only tolerated me. And for a moment, I had a family. I had a job I liked. I had a vast circle of friends. I had my mom. I had my sister. I was happy...

  ...until I wasn't.

  Insecurity seeped into the cracks in our fractured marriage and everything crumbled. He cheated. I wanted out. He took the kids to Tampa to visit and convinced me his family was different and that everything would be different and to give it another try. So I moved back to Tampa.

  But I was alone again.

  I filed for divorce. I moved into a tiny apartment with a pissy mattress. My three kids and I ate, slept and played on that pissy mattress. I could not cry. I could not fold. I could not shake. I was all there was. They were all looking to me. And I stood there alone. And here I still stand.

  And part of me is so proud of my independence and my rough exterior and my giant balls and my reputation. But most of me is just so tired and so lonely.

  And I really really need a hug and I need to be able to lean on someone. I need a community. I need an extra pair of hands. I need a fresh set of eyes. I need a fucking high-five at the end of a tumultuous day. I need to....

  ...move back home.

  Logistics

  This is what I'm dealing with.

  “Homeschooling at work” didn't work. But we tried and I got a taste of it. It was good. It's definitely something I want to do again in the future once life is less...just...when it's less. Jaya is back in the Math and Science school and doing fine.

  The job is great. My boss is unbelievable. She lets me clock in after I've dropped off the kids and she lets me leave to pick them up from school. It's part time work but with the cost of after school care my take home pay is actually forty bucks more working part time than it would be working full time. And I need to take home as much as possible.

  Unfortunately, because I work now the Department of Human Resources reduced my food assistance.

  And then they decided that since I never had a child support order through the state, because he gives me cash, that I must be lying and now I'm under investigation for food assistance fraud and they just cut me off completely.

  This is a major inconvenience.

  There is no free lunch at the kids' charter school so I am paying for that in addition to gas, laundry, groceries, school stuff, toiletries, clothes and utilities.

  My mom, very graciously, pays my rent. If she didn't I have no idea what I'd do.

  But I run out of gas often when I'm running errands. I have to call his dad to help because his work is close. He brings me gas and asks why his son isn't giving me enough money.

  Well, my ex-husband is a massage therapist.

  After we got divorced he decided to go on a tattoo binge and he inked himself from his neck to his ankles.

  He did it all “for trade” but I was still furious because I knew he was severely limiting his marketability as an employee and also any time spent in a tattoo chair is time he didn't spend massaging someone for money.

  It's indicative of the sorts of subtle sabotages he performed throughout his life to keep people's expectations of him nice and low.

  So sure enough, just as expected, the money is no longer rolling in.

  The kids are no longer getting those weekend visits.

  I asked him to pick up the kids from school once a week so I could work a double shift on those days. If I did that, I could make enough money to get more groceries or pay part of my rent.

  That turned out to be too inconvenient for him.

  He can't find enough massage work, can't afford the gas to come to north Tampa, and is always “working on it.”

  So now my time is spent calculating.

  I have enough gas for the week but not enough money for laundry. I could do laundry at Kelley's or I could take an extra shift over the weekend. If I don't pay the power bill this month I can stock the pantry. And so on and so on.

  A few weeks ago, I assessed a particularly empty pantry and found that all I had was flour, baking powder, bread, frozen peas an egg and a quarter stick of butter.

  I cried for a bit and then realized I could make pancakes. The peas and bread would have to wait.

  They'd be really watery, sad pancakes but poor kids don't have sophisticated palates.

  I found enough change around the house to grab a cheap bottle of off brand “syrup” and went to pick the kids up from school.

  My youngest asked, as she always does, what was for dinner.

  “Hmm...I dunno. How about PANCAAAAAAKES!”

  My kids were elated. They were so surprised their taskmaster mom was “letting” them have pancakes for dinner. They had no idea there was no other choice.

  The kids happily scarfed their sad, watery pancakes and went to bed thinking I was the coolest mom in Tampa.

  We eat chili, beans and rice and pancakes for days and days on a rotating basis with various toppings depending on how much cash I have.

  Somehow, amazingly, the kids still thing pancakes are delicious. I don't know how long I can keep this up.

  Exit Plan

  Since my heavenly weekend with Chris in Mobile I've realized the best plan for my kids and I would probably be to move back to Mobile.

  Outside of Kelley and one of my ex's sisters I don't have friends or support. In Mobile, I have my mother, sister, grandmother and aunt. I have lifelong friends who were excited to see me and who have been rooting for me from afar through the blog. I cannot earn enough money to support us here without childcare. Moving is just the most rational decision.

  It'd be easy to justify staying if my ex was more involved but he is not. When I brought the idea of moving to his attention, he did not argue with me. He did not necessarily like the idea but, as with most things that release him from responsibility, he felt it was best. He said he'd be able to focus more on finding work and then spend quality time with us when he came to visit.

  I am looking at leaving in March because that is when my lease is up. That is a strange time to pull the kids out of school. I'm not completely convinced I want to put the kids in school in Mobile for just the last few months so I am entertaining the idea of homeschooling just through the end of the year.

  To research I decided to join a Mobile homeschooling group on Facebook. The women are so nice and so welcoming and so encouraging and helpful.

  There is one woman who I'm really drawn to who I'll call CBL which is short for Crazy Blonde Lady.

  CBL is very vocal and opinionated and knowledgeable. Her energy seeps through th
e screen. She is a powerhouse. She is straightforward and brash but not so much so that it's offensive or off-putting, at least not to me. She's like Ouiser from Steel Magnolias with less hot sauce and more sweet tea.

  When explaining why I wanted to move back to Mobile from Tampa (shocking) I just referred her to my blog.

  She read a few posts and sent me a PM saying “I'm gonna add you to a secret group.”

  She added me to her group on Facebook. It was a whole community of women comprised of single moms and other women who'd helped them. Then CBL introduced me to the group as Jessica “the one we gotta get the hell out of Florida.”

  “Listen,” she said, “if you just get here. You and your kids WILL be taken care of. You will have clothing. You will have food. Just get here. My passion is women and children...especially mamas. I have a huge network. I know just about everybody in the whole damn town. Most of them just call me 'that crazy blonde lady'. But all of them know I get shit done and I mean what I say.”

  I don't know why but I believe her.

  Numb – December 2011

  People ask me how I handle my stress, my ex, my kids and my life without medication.

  The truth is I turned my feelings off years ago. I'm terrified that I can never get them back.

  It is common for people who are facing distressing circumstances to hear these well-meaning cliches:

  When God closes a door He opens a window.

  God will never give you more than you can handle.

  I'm going to have to respectfully disagree and not because I am religiously unaffiliated. It's because I see people crushed and battered by their lives all the time. There are industries dependent on it. Klonopin, anyone?

  My life should be crushing me.

  I am single. Big deal. I have three kids under the age of ten. The cost of after school care negates my ability to work full time so I make jack squat for money. I have no washer and dryer, which seemed like a small issue when I hastily chose this apartment, but that means I have to take three or four laundry baskets (depending on who peed and who spilled and who threw up) down a flight of stairs, load it and my kids into my sexy minivan and spend money that I don't have on doing my laundry at a laundromat. I make just enough money to cover my utilities - no more, sometimes less.

  The week I realized all my underwear had holes in them and I decided like a selfish, indulgent, wasteful person to buy new underwear, it put my entire month's budget off and I ended up paying my car insurance late. The same thing happened the next month when I bought shampoo and razors.

  I am no longer under investigation by the Department of Human Resources and my food assistance has been restored but since I have a job we get around $400/month. That means I have to feed the four of us for around $13/day.

  Not per person.

  Altogether.

  I have no savings, no life insurance, and no health insurance. All of this should make me upset.

  But I don't feel anything.

  I can list it and I can look at it from outside myself and say "wow, that seems stressful!" but none of it registers in my body. No elevated pulse. No lump in my throat.

  Nothing.

  I slipped out of myself years and years ago. Right around the time of that panic attack with the garbage can.

  Feelings, I decided, are a nuisance and I don't have time for such a distraction and therefore I am done with them. And that was that. I discarded the ones that don't serve me: anxiety, sadness, despair, desperation, hopelessness, hope, elation, joy, bliss, ecstacy.

  I am a robot. I am programmed to care for my children. I am programmed to drive my car. I am programmed to perform my boring job. I am programmed to be pleasant and witty when necessary for the former in-laws. I don't remember how to do anything else. I don't remember how to feel anything else.

  A woman I know well found out she had cancer - again - for the second time in five years. She was to undergo surgery and endure six months of chemotherapy. When I found out I was pretty unmoved. I was some sort of upset. Angry, maybe, but not particularly downtrodden. I was as removed from it as I am everything else.

  That scared me (but not really, as I cannot feel fear anymore) because I wonder what will have to happen for me to to jump back into my body.

  I have been floating a safe distance behind myself for quite some time - letting my body take all the blows and watching from far away, assessing the damage intellectually and clinically and logically.

  And trust me, my body shows the damage.

  So what if everything gets good again?

  What if the clouds part and things are okay? What if I can afford to feed us and have a little left over for cute underwear again? What if I am so far removed that I can't feel that either? What if I can't feel the good stuff?

  I'd like to fall in love at some point. I'm pretty certain I've never experienced it. But I'm worried I won't be able to, because I will still be floating somewhere in the ether, miles away from Earth and touch and breath and pain and hope.

  The only time I register feelings is in the evenings with my children.

  It's my youngest child's hammy performances and wet kisses. It's in her sparkly eyes and her soft, soft hands and her lisp and her living room performance art.

  It's in my son's dreamy long lashes and gray-green eyes and constant rambling. And his delirious, flute-trill of a giggle. It was that giggle the doctor said was probably gas when I pointed out that I was sure he was giggling at me when he was 7 weeks old and still cross-eyed.

  It's in my oldest child's sideways glances and floppy, scarecrow lankiness and Care Bear cheeks. It's in her one-liners, her giant worried eyes and the gentleness she tries to hide.

  With them I feel peace and warmth and calm in the wee hours when I let them stay up late just because I am not ready to tell them goodnight.

  I need them, so I know I'm still alive.

  The Watcher

  Bridget is the eyes in the sky.

  My apartment complex is like every other low rate apartment complex. We are all too close together. We hear everything.

  But while most of us kept our heads down and hurried to and from our vehicles, Bridget sat calm, cool and idly on her second-story balcony, rocking in her chair, smoking a cigarette and seeing everything.

  She is there when I leave to take the kids to school and she is often there when I get home with them at night.

  When I hear ruckus in the parking lot, she is still on the balcony, no longer sitting but erected and peering like a meerkat. The next day she'd have a full report and as soon as we left for school, she'd holler down the details and assure us that everything had been handled or warn us if they had not.

  She looks like Cyndi Lauper and has the same nasal New York accent. And she was always watching.

  She was like a ghetto Gatsby. Everyone knew of her and she threw the most amazing parties that spilled out of her apartment, onto the balcony, the parking lot, the nearby lake and sometimes wandering to the pool beyond the operating hours.

  “I've lived here fuh-evuh, whaddathey gonna do?” she'd answer when asked about breaking pool policy on hours of operation.

  And sure enough, the apartment manager would usually join the revelry. Bridget is just the boss.

  She invited Jack over to play with her son once.

  While he was there my ex's mom came by to “spend some time with her grandbabies.”

  This is usually where she sits in my apartment on her phone, telling people how much she loves her grandbabies only to leave 20 minutes later.

  “Where's Jack?” she asked.

  “He's playing with a friend.”

  Bridget hollered from the balcony, minutes later, asking if Jack could stay for dinner.

  I hollered yes.

  I noticed my ex's mom was disappointed.

  I didn't change my mind because my introverted son is rarely interested in interacting with other kids. This was
a small miracle.

  Later, when Bridget brought Jack back home she said to me “I nevuh see them come help you. Nevuh. They take you all for granted. Jack was having fun and I'm glad he stayed with me f'dinnuh...you know, to show her.”

  Suddenly, I realized Bridget was an ally.

  And it wasn't long before I needed her again. This morning, I went to take my morning piss. When I got up and turned around to flush, right on the back of the toilet was one of my no-I-don't-think-so's: a lizard. I froze in panic. I can do a lot of very brave things like, oh, say leave my poisonous marriage with no money, food, furniture, education or job.

  But pick up a lizard?

  No.

  Just no.

  So frozen, I holler to Jack to please go to Bridget's apartment and ask her husband to come help me catch this lizard. I knew crazy/hot Spencer was probably asleep and would come with a gun and the other single mom always looked like she didn't want anyone to talk to her.

  Shortly after, Bridget's husband, Mark, came by. He called from the kitchen, asking where a cup was so he could catch and release.

  He came and did just that. I thanked him. He “any timed” and I took the kids to school.

  A few hours later there was a knock at the door. It was Bridget.

  She got very near me and spoke in a low voice.

  “Listen, I really hope you don't take this the wrong way.”

  That's never a good start. I nodded for her to continue.

  “Mark came back from helpin' you this morning and he was a little upset. He said he looked in yuh pantry and that you guys don't have any food.”

  I wasn't sure where she was going with this. Oddly, we had more food than we usually do and I told her so. But I hadn't seen our situation from the outside. As long as I could manage a peanut butter sandwich, sometimes on one slice of bread folded over and beverage, we were okay.

  “Listen, Jessica, I don't wanna offend you or get in yuh business but it really upset Mark's heart and...I just wanted to ask you. Would it be okay if Mark and I buy ya just a few groceries?”