Split

There’s a certain simplicity to the life of the harried and married with children: the nuclear family with two and a half kids. The day to day is predictably unpredictable with its routines: breakfast, lunch, dinner, work, meetings, daycare, changings, sports, mid-night feedings, music lessons, and so on and so on, day in and day out.

And then we split.

Divorce established two worlds. In one world, I was a parent, taking care of two kids and all the aforementioned duties and then some. The other world, I was single and child-less, relatively free from parenting responsibilities.

That other life was like another dimension: a life spent in the future but only for a few days at a time—days that were often spent in another city, another country, another continent. “Once the kids are on their own, I can travel farther, for longer. Maybe I’ll move somewhere.”

Pre-pandemic, deep within a relationship with a woman from one of those other cities in one of those other countries, I was at the peak of being split in two—being asked to rearrange schedules—defragging the calendar, as it were—to maximize the segments of time in this alternate dimension.

Fifteen years post-separation, I find myself on the cusp of the past meeting the future and returning to a one-dimensional world. My eldest is planning to move out soon. My youngest has one more year of high school left. My ex has relinquished control of the rigid schedules we clung to for a decade and a half.

I still have commitments and obligations. There’s still school and work drop-offs and pick-ups. The schedule has become like a Rorschach test, unclear from week to week or day to day.

Eventually, shortly, the two lives will converge back into one. The nest will be empty and I’ll no longer be split.