I was separated, finally free

Reflections by Marta*, simply a mother

I was finally free. Separate. It had a strange effect returning home as a "free" person after the court hearing. I needed to get used to it, and I needed to feel close to the people closest to me. I needed to make new plans, and also to dream. To dream possible dreams. To start believing in my dreams again. And there was one, splendid one, that was about to come true, that my dream of Paolo would finally come true.

I was left to live alone with the children, in the matrimonial home. And in that now distant beginning of winter, time began to be marked as it would be marked for many years thereafter, and it still is like this: every other Sunday and no Sunday. One Sunday the children with me, and one Sunday the children with dad. To tell the truth, the Court's ruling said that the children would go to "enjoy their father's affection" from Saturday immediately after school until Sunday after dinner. But it never happened. Never. Their father initially came to pick them up early on Sunday morning, and then, as the years went by, later and later, and then brought them home just before dinner. So my free time was getting shorter and shorter. I'm sure this was strategic on the father's part. Never let me take liberties! I believe these are common events for many separated couples.
I never expected my ex-husband to respect the rules because it would have been like arguing, and I never liked arguing in front of the children, and then, knowing him, I know that it would have served no purpose other than to make him even more angry.
And then I'm not capable of demanding. It's not in my nature. I'm normally very accommodating. But above all, argue when? Then when did he leave with my children? And with what heart would I have left them alone, with an angry father? Are we kidding? They were children then. They had no responsibility for what had happened to the two of us. Why put them in unpleasant situations? I always thought of them first than me. I always greeted them with a smile, assuring them that I would wait for them in the evening. And wishing them a great day with their father. Then I was alone and cried. The house was too big without the children. Too quiet. And I didn't know what to do with those few hours of freedom.

In reality, in the first months of being separated, my dream would have been to finally have a weekend away from home, with Paolo. Wherever he wanted. Even at his house. But to sleep outside I would need someone to stay and sleep with the kids. And it wasn't easy. But I would have done it. I would have made up an excuse with my parents, maybe my mother would have come to sleep at my house. And I, finally, could start living again. Finally! But Paolo never said yes to me. “A whole weekend, no, but if you want just one day, yes.” So he responded to my request. We spent a day in Venice. Easily reachable from our countries. Half an hour by train. Too bad we didn't go there. He took me for a walk around Venice on a very cold but clear December day. In the open-air market he bought me a handful of kumquats, which I had never seen, and which since then, every time I see them, remind me of Paolo's hands joined, full, and his smile inviting me to taste them. Then we went to visit the Guggenheim, exchanging views, opinions, smiles, hugs. But nothing more happened. It wasn't time yet, I told myself. No, it wasn't time.
It was just one of the many days that followed from then on. A handful of hours, a river of words, a few smiles, a little peace. And then the return home. Each to his own. I was always the one to ask first. “Give me a date,” I told him. We locked it in the agenda. Meanwhile there was the date. The contents would come on their own, little by little. Have lunch in some restaurant, take a walk, or stop somewhere to chat. We mostly talked about myself, because it was me, in that period, who was in need.

Many years have passed since those days. I get a little confused about the occasions, the events. But more or less they always happened that way: appointment, me waiting, him calling me to ask me if I'm already there, and then telling me I'm on my way. Even half an hour later. Sometimes even an hour. But I wait for it.
And then the small rituals: the shared dishes, the water ordered for me, the kindness I had never experienced, the confidences, the talking about me, about him, about us. Discovering that the internal journey we were trying to follow was common, in trying to grasp the meaning of Faith, in embodying it in our daily affairs. What is Good? What is “Loving good”? Wanting your good, wanting his good, and what is sacrifice? Does sacrifice make sense? And Grace? Joy? Have you read this? Did you read that? I brought you a book, it's nice, read it, then we'll talk about it...
And writing, very long emails, and equally long phone calls.
If I hadn't had him as a friend, I don't know how I would have survived in those early days of being separated. Of course, nothing came of it. But maybe it was for the best. Already. It was always better what happened, since nothing else happened.

“In love, he who runs away wins,” a friend told me. And then I also tried to "escape". Especially because I was starting to get fed up with the frustration. It didn't make sense, in fact. No, it didn't make sense. He was a free man, I was a free woman. We were good together. What was stopping you from giving life to true love?
Maybe he had had some trauma that had affected him? Yes, perhaps it had been like that. It would have needed a lot of patience on my part. Or to force it a little? It was certainly becoming a truly intriguing case. Why weren't there any quails? Was I ugly? Old and ugly, according to my ex-husband's most affectionate definitions? No, it couldn't be. If that were the case he wouldn't have gone out with me, he wouldn't have come for lunch, for dinner, for a walk, around the world... he wouldn't have arrived with a smile every time... So what?

It was almost Easter that year. We found ourselves in a new country, where we had never been. Lunch in the restaurant was excellent, the place was discreet and private. It was a rainy day. One of those
days of pressing spring, where the rain seems to wash the first flowers to make them shine even more, and the air becomes almost shiny after the rain. We stopped in the cloister of the church. A funeral had recently ended, and we watched from afar the people walking away. For the umpteenth time Paolo escaped my hugs, but he didn't escape my looks and words. I asked him the question clearly. But he didn't answer. He remained vague. He had no words to say to me. He couldn't tell me anything.
I had decided within myself that this would be the last time, if it couldn't be the first. But it wasn't the first. So when I said goodbye to him, I didn't promise him anything for Easter. “See you?” he asked me. “I really don't think so,” I replied. And I wished him "good journey", as one wishes a friend who will not see each other again for a long, long time. I don't know what he was thinking at that moment. He never told me. I just had an infinite desire to cry. And I cried. I cried on the way home. I cried all 60 kilometers of slow, busy road. I mourned them all. And at every red light I deleted a few of his messages, and mine, and his... and in the end I deleted his phone number too. I wanted to protect myself from possible further relapses into what was becoming more and more clearly madness to me.
At home I also removed his addresses from my email address book. And I felt better. Maybe I had done it. It would have remained a mystery to me, his running away from my desire. But at least I could have learned not to want it. And to look beyond the edge of its horizon.

I almost succeeded when one day he called me and I didn't recognize him. “Paolo who?” I asked him. He was very upset because he discovered that I had also removed his numbers from my cell phone. But hearing his voice on the phone was devastating to me.
It was the first time, but not the last, that I tried to forget him. It wasn't the last. In the two years that followed there was a succession of periods of mutual rapprochement, and then of closures on my part. Except then we start to talk to each other again, to be more and more friends. Every time I told myself that I would be able to, to embrace him or to forget him, and every time he ran away, yes, he ran away. And it's really true that in love the one who runs away wins. Because the more he ran away, the more I chased him.
It almost seemed like with each re-encounter we got to know each other a little more. With each re-encounter, the joy of meeting again was greater and greater. And sooner or later I would have made it. I just had to give it time. We would have done it. Happiness was there, within reach. All it took was to grab her and not let her escape. I never doubted that he was happy with the time we dedicated to each other.
A friend of mine who worked with him at that time gave me the password to their service diary, which could be accessed via the internet. So I could check what he wrote during the times he was with me. And it was also fun to see how Paolo changed his schedule based on our appointments. Already. At that time I was more important to him than his work. It wasn't my impression. He was really happy with me. And I was with him. Years later I told him about this password and calendar thing. He laughed about it. We laughed about it. But really, how easy it is to deceive yourself when you are not free to tell yourself the truth.

* I have known Gionata.org for years now. It was the place I visited most on the internet to try to understand another fundamental event in my life. Here I met very nice people. And I also got to meet the webmasters in person.
Days ago, speaking with Innocenzo, I told him that I would like to write about these stories of mine about Jonathan, but that I don't even know where to start, it's such a tangle that it's not easy to unravel. “Do it in installments,” he replied. So, if you want, this can be an episode, a bit of a diary, a bit of a memory. An ongoing story. Which goes forward a little, and goes back a little, to try to understand, and find the thread of a normal story, because normal is falling in love and loving, even if the orientation is not the one normally considered normal. I have no idea how it's going to end, because it's still unfolding. And I still don't understand everything. In fact, sometimes I feel like I don't understand anything.