Moving On

         I’ve started counting the days until we move back to Maine. As of today, we have 83 left.

The last seven years have been very lonely in this community that has proven to be a horrible fit for our family. Yesterday I told my therapist that I feel like we’ve all been diminished. My children’s self-esteem is increasingly threadbare. Frankly, so is mine. Both girls are failing their grades this year as a result of both COVID and a learning environment that hasn’t offered much in the way of encouragement, support or motivation.

I look forward to seeing friends again and, hopefully, making new ones. I’m hopeful, but also so beat up. I’ve never experienced a community so concerned with social climbing, appearances and material wealth. Drive this, wear this, live here, play this sport, ski here, sail there… do you know the So and So’s? To see our school’s football team on the national news for anti-semitic play calls has been both horrifying and validating. 

I’ve been trying to find the silver lining to our experiences in this town, but given recent events, it is increasingly difficult to put a positive spin on things. Talking about mental health makes people uncomfortable, right? The answer is, yes, but I am trying to look at the last seven years as a period of time I had to endure in order to heal. In this place, without the distraction good friends might have afforded, or any support they might have offered, I was forced to confront my past. 

I wish someone had told me that having children might, at some point, cause me to re-experience the traumas of my own childhood. It’s a painful realization to understand that you weren’t given the protection and attention that you naturally provide to your own kids, whether from your own family or trusted adults in a school setting. 

In the end, my time here has been an extremely long and drawn out period of introspection and self-discovery. Writing about my childhood in such detail was like poking a beast. I woke memories that didn’t deserve to see the light of day again, but at the same time, those experiences were clearly festering. So here, in this place, I’ve learned that I am not obligated to hold onto relationships that are unhealthy for me. Family or not. I’ve learned that sometimes people are incapable of growth or insight or just plain old kindness and accountability. I’ve learned to stop pursuing or maintaining friendships with women who empower themselves by tearing other people down. That’s an unhealthy pattern I picked up in childhood from an older relative. I’ve finally learned to break the pattern. I don’t want to talk poorly about people. I don’t want to judge someone who might be quietly suffering in some way. 

I'm not sure how easy it will be for me to integrate into a new community. I’m still feeling absolutely raw and depleted from my experience in this one. Looking at it all from another angle, I stopped pursuing friendships here quite a while ago. I just stopped trying. Mostly because of G’s experience, but the other two kids have put up protective barriers as well. The gregariousness and silliness I used to write about is mostly gone. Here, instead of laughter and joy, we’ve had tears and emotional pain. 

What will public school in a new district look like for J and K? I’m not sure, but they are ready to go and give it a shot. K has been longing for a fresh start for a few months. Right now it’s increasingly difficult to even get her to go to school, let alone do the work required. On Tuesday, a boy loudly asked her if she was “special needs” because she didn’t hit a volleyball in gym class. She feels like there is no way that the female gym teacher, who was standing close by, didn’t hear it. It was loud and embarrassing and more of the same.

J is hoping that the new school won’t be “full of ridiculous 80’s movie style jocks,” or that at the very least, he might be seen as having some value for his academic abilities. J, who has a 504 plan, is in his second year of high school. We’ve not once had the yearly meeting to discuss his 504 plan, despite requests to his guidance counselor and the school’s assistant principal. Perhaps they’re too busy dealing with the football team to pay attention to a kid who took the ACT as a freshman and got one of the highest scores. 

G won’t be living with us next September and that is breaking my heart. Thanks, in part to her middle school experience, she’ll need all sorts of extra support that a public school can’t provide. Even if they could, she is literally terrified of groups of teenage girls now. Going out locally can be difficult because if she sees girls from her school, she freezes. Twice, over the past year she has dissolved into tears at the sight of groups of girls from her grade. 

The middle kid usually feels like the neglected one, but our middle kid is the heart of our family. She’s always been the one who lifts people up, makes us laugh, and shows no fear. I want that girl back again. I want her to value herself and find kind, supportive, healthy and genuine friendships. I want her to know that there are adults who value and respect her. 

83 days to go.