Half-Life

On Sunday night, while the intact, healthy families are preparing for another routine week, I am busy being extra cheerful for my daughter’s sake, hoping she has a pleasant night in my home, and pleasant memories of our weekend together, before she goes to her father’s place tomorrow night. She tells me how much she is going to miss me, as tears well up in her eyes. She says she doesn’t want to go to school. And I think of all the things the schools don’t consider. They don’t give the 50/50 kids extra space for the extra bag they would like to cart around—favorite clothes, pajamas, toys, stuffed animals—that they want to have with them at all times, at both homes. They don’t give two copies of important handouts—one for the mother’s house, and one for dad’s. And when the teachers assign an extra project or writing task, or remind the kids that their monthly reading logs are soon due, they don’t consider the fact that the 50/50 kids want special time with their 50/50 parents, to do fun things, to simply cuddle and talk about their day, because after all, they only see each other half as much in this half-life we live, and we scramble for time together more than anyone in this world scrambles for time. It is hard, this half-life. And the kids tell us so. Divorce is hard, they say. And yes, it is hard for us all, but at the end of the day, it is mostly hard on them, splitting their lives between two homes, living out of bags more often than not, never quite feeling settled and when they do, it’s time to uproot themselves again, make the transition, with new faces and separate rules and different dinners. There are different toys and different beds and different curtains and different songs and different books and different sheets and different night lights and different blankets and different hair brushes and different toothpaste and different bath tubs and different towels and different alarm clocks and different plans and different sounds in the night. And through all this, the kids are expected to go with the flow, to obey, to not complain, to do their homework, to not forget anything important, and get to school before the bell rings.