CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - BAD THINGS
Dearest Nurse, everything happens for a reason.
“Why do bad things happen, mom?”
For the first three weeks after Paris and my separation, this became a constant refrain with Big. She would look up at me with her perfect, hazel eyes, red-rimmed with tears, searching mine for an answer. An answer that, at the time, I didn’t have.
“Baby, things are going to get so much better now. You’ll see.” I probably said one hundred times. “I know it feels bad right now, but you’re about to get two much healthier, happier parents—“
“But it does feel bad! It just feels really, really bad.” She’d bury her face in my stomach, and all I could do was hold her. Get down on the floor, and pull her into my lap. While Little tore up the house and ate the furniture, I would list all the reasons why divorce was the best thing that could have happened to us.
It was hard. Being so elated at the fact that I had finally liberated myself, while my child was suffering for the same reason. I wanted her to know things were better now, even if they didn’t seem that way. I needed her to believe it. And so, I denied that there was anything bad happening. That anything negative she might be associating with this experience was just because of the general, societal association with divorce, and that everything was just dandy.
But that wasn’t true.
“Mom? Was it hard for you when your parents split up?” Big asked me the other day. We were sitting next to one another on the floor of her room, our backs against the dresser, watching Little dance naked around her training potty.
I looked at her, getting ready to give her a whole spiel about how great it was having divorced parents. How much closer you become with them individually. How you see your parents as human long before your friends do. And how, when you're a teenager, you can play them against one another to great effect... but when I met her eyes… I couldn’t.
“Mommy. Am I making you cry?”
“No.” I said, realizing my eyes had welled with tears.
Because in that moment, looking into my daughter’s eyes, I was her. Or me, but a much younger me. A seven-year-old me caught between worlds. Worried about forgetting my school books when I’d switch from one house to the other. Feeling like the odd man out among my friends. Always concerned I would hurt one parent’s feelings by requesting to stay with the other, or not requesting to stay with the other. And wishing. Praying my parents would get back together, because I thought if I just wished hard enough, I could make it true.
“I’m making me cry, not you.” I said to her finally. “It got a lot easier when I was a teenager. I actually kind of liked it, then. But when I was your age… it was… it was hard.”
I shrugged, wiping the tears from my face as I finally admitted that no matter what I said, what I did, or what I tried to convince her of, a bad thing had happened in her life. Though it would almost certainly get better - a lot better, in fact - a bad thing had happened, and she just had to get through it.
Bad things happen all the time. They’ve happened to me. My parents split up, got back together, and split up again. I was never able to launch a successful acting career. Romeo dumped me. I got herpes. My marriage didn’t work out, and then I screwed someone else’s boyfriend. Throughout the course of this month, I’ve struggled, lied to myself, then got brutally honest with myself, and cried. a. fucking. lot.
But, here’s the thing: My parents splitting up enabled me to be there for my daughter today. Not launching an acting career forced me to look elsewhere for my happiness. Romeo breaking up with me lead me to write the screenplay that launched my career. Getting herpes lead me to Paris, and even if the marriage didn’t work out, I now have the most beautiful children in the world, and a wonderful friend and co-parent who still, miraculously, supports me with his whole heart. Screwing someone else’s boyfriend lead me to start the Juliet Anonymous Project, and in spite of the emotional rollercoaster it elicited, it worked.
How do I know? Because of all the little moments. Because I laughed when my mother called me out the other day. Because of the way my face feels when I smile now. Because of the friends I’ve made and have reunited with. Because of how the ground feels under my feet, and how I can’t help but dance when I walk. I know because of how ready and excited I feel for all of the possibilities and challenges that lay ahead. I know because I was able to admit to my daughter that something bad was happening to her, and that she just needs to heal. And lastly, I know because I was finally ready to talk to Romeo today.
As it turns out, even my crazy life is just a life, not a movie. Romeo ended up having to work on Friday the 24th, and so couldn’t make it anyway. Again, I laughed out loud when I saw the e-mail he sent. I mean, of course. I wasn’t even disappointed.
As much as I wanted to finish this project and give this story a killer ending, he had been asking to talk. Fearing rejection, of course, I ran from it. Insisting that we just wait until the 24th. I wanted to be prepared, to get through what I had prescribed for myself before confronting whatever it was he felt it was so important to talk about.
But then yesterday happened. A whole day of saying goodbye to a boy I had loved and was never coming back. What I only kind of realized I was doing at the same time, was saying goodbye to a man I didn’t know. A man who, if I had just bumped into at that bar on August 13th, I wouldn’t have given a second thought about. But instead, I had slept with him a couple times while he was cheating on his girlfriend, and then I spent a few weeks over romanticizing that interaction. And that’s not great. Considering what we did, some might even say that’s bad.
But here’s what I’ve come to realize about bad things: They’re necessary. Every bad thing that has ever happened has made me who I am today. And you know what this process has taught me more than anything? I fucking love me.
Bad things are the universe’s way of course correcting, stopping you in your tracks, and turning you toward the light. Bad things make way for the good. every. single. time. And that’s exactly what I said to Romeo today when we finally let go of our ghosts, and said our last goodbyes.
Sincerely yours,
Juliet