As a child, all I ever wanted was a “normal” family.
This was my wish growing up in a dysfunctional one, and though I couldn’t have said at the time what “normal” meant, I knew what it didn’t mean.
And so into my 20s, well before I had children, I began to prep for the opportunity to create something out of what often felt like nothing.
I chose friends with loving, happy families and watched closely how they lived. I read, researched and spent a lot of money on therapy, learning which of my questionable behaviors needed work and which were behaviors that might just come with the territory of being human.
Family became my everything, as I bore three babies and adhered to the normal American trappings of soccer practice, Girl Scouts and green beans from the garden. I also learned by osmosis what it means to discipline fairly and that the most important thing is communication. I learned the value of humility and how to say “I’m sorry.” I learned the meaning of letting go while holding on. I learned what it means to love and be loved, and as I did, so did my children learn to support each other, to work through conflicts when they arose and to hold together as family while also developing independent lives.
For 30 years, maintaining a normal, healthy family was my mission.
And then the bottom fell out.
Two years after my youngest graduated from high school, I realized while I was putting the best face on the American family I was dying inside an unsatisfying marriage.
I agonized over my decision to separate from my husband, mostly because of how it would affect the children, also because of a Catholic upbringing that burned a scarlet "D" on my chest. But I ultimately held to the notion that the truth will set you free. And if the truth was that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the marriage work, I needed to leave it.
I was sure we would all come out on the winning side of an adult choosing to live her life authentically. Only, I realized soon into the separation five years ago that for the moment I was simply trading one set of problems for another. There were layers of grief, remorse and guilt to work through — mine and the children's. I worried I was losing them and the normal family I’d worked so hard to create.
Things only got more complicated when my soon-to-be ex was diagnosed with early onset dementia, which brought me back into his life even as I was trying to separate myself from it. My health deteriorated. COVID-19 erupted. Eventually, all three adult children came home from cities around the country to assist, which helped, but also complicated our lives even more.
It has been five years now since my husband and I separated.
It has been an intense and stressful time as my husband moved into a facility and I, to a cane. We have had to hire friends to cook and clean for me, as the kids have been in and out of the house, back and forth to cities around the country maintaining half-remote jobs.
It has also been, ironically in the chaos, a healing time.
Because, as I turns out, the rules and mores of a healthy family don’t stop just because things change.
It took a while for our family to reclaim what we know about ourselves. At some point, it seemed we were all on conflicting trajectories.
But in the end, who we have always been at core is emblazoned on the hearts and sinew of each of us.
As we recovered our energy and the ground beneath our feet, so did we begin having family meetings again, working through conflicts, coming to solidarity around these difficult times.
In the end, it appears, we are stronger than ever as both family and individuals in the struggle.
The other day my son said something about us being a kooky family.
“What do you mean, kooky?” I said.
“Well, look at everything we have going on. Most families don't have all this.”
"And look how intact we are, despite,” I said.
I’m not sure now that normal was the descriptor I was going for way back when.
In fact, if this is kooky, I’ll take it.
