"When you find yourself in hell, keep moving," is a good bit of advice.  I've kept moving and now I am moved back into my home.  A month of wandering gave me a great deal of compassion for those who have no home to call their own.  I just had a taste of homelessness.  A tiny taste as I only stayed at a friends at night and worked at my "home" during the day.  Before moving in with Celeste, I spent a week hopping from place to place not completely sure where I would be staying on arriving at a new location.  I had the luxury of flying from place to place, but the feeling of being displaced was always with me.  I knew I couldn't expect to return to a peaceful place when I returned to my home base.  My children all gone, just my husband, who was angry imagining all sorts of things that made him so....well, angry.  The house felt like a black hole of misery.  Emotions that are not properly tended to, channeled or disposed of will clutter and cloud up a place like smoke from a fire when the chimney flew remains closed.  My husband's anger and my presence, which was like gasoline to the flame, poisoned our home, so much so that our youngest complained and sickened with every passing day.  I had taken him to stay with his older brother in a state far, far away, and boy was he glad to make his escape.  He packed his video game system, said goodbye to his pets, and hardly looked back.  When he heard his dad was moving out, for real this time,  he let out a celebratory yell that I heard across 10 states.  But as much as I wanted to believe that he was relieved to have his DAD out of the picture, what I needed to remember was that he was just as glad to bid me farewell when I left him with his brother.  He wanted out of the crazy dynamic of two people who were both inept at handling the adult tasks of managing their own feelings and thoughts for the sake of their children.  I kept wanting his dad to be like his hero in "Life is Beautiful" and tell his son hilarious stories to cover up the horror and spare him the crushing weight of the loss of his security in the love of his mom for his dad and his dad for his mom.  Instead our son heard how mom was a hypocrite and lost, and not in her right mind.  Things a child should never hear from someone about his or he parent especially from the other parent.   I kept wanting to be present to my son and keep life as normal as possible.  I slipped into my workaholism, or obsessed about what to say or do to change the situation, and I stressed out, jumping on our son, when my neglect meant homework and chores went undone.  Such sad dumping of one's own emotional turmoil into the lives of the innocent ones is all too common.  The open wounds are everywhere and no amount of denial will heal them. What will heal them is the love of stable people, good counselors who tell them it's not their fault, and other children who share how they got through the pain.  I am glad to say that misery has not had the last word in our family.  This was true for me, so let me repeat:  if you're in hell, keep moving!  

More of the past year's odyssey in my next blog. . .