And all of a sudden it's just me and the cats again

Co-parenting is a weird construction. Not weird in the logical, legal way, but in an emotional, human way. Despite knowing - and experiencing - the pros and cons, it always leaves me bereft and sad when the boy has gone in his father's car. And while he is no longer crying and his face is no longer a pale mask of utter forlornness, he still has that gleam of sorrow in his eyes where his smile to me does not reach. 

During these corona times, his father and I eventually decided to adjust the co-parenting schedule from 10 days here and 4 there, to a 7 by 7 days period. It took me some convincing, because his father is not the kind of man to give up his newly achieved freedom for the capriciousness of a ten-year-old; but I persisted, because corona forced a hold to all ongoing therapies, and my body has been flaring up really badly due to Fibromyalgia. On top of that, the boy had trouble getting into the schoolwork mood, so the revisions he initially had to do, were a labour to say the least. I simply could not keep up with his overflowing highly sensitive mind and his mood swings at the time. When the notion of pre-teaching was first launched two weeks ago, I repeated my suggestion to the 7x7 deal, focusing on the balance of schoolwork instead of my failing body, and there we are now. This week started off with the first day of pre teaching here; the rest of the week the boy is at his dad's.

Leaving me to the cats again.

Used as I am to being alone, it now seems to hit me more than before. I mean, before the "lockdown light" as some like to call the Belgian time of covid-19 quarantine. Society does not seem to worry too much about the chronically ill people who have been home-bound for years and years; they ask a former astronaut for comparison to the current corona lifestyles. Working from home back then was impossible or not even contemplated; now employers bend over backwards to make it happen. The focus on fragile people consists of elderly, pregnant women and mentally disabled people. Not a word on chronically ill or how they experience these covid-19 restrictions and fears. Society worries about the complications of anxiety, depression, despair ... of the lockdown on people - the healthy people that is, the ones who work and are needed for the economy. When I was sacked, on my 30th birthday, due to Fibromyalgia and too many absences, I had just started my career as a children's therapist; I had spent three years looking for that job. And it turned out to be very easy to discard me. I lost whatever frail respect my family still had for me, and I lost a lot of social contacts, as well as financial freedom. And now, in the midst of this pandemic, the chronically ill are discarded once again.

That written, I have to admit I am happy to be here, now, on my own, after the divorce - because my marriage turned nasty and frightening, and I dare not think what could have happened if corona struck back then. That bonding was a very different kind of loneliness, the feeling lost in a relationship that should be filled with love and understanding and compassion, coming to an unexpected end as soon as a child is born and the role of the woman is done. That was another form of being discarded altogether; I often found solace with the cats, especially my Patches who is very sensitive to energies.

However, these quarantine times are similar to my normal of the past 14 years, except that now I even see fewer people, as I refrain from going anywhere except to the vet for my cats, and maybe the mailbox to post some snail mail. My ex does my grocery shopping, a friend buys bread for me. And when my boy is here, we enjoy every minute of spending time together, we talk and we laugh, we share a similar sense of humour, and as we both are highly sensitive people, we tend to 'feel' each other in more than one way.

But now he's gone, and all of a sudden it's just me and the cats again, amidst the invisible corona lockdown walls.