Internal Compass

"Those birds are flying north," Elizabeth said between handstands in the sand.

I glanced up and nodded my head. It's easy for me to tell the points of the compass when the ocean is in front of me. "Where did you learn about that?"

She shrugged and turned a cartwheel, yelling over the wind and waves, "They always fly north except when they fly south."

I pondered that piece of five-year-old wisdom and took a slow breath.

Chad's move has been rough. It's amazing how many little things I took for granted while he lived locally. I had the flexibility to call and switch days when work had given me a headache or to ask him to drop the kids of after dinner so I could go for a walk or run. If the kids wanted to stay an extra night with one or the other of us, it was a quick phone call, an easy agreement.

Then there are the bigger things.

For the nearly four years, I woke up nearly every morning and made my way to the front door to flick the security latch back before stumbling to the bathroom and the hot shower awaiting me. By the time I got out, I'd hear him fixing the kids breakfast, checking the calendar, asking why I still had leftovers two days after ordering Chinese.

I haven't seen him in almost two weeks. It's the longest we've gone without seeing each other in thirteen years. It feels odd. I sometimes walk to the front door in the morning and pause with my fingers on the latch before remembering our routine has changed.

I suppose in some ways we'd settled into a new rhythm, a mostly easy friendship born in the calm after the storm all those years ago. I look at him and no longer see my husband. I do, however, see a friend and the father of my children. I miss that guy.

Nightly phone calls or Skype chats are built in to our nightly routine. Sometimes the kids fight over the phone, each having more to tell their dad than can be said in a half hour. Sometimes they show him Lego creations. Sometimes they sit, content to know he's watching them, his face filling the screen while they draw or play.

It's hard to explain this fissure I'm feeling. Before and after have cracked, leaving a gulf I can no longer deny exists. The kids and I are struggling to find our footing in the shifting sand. We have our routines and when the pressure becomes too much, we run away to the beach where we watch the sun kiss the sea and collect pebble size shards of glass.

I worry, sometimes, what this division is going to do to them. I worry they'll feel divided, robbed of experiencing the picture of the family their dad and I grew up in. I worry they'll spend their lives struggling with their own relationships, questioning their value, their hearts.

Then, sometimes, I see signs they might be better than I was. Than I am.

"Do you always know which way is south?" I asked Elizabeth.

"Yep."

I spun her around in the violet twilight until her laughter is louder than the waves. "Quick! Which way is south?"

Stumbling and laughing, she stood up and pointed with confidence. She held the compass needle of her finger steady while I fished my phone from my pocket to check what seems slightly more east than I'd put south. The app lit her grin and confirmed her accuracy.

"But how do you know?"

"Because it just is."