This morning I woke up to yelling and complaints and feeling like I was behind, even though it was 30 minutes before the alarm was going to go off. And no one would give me a hug. It was the loneliest feeling, like I was still married to someone who didn't like me. And I thought about Kate Gosselin waking up alone this morning to nothing but pure demand after all of her crap aired last night for the world to gawk at.
I've never been a fan of the "so many kids we can't keep track of them" shows, so I never watched much of Jon & Kate Plus Eight. If I'm going to be honest, though, I really couldn't watch because Kate's brittleness and the way she snapped at Jon felt so familiar to me. I could feel her disappointment in him and their relationship pouring off her, and it was too familiar for me to handle.
I think there are a lot of us who are raised to be with a certain kind of man, but then it turns out that we really needed someone with a kind of strength that the men we married just didn't have. And we stay for a long, long time, because we're Good Girls and we convince ourselves it's our own fault somehow. If we were just kinder and softer, he'd step up and be the strength we needed. But you can't change someone. People are who they are.
Kate must be so lonely inside her prison. Say what you will about the decisions she's made, she IS in prison. And I think she originally thought Jon was there in the cell with her, but now she's realizing he's in another cell, they're being forced to play Prisoner's Dilemma, and she has no idea how he's going to choose.
Being strong gets really old when there's no one who thinks you're special. But what choice do you have when you're a mother? You go on for your kids.
I hope Kate can move on from this. And I hope someday she finds someone with whom she can relax and be vulnerable and trust enough to be her better self. I've been in that hard place, locked in so much disfunction that I became a brittle facade of myself because if I didn't put up an exoskeleton I would bleed out emotionally.
In my better moments I have faith that there's someone out there who will think I'm special. And I know there's someone out there for Kate who will tap into her good qualities. The trick is hanging on until he shows up.
