Andante

1

"Charlotte, could you hand the permission slips to the parents as they come for pick up this evening? It's just for the trip to the park next weekend" Marjorie says handing me a stack of papers.

"Of course" I answer simply.

Marjorie lingers for a moment, eyeing me as I move to put the stack on a shelf by the door. She has been doing that quite often over the last two weeks. I suppose it's to be expected that people might notice a slight change in my behaviour but nobody has asked me quite just yet, what it's actually all about. Though I tend to keep my private life private, Marjorie and particularly Carly are not the type of people to let me keep much to myself so I've been doing my best to avoid much conversation.

"OK well if you have any issues with any of the parents,"

"Will do!" I say as brightly as possible and she gives me another funny look before exiting the room.

The rest of my day went by pretty easily, no hiccups from the parents and the children went home without a scratch, well no major ones anyway. It's a rare day when no children give themselves bumps or scrapes. I closed up as slowly as I could but I've officially run out of random things that I think need doing. The drive home was the shortest drive of my life, why is it that when there's somewhere that we want to be, it feels like the longest trip but when you want to avoid it you manage to get there quicker than you could even imagine. It's like a cruel joke from the universe to force you to deal with your demons.

The house is empty when I walk through, it's dark and empty. The sound of kids playing and my husband cooking in the background is something of a memory at this point. It's been months without the usual everyday happenings, now it's just the sound of me and the to or the kids three days a week. Our home, used to be the place that made me feel just that, like I was home. I was safe and warm and I could let my shoulders drop for the evening, now though, my shoulders stayed stuck in their tension. We spent years cultivating a space that we could build our family and hold on to. Then again, most marriages start off with the greatest of plans and ideas but unfortunately life doesn't work that way. Words go unsaid, arguments get shoved to the side for the sake of peace and the little things that used to make your heart flutter, all of a sudden spark nothing but the notion that they don't Have the same effect anymore.

I'm not going to sit here and say life with the kids got in the way, like when parents say they get caught up looking after their children and don't see or talk to each other and that's what led to their downfall because I don't believe that. I believe children are what can ultimately make you decide to hold on and keep working on it. Being in love is a choice, we wake up every day and make the choice to actively work on staying in love. For us, or at least for me, that work became more and more tedious over time, it became a chore, and my children were the only reason I lasted for so long as I did. That was my choice, it was OUR choice not to stay in love with each other, but the love we had for our children and our family as a whole was something That never changed.

The worst thing for me is that there really was nothing wrong with my husband, he's a great man, a good father, and a kind and funny person but we had been together for a long time and unfortunately, we ran out of steam. It's amazing that even though neither of us did anything wrong or nothing awful happened between us, yet we have fallen apart regardless. People always seem to think that you need something traumatic to happen to split up a couple but the truth is that we fall out of love just as easily as we fall in and nobody tells us that falling out of love with someone that you still like, is a painful as it is. I think I would have preferred if he had cheated or done something to really break my heart because that feels like I can justify the loss of love but now I have nothing but the notion that it didn't feel like love anymore and that is something that people will ultimately judge me for a belief that I just broke up my family for no reason other than my own selfish desires.