In January I literally fled my family home, with an intense need to escape my old life. During this turbulent time of transition, I lived in a caravan park, and went to my children's house every day to get them ready for school and later in the day, to collect them. Twice a week I would stay over, sleeping on a camp stretcher in an upstairs living area.
During this time, Nyah and I looked for a house that would tick all the boxes of being affordable, being big enough to house four children some of the time, and being close enough to access school by car or public transport.
I started university and was living in a swirl of emotions running high with tensions between myself and an understandably very angry ex-husband, trying to find and organise a new home, trying to get my head around academic life and still go to work and care for my children during the agreed time.
I naturally had to sensitively approach the fact that Nyah and I were in a romantic relationship, and to tackle how our sleeping arrangements would work.
Mr12 decided that it would be most appropriate if I slept on the couch when he and his siblings were at my house, and I readily agreed. I wanted to be sensitive to his comfort levels, being conscious that he is an adolescent boy just beginning to make sense of issues around sexuality and romance.
I gently probed the other children about what their feelings were about Nyah and I sleeping in the same bed. Mr10 declared he didn't care so long as he didn't have to see it. Miss7, who is a perceptive wee thing, said at a later time that she knew the big boys didn't like it, but she didn't mind. Mr12 had declared that it wasn't ok, and it never will be.
So, the children started coming and I started sleeping on the couch.
Quite aside from missing Nyah, the couch is uncomfortable, and it was cold. I managed to wrap up warmly in a sleeping bag, but I was certain the sagging frame would soon take a toll on my back.
In a moment of lucidity that snuck through around the anger, my ex had stated that maybe it would help 'give them an open mind' to live with two women some of the time. In other words, help re-write the hetero-normative script in their heads.
As the second round of school holidays approached, the thought of nearly two weeks on the couch became a bit much. I was thinking about how I could be sensitive to adolescent boy sensibility, but at the same time not keep the nature of our relationship hidden.
Slowly compromises were made such as sleeping with the door ajar and getting up when Mr12 did. As time went by these concessions were no longer required, and our own household routines and systems have formed. The kids aren't allowed in mine and Nyah's room, but they do know that if they wake in the middle of the night they only have to knock on the door (or in the case of Mr5, call out) and I will immediately get up to them. I will still change wet pyjamas or lie with a child scared of stormy weather.
I think time has passed and trust has been re-established, and there is nothing to fear from mine and Nyah's relationship.
The last weekend the kids were here, Mr12 was playfully acting like he was going to step over the join in the carpet that marks where the lounge finishes and the bedroom starts. I was making the bed, and pretending to growl at him. Then we had a conversation about who sleeps on what side of the bed and why - I am on the door side because I get up first when the children are here, and because then I can easily get up in the middle of the night if I'm needed. Its too hard to get out from the other side, I explained, because the room is so small that the other person has to climb.
As if it was some kind of mental slapstick comedy sketch, Mr12 laughed at the prospect of a grown woman scrambling over another to get out of the room.
Not just the 'ok' he swore it never would be.
It was all just normal and ordinary.
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