Kids Say the Darnedest Things

The first day of school

Today is the last day of school for my kids.  Jonah biked for his last time (his new ritual), and I pushed my dear sweet Pokey in the stroller (I am hoping that she will be able to walk next year).  I was getting all choked up as I said good-bye to the principal, the teachers and other parents.  My kids had the best teachers and classes this year, and it is so nice to see them thrive.

We all want the best for our children.  That was one of my biggest concerns when my ex and I broke up.  Having come from a very loving and tight-knit family where divorce was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind, I was worried about bringing my kids up in a (damn this term!) “broken” home.  But lo and behold, my kids are flourishing in spite of (or perhaps because of) our divorce.  In fact, I think they are better off with separated parents because we are now kind and loving with one another instead of tense and at each other’s throats.

There is much that I could say about this topic, but I have noticed that it’s harder for me to write about the kids than it is to write about my ex and me.  They are so close to my heart, and today of all days I am wearing my heart on my sleeve.  So instead I turn to a more amusing topic…my kids’ reactions to our post-divorce dating life.

In the first year after our breakup, I started seeing a guy who had three kids of his own.  Jonah, who is my social butterfly, said to me one day.  “Mama, I want you and Udi (the name he made up for his dad) to get re-married so that I can have a mom and a dad at each house.  And I want some more siblings too.  Wow this is going to be fun!”  I had  to admire his enthusiasm.  Like me, he often looks at the bright side of a situation.  Clearly he is in the more love is more love camp.  My response was … “Sure, honey, but you let me pick the man, okay?”

When I was dating Marc, the kids made a couple of funny, yet poignant remarks.  Marc is 55, quite a bit older than anyone else I had dated.  The kids adored him because he rolled around on the floor with them and threw them in the air, typical kid pleasing activities (his own boys are grown up).  I was therefore surprised when one morning Jonah told me that he didn’t think that Marc should be my boyfriend.  His reasoning?  That he didn’t look “right” for me.  When I asked him why, he said that he looked too old and that my previous boyfriend looked “better.”  I explained to him that looks weren’t everything and that what was inside of Marc was more important.  A few days later the four of us were in Marc’s car, heading to the bowling alley, and Layla, the parrot, repeated the same thing right in front of Marc, who, by the way, thinks that he looks much younger than he does.  I was a bit mortified, but luckily he laughed at how tough kids can be.  However, now that he has broken up with me, maybe I should remind him that he looked too old for me anyway.

Adults often think about things in their heads but have learned not to share every thought with others.  Kids…not so much.  So just like Jonah compared Marc to another boyfriend, Layla one day compared me to my ex’s girlfriend.  She said that her laugh was not as loud as mine, but that her butt was just as “jiggly.”  Considering that she is 26 and I am 43, I think that was a major compliment.  I’m just so sorry that she isn’t having as much fun as me.

Back to Marc…when he broke up with me, Layla looked me straight in the eye and said,  “You don’t need him, Mama.  You’ve got us.”  You’ve got to appreciate that she has learned female solidarity at five years old.

The last one is my current favorite.  Jonah said to me a few days ago, “Mama, you know why you aren’t dating anybody right now?  Because your stories aren’t very interesting.”  That one hit below the belt.

My Two Dads

Since my ex and I have split up, I have looked at my own dad with new eyes.  Maybe it’s because the kids and I spend longer amounts of time with my family than we used to.  Maybe it’s because my dad is now the only man in the family and so he takes on the father role with my kids.  Maybe it’s because he does things for me that Hugo used to do.

Whatever the reason, I have since wondered why I never married a guy like my dad.  He’s super gregarious, gets along with everyone, and really enjoys getting to know new people.  If you ask him for help with anything, he jumps up and attends to it immediately.  If you were just at the market and realize that you still need a couple of things, Dad is your guy.  He’s on the job with a smile on his face and a spring in his step.  Not to dis my ex, but he has none of those traits.  At times when I would ask him to do something for me, he would remind me that he wasn’t my father (and I sighed a little on the inside).

Today, on Father’s Day, as I contemplate what I love about both of my dads, my own and my kids’ father, I realize that perhaps the differences between them are not so great.  First and foremost, they are extremely dedicated fathers.  They always shower their kids with affection, something that fathers are starting to do more often, but it still is often seen as the mom’s job.  Both of them give great massages.  One of my favorite memories of my childhood is the Sunday evening family massages that we used to do in the living room in front of the fire while listening to “Classical Barbra” (people never believe that memory).  My ex uses on our kids the massage techniques that he learned from our pre-natal class (that he never got to use on me because my births were too darned fast).  Layla is especially appreciative because she is more high strung and has a hard time relaxing and falling asleep at night.  Both of my dads also tell their children on a regular basis that they love them (something I have learned as an adult that you can’t take for granted), and they aren’t afraid to cry when something touches them deeply (usually someone they love).

My dads are also on the lookout for opportunities to have fun.  Yesterday, I thought I did all the preparation for Layla’s birthday party.  I invited the kids, bought all the food, baked the birthday cake, made tacos for the parents, ordered pizza for the kids and got everything set up.  Hugo, at the last minute, ducked out and returned with a Slip-n-Slide.  It was a 90 degree day and it turned out to be the hit of the party.  I just figured the kids would run around and do their thing, but Hugo had the better idea for a hot summer afternoon and evening.  He knew how to make it fun.

My dad coached my sister in sports and did art projects with us (and my kids).  I remember him making me a lovely leather medallion to wear around my neck in Indian Princesses (please, I know now it wasn’t so PC).  He named me Princess Yellow Flower and I loved it.  He also made me foam butterfly wings to wear one Halloween.  And I certainly have fond memories of the messes we made with his hot glue gun.

My two dads are also mean house cleaners, once again going against gender stereotyping.  They both claim to hate it, but they are good at it.  So sometimes you lose the glass you were drinking out of because they have whisked it away to clean it, but I do appreciate what a lovely house they both keep.

In the end, I know I made the right decision when I married Hugo.  My father must have unconsciously influenced me when I chose him because he is really the same kind of great father.  Things might not have worked out the way that we planned it, but he inadvertently led me to meet my ideal man…our son Jonah.  He has his father’s handsome bronzed skin and beautiful green eyes, his dreamy sensitivity, and loving nature, but with enough of me thrown in (by being logical, responsible, and mature beyond his years) to make him the perfect male specimen (says his completely unbiased mama).  For this, I am endlessly grateful.

So What? I’m Still a Rockstar.

My platonic boyfriend Tobey doesn’t always read my blog.  He’s got me to fill him in on the news in person.  So he wasn’t privy to my ex’s recent outbreak of nostalgia.  When I told him about it, he was flummoxed and tried to say something measured but instead came out with this.  “I won’t let you get back together with him.”  Aww…isn’t that sweet?  He’s afraid of me getting hurt or he’s concerned about my well-being.  Nope.  His reasoning was the following “You wouldn’t be fun anymore, and you wouldn’t have time for me.”  I laughed and reassured him that I will not let any suitor/boyfriend/ex hubby get in the way of our relationship and that our Thursday night group is sacred to me.

I couldn’t resist sharing Tobey’s response with my ex.  I know.  I am a bigmouth, but if I weren’t, I would miss out on all sorts of interesting drama, such as this.  “If we were to reconcile (and I’m not saying that I want to), I would never keep you from friends and your social life.  When we were together you used to go to bed at 9 o’clock every night.  Now you are much more interesting.”  Well, I could have responded with feigned outrage about how is a working mother, whose two young children are in pre-school three mornings a week (just long enough for her to teach 2 classes a semester), supposed to be fun, but instead I chuckled at the irony of it.

And it made me think of my favorite break-up song “So What” by Pink, who, in another ironic turn, has reconciled with the ex that she sings about.

So what

I’m still a rock star,

I got my rock moves,

And I don’t need you,

And guess what,

I’m having more fun,

And now that we’re done,

I’m gonna show you tonight,

I’m alright,

I’m just fine.

My sister downloaded some Pink onto the iPod that she gave me, and this became my favorite song.  Even though Pink is a lot more hostile and angry than I am (have you seen her video for “Please Don’t Leave Me”?), her songs have an infectious devil-may-care attitude and her beat just always makes me feel happy and invincible.  When I would feel down, blue or (heaven forbid) powerless, I would play this song, and it would get my adrenaline going and make me feel just angry enough to do something about my problems.  And it made me feel like my ex just didn’t matter.  So what?  You know what?  I am way happier and more fun now that I am alone.  When my ex said the same thing back to me, I had to laugh.  I had no idea how well that mantra would work.

\”So What on YouTube\”

Smashing Metaphors

As I was walking the kids to school today, I found a beautiful blue robin’s egg.  To be more specific, I found half of the shell.  I looked around for the other half to no avail, which of course got me thinking about my status as a singleton.  Why was I looking for the other half?  Wasn’t half of a bright blue robin’s egg a thing of beauty in its own right?  Decidedly so, I affirmed.

I continued ruminating on this egg as a metaphor of my life.  The bird, which had clearly hatched and flown away, no longer needed both halves of the shell.  The unity of the egg had served its purpose of giving the bird life and protecting it until it was ready to fly the nest.  While my own nest isn’t quite empty, my kids have gotten what they needed in terms of our marital union.  We gave them life and created a family and a home for them together.  They benefitted not only genetically from our union, but also emotionally, and now they are being raised by one half of our partnership at a time, and they have flourished living in two separate homes.

Then I thought of the egg as a metaphor for my own identity, as I found my other half, so to speak, in my ex husband and we once formed an identity as a couple.  However, much to my surprise, I don’t feel like I have suffered a loss now that I am separated from my other half.  In fact, life as a single woman feels quite full and beautiful, perhaps even more complete than it did when I was married because I now spend more time by myself and with my friends.

I remember saying in our wedding vows that when I met Hugo I felt like I had found a part of me that was missing, my proverbial soul mate.   A spitfire friend of mine took umbrage with that in her toast and made sure to point out that she thought it wasn’t a good idea for people to look to someone to complete them and that I was a whole and happy individual even before I hooked up with my hubby.  At that time I thought “Yeah right. She’s just being argumentative.”  But like with many comments that people have made to me over the years, I now realize its true wisdom.

So these were my thoughts upon finding the robin’s half egg shell, and I was already blogging about it in my head when I went to show it to Jonah.  He excitedly took it out of my hands and immediately (and unintentionally) smashed it, in a typical rough young boy way.  For a second I was stunned and disappointed.  My beautiful metaphor had been crushed to bits.  Then I started laughing because I realized that I was taking myself way too seriously.  It was just an egg shell after all.

Happiness is an Inside Job

My friend Jackson once told me that it is typical to turn to your ex for therapy because they know you so well.  That is exactly what my ex is doing right now, and I get it.  I have known him for 16 years, and while I may have preconceived notions about him based on our past, I also really understand his life history and his psychological tendencies.

He’s clearly going through a rough time right now.  As my friend Tobey insightfully pointed out, in the last three years he lost his wife, his job and his father.  That’s not the trifecta that most people look for.  All of those factors, especially the last one, have contributed to his current state of confusion about what he wants.

I feel compassion for him, and I still really care for him.  So when he brought up his feelings of nostalgia for our relationship, I didn’t react with an “I told you so” or a “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone” (I’ve got to get a Joni reference in here from time to time).  Instead I invited him to look at what is really going on.  He’s unhappy right now, and neither his girlfriend nor I can make him feel better.

As much as we’d like to think that our romantic partners “make us happy,” the only way to find happiness, in my opinion, is inside ourselves.  I feel like I learned this the hard way.  I relied on my ex to make me happy for many years.  The rub is that in the beginning of a relationship, your partner can make you feel blissful, but eventually that high wears off and you are left to your own devices, so to speak.  I was particularly deluded in my relationship with my ex because that joyful stage lasted for many years, what seemed to me long much longer than the typical infatuation stage, so I had convinced myself that it would last forever.

However we eventually had new life stresses in our careers and by having children, and we started to look at each other and wonder why the other wasn’t pleasing us (and I don’t mean in the bedroom).  In fact, I actually believed that my discontent with my life was his fault.  I had turned down a tenure track job opportunity in Portland, OR because the offer had come after he had already accepted a job here in Massachusetts, and that stuck in my craw for years.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the academic job market, it is very difficult to pick a geographical location and decide that’s where you want to work.  You really have to have the flexibility to move anywhere in the country that you get an offer.  I applied to jobs locally and only got adjunct gigs.  Every time I would be turned down for a position that I wanted or felt unappreciated in my job, I would resent my ex for the sacrifice that I made.  He, on the other hand, was commuting 90 miles each way for three years (only three days a week during the academic year, but it still took its toll).  So we each had our reasons to be cranky.

Once we broke up, I realized that it was my responsibility to make myself happy, and I started actively working towards that.  I got back into my yoga practice that had fallen by the wayside after Layla’s birth, and I made more of an effort to have a social life and spend time with friends.  My family noticed that I seemed like my old self again, upbeat, effervescent, and outgoing (could I have really been more introverted?).

I certainly can’t sum up all the factors that have come into play in my current happiness in one blog post, but I will say that my biggest lesson has been that happiness is an inside job.  That is why I want to date someone who is already happy and not looking to me to make them feel good about themselves.  And that is what I said to my ex when he wistfully talked about “us.”  I couldn’t make him happy in the past, and I wouldn’t make him happy now.  He has to figure that out for himself.

I want to end with a quote that I found by Garrison Keillor that I revisit a lot as a reminder to me of this lesson.  “Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.”  I sacrificed the job that I thought I wanted to be with the man that I thought I wanted to be with forever.  Now I have neither yet I am happier than I have perhaps ever been.  Hmm…