Unfolding, unleashing

First, a little explanation, a little rationale for my about-to-go-off just a teense. I don't want this to be a blog based on bitching (although the occasional rant about Crocs-wearing adults and playgroup certainly adds some flavor, doesn't it?) and I especially don't want this blog to be about all the hooey happening in my life as a result of my divorce. I try hard to be diplomatic. I meditate, center, pray, get still and silent, laugh, make fun, talk on and on and freaking on and work really hard to find the gift, the lesson, the it is really going to be OK in the end-ness of the tiny, tremendous, terrifying and tough stuff. When I started writing about the truth - that my marriage was not just struggling but coming to a sudden close - I outlined rules for myself about what I would and wouldn't disclose. It's not heroic (although a nice breastplate and cape would go nicely with my petition for custody). It just is what it is and is what I've chosen it to be.

Given all of that, I've not really written about the details. And that is a good thing. Really. I need the lessons here more than anybody reading. I've also chosen not to spill all the things that fucking suck about ending a ten-year relationship, legally, parentally, financially, romantically, co-habitationally and otherwise. Today, though, there's something that really fucking sucks that needs to be said.

Do friends - friends who I knew before I was married and before I was a mother and who have swilled martinis and attended stupid ass basket parties and asked me to babysit their kids and invited me to playgroups and preschool events and glorious adults only parties, friends who know me better than the other person in this divorce, the friends who know the details of how this all came undone and all of the turbulent emotional, monetary and living consequences for me and for our son - do those people still have to employ the almost-ex as their personal trainer?

Really? I mean, is it that necessary? Are the forty underworked, barely-certified gym monkeys at Bally's not available to force you into another set of ass-burning lunges or sprintervals?

Seriously, you need this particular trainer? Knowing all that you know?

That is fucked up. Completely, unfriendly-like fucked up.

In sixth grade, this is the stuff that made us hate our once-BFFs, totally ignoring them on the bus for months or weeks and most likely, just days at a time. It was what filled up lined paper notes, folded into fortune teller stars or left in desks for your grrrlfriend allies in the next social studies class.

In your one Women Studies class in college, you may recall definitions of horizontal hostility or male identification that strike a chord in happenings such as this between female friends.

Now, though. Now, when this about a family more than fitness or friendships (pardon, acquaintances), it is just fucked up. I don't think I'm being (too) territorial here or (way) off-base. I am not asking for allegiance or anyone to ban any personal trainer. I'm not demanding that sides be taken. Just have some sense. Or at least some sensitivity. Help a sister out with a little bit of that.

Imagine, if you will, what you'd want if it was you in the situation, if it was far more than your biceps getting cut up. You'd agree then, right? That it is indeed a fucked up way to be (or not) a friend in this situation.

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Short and sweet

It was a weekend filled with family, with my brother and his bride in town and lots of meals around the dining room table, church and planning our eventual, belated Christmas together. All this and Lil E's time with his daddy made for busyness and back and forth, a changing cast of characters every few hours.

After a daddy dinner out and then an hour of entertaining his best audience with reenactments of the clips playing on America's Funniest Home Videos (or, according to our host, America's Home Funniesss Biddeooohhhs), it was nearly time for Lil E's show to end for the night. It was also time for my brother and I to do a little last minute (ahem) holiday shopping (nothing like preparation). My mom stood by with Lil E's jammies and PullUp and plans for which books to read before bedtime while I gave him a few final snuggles and smooches before heading out.

I pulled that boy into my arms tightly, peppering his cheeks and forehead with kisses.

I told him what I tell him every night before bed, "I love you the most, beautiful boy."

He nodded silently then added that he loves me too.

"And I will miss you but I will come in and kiss you when I get home."

Even when I need need need to get away, I mean this missing sincerely. Even if I would never disturb the quiet of his sleep to kiss him, the reassurance is worth the little whiteness of it.

"And mommy," he asked with this sage sweetness that adhered to the deepest part of me, "will you carry that missing around in your heart while you are gone?"

Ohhh. Oh yes, of course.

I know that moments like these are about months, not just a brief good-bye before bedtime.  And I thank God for this kid who asks those articulate questions, who is working it all out in his head and still, like every struggling-to-do-it-all-by-myself-MOMMY! preschooler with serious teddy-bear-woobie-soothing instincts, needs his mama.

Sure, a few weeks ago, he peed on the daycare lady's couch (twice) after being potty trained for months and months. Yes, he's fired up the tantrums that put two-year olds and some celebs (not to mention the husbands of some people I know) to shame.  Clearly, we have a lot...a lot... to cope with in the days and weeks and years and lifetime ahead. A lot of it isn't pretty. But there, kneeling in the front hallway with my boy in my arms and this little voice asking me to hold his heart in mine as soon as I stepped out the door, reassured me as much as I think it soothed him.

There it was -- simple, sweet, sad and lovely -- in one little sentence. One little sentence that got me completely.

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Like the annoying co-worker in the cubicle next to you

I've got to interrupt you from your productivity, your collating of TPS reports and trolling for white sales online.  I just need to show you a feeeeew more pictures from the holidays (after all, who can get enough candids of someone else's kid in crazy Christmas jammies?) that will not only make you ooh and ahh over my hilarious, heartbreaker of a boy but will also make you fully understand when that deadline's just a wee bit overdue or I'm ten minutes later than I thought I'd be when I made the obligatory I'm-running-behind phone call as I ran out the door in my clicky shoes or so you might just laugh genuinely when I relay some freaking riotous account of his antics (yes, parents do know when other folks are handing off a courtesy laugh but we just pretend not to notice so we can keep telling the story). I won't go into every detail of our Christmas (cue the Ann Murray tape that's been in my parents' stereo for the last fifteen -- make that twenty-seven -- years and bloop off the top of that box of white zin that's been chilling in the basement fridge for nearly as long) but I will insist you flip through these Polaroids with me a time or two until I have a fresh stack of Groundhog's Day and President's Day pics to show off.  Here's a few frames from our holidays:

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