Women, Ladies Night, Sex on The Beach, and No Laundry, Please!

What kind of person are you?  Do you have a high need to be with other people all the time, with noise, conversation and sound bouncing off walls and filling your home?  Or are you the kind of person who can turn it all off and exist happily with no other person around and absolutely no noise other than the sounds of the silence enveloping your abode? I love crowds, the hustle and bustle of the city, the cozy cramped feeling of a trendy little joint packed with bodies listening to the cool reggae tunes of a live band passing through the area.  I am at home in a crowded realm.  I am also just as content to be solitary and silent.  I can move through both worlds with ease, but I have to admit, I like my solitude.

Solitude or Isolation?

I don’t mind my own company and there are times when because I’ve just done so much wish granting for other people that when the weekend rolls around I don’t mind being alone and simply being. I do have the tendency, at times, to retreat from the world in an escapist fashion.  I can tend to isolate myself if I’m not careful. 

I was planning on that last night. It was going to be a quiet evening of introspective contemplation as I worked out and reassessed my focus and direction in life.  You guessed it, I didn’t have a date. 

At the last minute, as these things tend to happen, a good friend of mind came into my office at the end of the day and asked if I was going to go to the get together after work.

I sighed.  Memories of the last time I got together with my party friends swam before my eyes.  There was a vision of something vaguely reminiscent of broken drinking glasses and a missed chair or was it the floor ended up being where the chair should have been? I couldn’t remember.  Well, I could, but I didn’t want to.

“You know I think I’m probably just going to go home.”  Another memory like the ones I already couldn’t remember, memories of crazy, pain laced celebrations in the days and months following my divorce’s finality was not something I wanted to add to my thought processes.

My friend, sensing I wasn’t exactly on my game somewhere, came in sat down on a nearby stool and we chatted for a few.  We shared. We caught up.  It’s been months since we got together and pondered the deep questions of life and single parenting and dating.  In fact, the last time we did that, I distinctly remember dropping my cell phone in the hot tub. Yet another interesting memory and one we laugh about now.

A Single Mom’s Loneliness

She’s feeling much of what I’m feeling these days it turns out.  Her single mommy life is taxing her in many of the same ways mine is.  We both love our freedom and our independence and all the many conveniences that come with being in the driver’s seat of our lives.  Yet we both are missing the connection that comes when you have another very special person in your life to plan with, to dream with, to consult with, to disagree with, to make up with, to make out with, and to wake up to in the morning. 

While I am often alone, I am not usually lonely, but I was in one of those very rare places where I was actually feeling alone and lonely.  My friend sensed this and as she tends to do, she was right there for me. We ended up deciding to hang out together last night.  It was a decision I’m glad we made.

I think it is easy for women to become disconnected sometimes, especially if we are single moms.  We spend so much of our time making sure that the needs of those we love and who depend upon us are met that we forget about our own needs.  Maybe it isn’t so much that we forget, as it is that, by the time we get around to being able to think about ourselves, we are simply exhausted and ready to collapse.  We end up putting ourselves on the bottom of the priority pile.  We end up too exhausted to want to make the effort to connect with the other women in our lives.  For me, that includes the other single moms I know in my face-to-face world who have walked with me down the single parent road these last few years. 

Women Friends

There is also something about being with another woman instead of a man on occasion.  Now, don’t hear me say that I prefer this over company with men all the time. Both types of company are valuable, but they sometimes meet very different needs.  At times, the company of a good same sex friend (because I’m sure men feel this way too on some levels) just can’t be beat.  I don’t have to do the work of getting to know someone, because all that history and relationship has already been established. It’s comfortable.  We know and accept each other.  It is enough just to be together.  It is also very nice sometimes to have another female perspective confirming for me in so many ways, that I’m not crazy, that I am just a busy single mom and that we are all feeling this way, which is most of the time stressed or tired.  Especially of laundry.

It doesn’t happen often that we can all get babysitters or be child-free on the same evening and also have money to pay for our cover charges and drinks but last night the stars aligned and we were able to make it happen.  It started out with just my friend and I, and we added one of our new colleagues to the mix.  The laughter, the conversations, the self-revelations and the discussions that ran from the serious and intellectual (okay, sort of serious and intellectual) to quite tawdry, decisions to have Sex on the Beach but no Slow Comfortable Screw, while wondering who in the bar was there with who else, these things made up our night like a montage in a movie. From the comments about the cute guy in the hat dancing by himself in the middle of the crowded dance floor, to whether the guy in the suit was single or not, to refusing to pick up two guys who tried to convince us to let them in the car with us, to the older retired teacher guy who regaled me with stories while I waited for the others to complete their powder room break, it was simply something we all, for our own reasons, needed to do.  We just needed to put our concerns and stress away for a few hours, to forget we were single moms, to forget that we cared about that.  We needed a Ladies Night Out. We needed to just have fun.  

We most certainly did that!

Not a glass was broken.

Not a chair was missed.

Not a cell phone fell into anything liquid.

And not one of us thought once about the laundry.

…but I am wondering where I left my shirt.

Silver Linings in the Clouds of Divorce

I’m having great fun these days.  I’m reading my friends’ updates on Facebook and they are so filled with stress about last minute shopping sprees, what to get for that difficult-to-buy for loved one, and dealing with crowds and traffic while I sit quite contentedly and totally un-stressed out this holiday season.  Why?  No, not because I don’t celebrate Christmas, I do. In fact, I’m all about the festivities and would be hosting parties, going to  parties and going crazy about the gifting thing.  Well, I would have in the past, I should say.  Not anymore though.  

So what gives?  Why am I so chill while the rest of the world goes crazy? 

Ahhh, all I can say to this is that every storm cloud has its silver lining.  Even the storm cloud of divorce and children sharing holidays in two separate homes. Sigh. Divorce and its reduced financial benefits means less money to spend thus fewer presents to buy.  If Christmas is all about the "presents" then that’s a problem, isn’t it? If  you don’t have your kids on Christmas and you are all about "The Big Day" then that poses a bit of a problem doesn’t it?  The storm cloud of divorce requires that you rethink your personal paradigms about many things.  The silver lining is there but it appears in small and unexpected ways sometimes.

Tomorrow will be Christmas Eve.  I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping yet.  I might do some tomorrow.  I might not.  It won’t matter, because my "Christmas" is not going to happen on December 25th.  It will happen sometime in January, around New Year’s.  This year, my children are, once again, spending Christmas at their dads. 

I won’t say that  this is a good thing about divorce.  In fact, my feelings are quite vehement and strong about relationship over dissolution, but life is not perfect.  Life is not always white fluffy clouds scudding effortlessly across clear blue skies.  Sometimes the thunder bumpers of relational demise develop and there’s no escaping them. You’re going to get soaked and it isn’t going to be fun. Drenched and distraught you end up finding that you are back at ground zero with nearly nothing but loads of debt showing for the last quarter century of your existence. It sucks. But after the storm passes…if you are careful and observant and hopeful enough…you can discover a silver lining on any cloud.  You might have to wait and work and watch for a while, but eventually, small though it might be…it will appear.

Christmas, in what I’ve come to call the "off years", is that silver lining for me.  The off years are those every other years that I don’t have my children on Christmas Day because they are with their other parent. Those are the Christmases that I don’t stress.  I don’t shop.  I don’t cook (that’s a big silver lining for all involved) and I don’t have anyone tugging at my bedside begging me to awaken so they can find out what is in the beautifully wrapped packages (yeah, I can’t cook but I can wrap…big deal) under the tree.

Divorce is never easy and the holidays don’t improve this situation any.  Even so, I’ve found there is even a silver lining on this thunderhead of dashed familial bonds.  It is called, The Day After Christmas.  Because of this schedule of mine this year, the stress of having to have everything wrapped and ready and under the tree by December 25th is totally gone.  I get to capitalize on sales the day after Christmas instead of hassling it before.  I actually have a good three days after Christmas till any of the kids show up.  I will have three days after the official day to do what I need to do before the kids come tumbling back in over my threshold. In that time, I will have spent my time doing whatever I wanted to do, something that is usually rare for a single parent.  I will have been able to plan and prepare for the second half of the winter break when they will be with me and I will be able to stretch my limited Christmas funds all the more. 

So, as I watch my friends update their Facebook status informing me of how they survived the mall (a good 45 minutes just to get out of the parking lot), or how they can’t find the one last minute gift they were looking for or how they have way too much to do in way too little time, I count my blessings.  I sit back, pour myself another vodka tonic and think, glad I’m not out there in that ugly traffic right now.  Because right now, I am in my own home, with my children before they head off to dad’s enjoying lazy days, watching movies, cleaning house, making cookies and eating the cookie dough before it is even baked.  Oh, the fun we are having in spite of the fact that the dates are not working in our favor this year. 

It’s a small silver lining….but it is a beautiful one.

Have you been able to discover any silver linings in your divorce clouds?

It Appears I’m The One Going Silent This Time…Sorta

A short post tonight.  I’m tired.   I still have a ton to do before tomorrow, when I can hop in the car and travel 90 minutes north for my mini-vacation of sorts with The Beau.  We have plans to relax (I’ll probably collapse) Friday evening.  Knowing him, he’ll cook for me, I’ll eat, we’ll talk till wee hours of the morning (yeah, right). 

Saturday morning, he’s cleaning his garage, I’m going to grade papers.

Saturday afternoon it is a wine pairing session at our winery.  That will be fun.  I will actually be able to talk intelligently about something I know nothing about afterward.  Okay…I am becoming such the wine snob.  Not!  However, it is true.  I now know the difference between a $15 bottle of wine and a $6 bottle of wine.  And the $30 bottle?  Oh my! 

Then Saturday evening I do believe we have a concert he’s lined up.  I really like not having to be the one to come up with ideas for stuff all the time.  I dated one guy recently and he couldn’t make a decision if his life depended upon it.  I’m a pretty decisive person most of the time, but that one wore me out.  I was actually glad he went silent.  I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be dating someone who is somewhat imaginative, creative and, yes, takes the initiative, oh, wait, and he communicates too.  Wow.  What a concept. 

I’m going to be behind on laundry when I get back, but…it will be worth it. 

Okay, I have to go.  I’m tired.  I have a big day tomorrow.  I probably won’t post much this weekend…for obvious reasons.  Ha!Ha!  It appears I’ll be the one going silent this time.  Okay, but I warned you in advance and it isn’t indefinitely.  So don’t be too unhappy.  I will be back with stories to tell. 

Sorry for the rambling, disjointed post, but I’m about ready to fall off this chair.  I’m going to be surprised if I reread this and there are less than a dozen typos.  I’m really that exhausted.

Glorious! Glorious!

There are days that just go so gloriously well it can’t even be imagined.  There are other days that become so gloriously comical it can’t even be believed.  Then there are other days that just so beautifully and gloriously shine indications of summer upon you that you can’t despair.

Today was all of those for me.

It went gloriously well in spite of many opportunities for potential disaster.  No disasters.  All success.

It was gloriously comical in that after I completed the wonderful parenting presentation to parents…I went home and had immediate cause to implement everything I’d talked about in order to keep child 3 from destroying child 4.  Well, maybe destroying is quite and extreme term but if you are a parent, you know exactly what I mean.

And, as I traveled home for a brief break between school and evening presentation the sun hit my rear view mirror at just the right angle as to be blinding.  The entire late afternoon was swathed in gold reminiscent of a summer sunset. Had the temps outside been something other than the 50 degrees they were, even I might have mistaken this afternoon for a midsummer’s afternoon dream.  Sigh. 

I hate the months of January, February and March.  I’m such a summer and fall type person.  Today had every indication of being a beautiful summer day, except for the dismal number on thermometer. 

I am enjoying the longer days, the later sunsets and the increasingly warmer temps.  I long for summer. 

Summer is simply glorious!

It Feels Like Finals Week To Me!

Here’s when you know you spend way too much time on the computer:

This is me lately.  I’ve spent the better part of this last weekend glued to my computer.  Sadly, I do have to leave to go take care of bodily functions, and feed myself and the other residents of the household.

I have a big parenting presentation that I’m giving  tonight to the parents of the school I work for.  Well, it was supposed to be parents of just our school, but it ended up being opened to other schools in the district to offer to their families…and…well.  What was supposed to be a somewhat small trial run is turning out to be something a bit more than trial or small. I can only hope the numbers are small to begin with since it will be my first run through with this material.  I’m still nervous, even though giving speeches and public presentation was the focus of my entire undergraduate work.  The content of this particular presentation is the focus of my graduate work and of particular interest in my own home since just before my divorce.  In spite of being knowledgeable and practiced, for lack of a better word, I’m still nervous. 

I also have another big presentation on Friday and this one scares me more because I’ll be presenting to the worst possible audience: my own colleagues, teachers.  They’ll do everything the kids do only worse because they are less responsive than children.  I’m also teaching the worst possible topic: technology in the classroom and this week’s focus: web sites for teachers. 

So worst audience + worst topic = complete disaster.

or I could look at it more positively:

Worst Week Of School Year This Year (in terms of extra curricular stress)+ Worst Finale on Friday with Teachers and Technology= Great Excuse To Get The Heck Out Of Dodge This Weekend and Go To The Wine Pairing Seminar With The Beau, more wine tasting afterward, and yadda yadda fun fun!

Sounds like I’ll plan on looking at it more positively. 🙂  

It feels like finals week to me.  This is what I always told myself during finals week.  I said, “Self, there’s nothing you can do to change the time you’ve wasted, lost, not spent studying or preparing.  Your going to go through this week and what the grades are the grades are.  Look on the bright side, a week from now, no one will give a rats a** about any of it, least of all you.  Relax!”

So, that’s what I’m telling myself today. 

But now, I really do have to get back to that computer and get to work…wait…I never left did I?