Suburban Goddess

“You can forget about the plastic bag, we don’t need it…”

“Cause plastic kills trees, right?”

“What???”

“Oh, wait, that’s not right… plastic comes from oil… duh.”

I suppose I should be happy he corrected himself…

There is a point in any relationship where you can cross the line. I have had a very close friend for over seven years now; he’s always been there for me… at times, he was the ONLY one there for me… he’s never disguised the fact that he cares for me deeply, but always respected my marriage… he waited patiently and quietly, knowing that it wouldn’t work, because he knew me better than I knew myself.

Through the years, I have occasionally treated this person like dirt… sometimes worse than dirt, if that’s possible. Yet he stays there, hovering in the shadows, waiting for me to fall so he can emerge from the shadows and pick me up again. He never asked for anything in return.

He answered my every distress call. He would drop everything in a second to be at my side if I told him I needed him, and has on more than one occasion.

And yet, I have never returned the favor. And I can’t find the answer in my heart why I cannot. To have someone give themselves so selflessly, and to be so careless with such a delicate person… it’s not that I don’t care… I do. I care so much that I drown in guilt when I hear his voice…. but I cannot commit to him.

He deserves so much better than me. And I refuse to let him settle for less, because I know on a first hand basis how that turns out.

Every week, Alex and I go to the video store to pick out a few videos to get us through the week. At the checkout counter, there’s a huge gumball machine, the type that you put a quarter in and watch the gumball spiral down a huge tube before landing with a THUNK behind the metal trapdoor that all children seem to be drawn to… it’s like it speaks to them:

PUT YOUR GRUBBY LITTLE FINGERS HERE.

One particular evening, I was feeling generous. I gave Alex a quarter, showed her how to turn the knob, and she watched with rapt fascination as the gumball swirled around the plexiglass ramp to it’s Southern destination. When she reached behind the metal door, she held up a bright pink gumball. “Look, Mommy! BALL!” And so I unknowingly created a new family tradition.

Each week, she begs like a homeless person, hanging from my leg; “Mommy! Quarter! Need quarter! PLEEEEEEZZZZZEEEEE!” And I will scrounge through my wallet until I find a quarter. But as time progressed, it’s almost as if she’s become a gambling addict; if any color besides pink would fall into the tube, she immediately begins begging for another quarter. “No, Mommy, it’s yellow…. want PINK one!” And I usually end up dragging her out of the video store, buckling her back into her car seat as she grasps the gumball and wails about the injustice of natural selection. I try to explain to her that it’s CANDY, it doesn’t matter what color it is, but she never understood the concept… so each week, when I clean out my Jeep, I find gumballs all over the backseat.

But this week, natural selection decided to send us a blue ball. The normal scenario played out as usual; Beg, THUNK, Wail…. but a few moments after I put her in her seat, there was a new issue; the blue dye was coming off on her hands.

“MOMMY! DIRTY! It’s BROKE!”

Of course, I’m trying to maneuver traffic, which doesn’t factor into her distress in any way. So I glance over my shoulder, and try the whole CANDY approach again.

“Baby, it’s sugar. That’s sugar on your hands, because the ball is made of CANDY.”

“Ball is CANDY?”

“Yes, baby, it’s CANDY. Lick it and see.”

I watched her in the rearview mirror as she carefully stuck out her tongue, wrinkled her little nose, and carefully touched the tip of her tiny pink tongue to the gumball. A moment later, she did it again, smacked her lips, and her eyes opened incredulously.

“Mommy…. Ball is CANDY!”

“Yes, baby, I know. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” I shook my head, inwardly laughing. She licked all the blue off the gumball on the way home, and we were both happy until I went to unbuckle her.

“No, Mommy, no. Need to stay in Jeep!” I looked at her, puzzled.

“What’s the matter?”

“Need to find Alex’s balls!”

And that, dear people, is a direct quote.

“Stupidity means job security.”

Indeed.

In an effort to combat all this negativity, I broke down and called the ex. When he didn’t give me the response I wanted, I called the ex’s girlfriend.

Best thing I’ve ever done. The fact of the matter is, his life is his, and mine is mine, but we HAVE to meet somewhere in the middle for Alex’s sake. In a perfect world, all of us would be able to go to dinner and laugh at our kids. I mean, this is the reality of today’s screwed up world; with more than half of all marriages ending in divorce, there are literally millions of blended families out there. Alex already has one half-brother. If Chip marries this woman, she’ll also have a stepbrother and two step sisters. And that’s just on Chip’s side; the odds are pretty heavy that at my age, I could end up someone who has children too. My “only child” will be anything but that.

So I called the girlfriend… and we talked about a lot of stuff that should have been talked about a while back. I don’t remember what got me off track with her (actually, I think it was HIM, not her), but the fact is, it doesn’t matter. It’s all the NOT KNOWING that makes me crazy; opening the lines of communication have made all the difference in all the other areas of my life, why can’t it work here?

I don’t want to know the personal details of their life, but I’d like to know where my kid is. And Darlene, as a mother, will definitely pay attention to things that Chip won’t; that’s not a slam on him at all, it’s just a reality. Mothers have an unspoken bond, and it was a mother who reached out tonight to another… I think the benefits will far outweigh any alternative.

I’m going to keep my feet on this path. It has lead me to amazing things in a very short amount of time… it may be hard at times, but it’s worth it.

The ex wanted to re-arrange his visits on his week off. I was under the impression that he wanted to switch the day from Tuesday to Thursday, but he meant he wanted to get Alex on BOTH days. I wasn’t too happy with that, and I’m still struggling with coming to terms with it. When I asked him about it, he said that it was because he missed his little girl.

Noble. But after a few moments, I started to get really pissed off.

Since the divorce, the only contact I’ve had with my step-son is the play back in July, and that was only because I heard about it from a neighbor. Since then, nothing. This is a child I watched grow since he was six years old; this is a kid that I fostered as my own. Chip offers no information, no visitation options, NOTHING with this child. I MISS HIM, but because I have no biological ties, I have no rights. For seven years, while Chip worked in the garage, it was me who played with this kid, it was me who fed him, it was me who paid attention to him when his father wouldn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad that Chip has finally realized how important it is to pay attention to his kids. He’s a much better father now than he used to be. But it’s very hard for me to have sympathy for a man who ripped apart my family, took everything that I loved, stated a new life with someone else, and expects me to give up even MORE time with the one thing that makes me truly happy so that he can have what he wants…

Well I’m not concerned with what he wants anymore. This is the life he chose, and these are the consequences of making the decision he did.

You can’t have everything your way anymore.

Edit:  It’s amazing how quickly I snap at times.  I wrote this when I was irritated. I won’t retract it, simply because it’s the way I felt at that moment, but since then, I’ve calmed down and realized the root of this post comes from an deep sadness within.  I miss my stepkid.  And that’s all there is to it.

“What are you listening to?”

“Shakira.”

“Is that in Spanish???”

“Yes.”

“You speak Spanish?”

“No.”

“What?”

“You scare the hell out of me.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re one of the most intense people I’ve ever met.”

“You are, too.”

I stopped and thought about that for a moment, taken completely by surprise… a million thoughts ran through my head at once, then all culminated with stunning clarity. I AM intense… I smiled suddenly….

“Thank you…”

“I want that picture to go right there.”

“Okay… but that’s a portrait-sized hole, and you have a landscape-sized picture, so we’ll have to trim it.”

“No! Why are you cutting off the sides like that? I want the whole picture in there… yeah, like that, now just get rid on the space above and below…. NO NO NO, don’t move any of that stuff!”

“But I have to, otherwise it won’t FIT.”

“Can’t you extend out the right side?”

“No.. the magazine has a specific SIZE that you have to stay within…”

“You’re not listening to me….just put that picture in THAT SPOT RIGHT THERE.”

(I maneuver the picture into the hole and vertically squash it until it fits. The content is now horribly out of proportion.)

“SEE! Why didn’t you just do that to BEGIN WITH! It’s PERFECT!”

It’s moments like these that I don’t feel guilty about charging an hourly rate.

While getting Alex ready for bed this evening, the following exchange transpired:

“You put your left arm in,” I said, playing the limp noodle game as I tried to shove her uncooperating hand in the long purple pajama sleeve. “You put your right arm in….”

“And you do Hokey Pokey and turn around, Mommy.”