Sad and Beautiful World

The Play's the Thing

This past weekend was the school play. They did a production of Mulan and my daughter was one of the Chinese soldiers—no speaking part, but lots of singing and choreographed dancing. The play kept her extremely busy with rehearsals after school and even two Sundays. She often got home at around 6pm, have dinner, then try to get homework done. Between the play and being out for an entire week of school last month, things started to slip.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t on top of her enough and she didn’t tell me everything, so we’ve had some issues come up recently. A phone call from her Language Arts teacher to tell me she hadn’t finished a project that she was given an extra week to finish. Fortunately, the teacher said she could work on it over the weekend and though she wouldn’t get full credit, she wouldn’t get a failing mark either. The kiddo and I had a talk and she worked really hard for hours on Sunday to get the project done. I talked with her about Pete’s motto, “Kill monsters when they are small,” and how we can both relate to avoiding something hoping it will go away. The fact is, though, things just get worse and scarier and more stressful. She worked hard and the teacher was so impressed with what she did, the kid ended up getting praise. I hope she learned a lesson.

This week I found out she wasn’t doing so well in math, but most of this was due to missing lectures and not fully understanding those sections…and not asking anyone for help. Her grades are improving now that she is back on track. We have another major project to tackle tonight and tomorrow night for her Language Arts class, and then I think we can get through the rest of the school year. She is extremely smart, but easily distracted and doesn’t enjoy the more rigid assignments that middle school offers. It is frustrating because she tries to fall back on the “I’m stupid” excuse and it drives me crazy. She’s made honor roll the first two quarters this year and I’m certain she can make it again this quarter if she stays focused for a few more weeks.

The school offers an alternative curriculum for each grade that embraces a more free-flowing, open education with group projects and work that integrates all subjects rather than a separate class for each. I tried to get her interested in this before starting sixth grade, to no avail. I think she’d do much better in this sort of environment. She has become friends with some seventh graders this year through chorus and drama club as well as the play, and after knowing some kids who follow the alternative track in their grade, it became more attractive. She’s applied to get in—it is a lottery, so there is no guarantee—but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I honestly think some of the stuff she does now just bores her. We shall see.

The play was great, by the way, and quite the production! I worked backstage on opening night as a volunteer and ended up spending the time in the girl’s dressing room. Yikes. Girls that age are truly awful. I’m so grateful my daughter is friendly to everyone and stays away from the cliquey girls. On Saturday she had an entourage in attendance for her: Pete and I, her father and his girlfriend and her mother, my parents, my aunt and uncle, and my parents’ best friend, and of course Charlie and Cecily!! Imagine if she had had a speaking part! Ha!

In Sickness and in, well, more sickness.

My daughter returned to school today, finally, after being home sick from
Friday the 8th until Wednesday the 13th, at which point she went to see her doctor (in my defense, she was sort of sick Friday so I let her stay home because, you know, it was Friday. She went to her father’s for the weekend, which always wipes her out even though I informed him to take it easy because she was getting sick. Monday, she was much worse). She had a fever of 100.5 every day (I don’t know about the weekend) and a horrendous cough.

This is a kid who never used to get sick and even when she did hardly ever missed school. Each year gets worse. She had bronchitis in September and the bacterial pneumonia in December, remember? So they gave her another chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia (she didn’t have it) and then gave her a 5-day course of antibiotics anyway. Which worked.

Her school had a half-day the 14th and no school the 15th or yesterday, the 18th, so today is the first day she’s at school for 11 days. I hope she makes it through the day!

I’m very frustrated with how sick she’s been getting, though. When she had pneumonia, the doctor we saw (who wasn’t her doctor), kept babbling about asthma. Apparently this is the hot ticket item these days? It pissed me off, because I think I would have noticed if my kid had trouble breathing. She’s athletic and vibrant and never gets out of breath playing sports. Where was this asthma diagnosis coming from? Apparently, the nurse practitioner that saw my kid last week (my father took her because I was at my babysitting gig), tried to pin the asthma on her as well. What, do they get handed an order from the AMA: first person to submit 20 cases of asthma gets a new laptop? Seriously, I’m asking. What is the deal?

I’m looking into taking her to a new doctor. There is a relatively new trend for doctors to specialize in adolescent medicine. My mother suggested this and I think it is a good idea—have a doctor who is treating my daughter as an entire being, and who will actually see her when we have appointments and not have us passed on to somebody else in the practice (well, that’s what I’m hoping for anyway).

In the meantime, I’m giving her vitamins (as usual) and extra vitamin C in tablets, oranges, and kiwis. I think I’m going to have to get her in bed a bit earlier a few times a week, too. What kind of worries me is that it seems as if everyone is getting sick more often, and in worse ways, than usual this year. I know in my household there is always at least one of us who aren’t feeling 100%. I could be imagining this, though…I mean, this is how those conspiracy theories get started isn’t it? Heh.

Body and Soul

The other night my daughter told me she hates her thighs and thinks they are fat.

You have all seen photos of my kid, right? Many of you have seen her in person. She doesn’t have an extra ounce of fat anywhere on her body. She thinks they are “fat” because when she sits down, they spread out. I explained to her that the muscles are relaxed in that position, that is all. I talked about how when we stare at any one thing for too long, it can start to look strange to us. She said everyone else is pretty. Ugh.

What is a mother to do? How do we keep our daughters from going through this kind of agony? Will this sort of self-flagellation ever end? Is it inherently human or is it a product of years and years of media flashing false images of ideal bodies?? I do find it hard to imagine that a woman living in a society where the sole purpose of existence is survival would have the time to be concerned with issues of vanity.

It is heartbreaking. Then yesterday a good friend wrote a blog post about her own body issues…she wrote in gut-wrenching details about how she felt seeing her body. She’s gained weight in the past year since getting married, but to me she is still a long way away from fat. She is extremely beautiful and intelligent and knows very well that her thoughts and feelings about her body are unhealthy, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling them. She has had thoughts of suicide over this—it’s no laughing matter. She’s struggled with an eating disorder in the past and I’m worried she’s heading for it again. She possibly suffers from what we know as Body Dysmorphic Disorder, something that affects about 2% of the population (US).

A photo editor at a magazine recently contacted me. She had seen my photos on Flickr and wants to possibly use them with an upcoming article on body image and the rise of women on community photo sites doing self-portraits. It isn’t yet a guarantee (and I’m trying really, really hard not to get too excited about it), but the idea of it struck me. She talked about the current backlash against altered images in the media…have we all seen the infamous Faith Hill cover (Redbook) photo showing all the changes made?

Talking with the editor, I wanted to have hope. She works for a magazine that focuses on the body, one that I would have expected to focus on those “perfect” bodies that don’t actually exist. I began to feel a little bit optimistic. I thought about the Dove campaign for “real beauty” and while it isn’t all the way there as far as I’m concerned, it is a big step—multi-racial, curvaceous women and the Self-Esteem Fund seems like a cool idea. Still all beautiful and none particularly big women, but we’re getting there, perhaps.

Most of my self-portraits involve Photoshop, of course, and while none of it involves changing the shape of my nose or the cut of my stomach, I still take care to pose in certain ways and I do smooth out my skin. I guess I’m still “getting there” as well, and maybe this is the impetus to be more daring, more brave. Getting naked is not bravery, to me. Showing what I really look like? That would be brave. Because despite it all—despite loving my daughter and not wanting her to ever hate her body like she is learning to do, I am not exactly living a good example. I’m so much better than I’ve ever been as far as accepting myself and loving myself, body and soul, but the doubts and self-hating voices still arise. I still have days when I don’t want to see myself in the mirror.

And none of us should ever feel that way.

ER Trip

My daughter had to go to the ER last night because of something rather unusual. She was wearing these new earrings since last Wednesday. They are small posts with little flat silver dolphins that lay flush against the ear. She is still relatively new to earrings, and apparently from worry over losing them, she pushed them together really tight, and must have continued to push on them. A few nights ago she told me they hurt and she couldn't get them out. I had a look and tried one, and couldn't either. There was nothing to grip and no 'give' around her lobe. And she didn't let me try long because it hurt. I didn't get a close look.

She stayed at my parents this most recent Wednesday and they gave it a try. She wasn't cooperative in letting them get a good look, either.

Finally yesterday, when she came home early from a half-day of school, I convinced her to let Pete and I look some more. Pete made a contraption using pliers and a clip with a screw to hold the backing and then be able to push the post from the back out. We made progress with one ear. She was done, however, and frustration on all sides made us stop. We went out to run some errands but I kept telling her if she didn't let us have another try we would have to go to the ER. They had to come out. A small look at the other ear had scared me...I couldn't see much of the backing!

When we got home, she gave the earring we had loosened another go by herself and managed to get it out! We had her hold ice on the other ear for about 20 minutes and then convinced her to let us have a closer look. It was not good at all. I made a diagram to try and illustrate just how bad it was...that backing was DEEP inside her little ear lobe and we had no idea how much the skin might have grafted to it...we couldn't handle this at home since we didn't know how much it might tear her skin.

So...the kid and I left, went and got something to eat first, then drove over to the local Emergency Room mentally preparing ourselves for a very long night. It was about 5:40pm.

The place was deserted, and before I could even relax after signing in and getting my coat off, we were called back. We were processed further and then taken to a room where an intern began to examine the ear. She got a forceps and started wriggling it, saying she wanted to try and get it without needing local anesthetic. The kid was a different child now than she was at home, which is normal but Damn! So annoying. LOL. She didn't cry or whine or squeal or squirm like she did when we only LOOKED at it at home! She only asked the doctor to stop once to catch her breath. She didn't even squeeze my hand.

It took a full 2 minutes or so of maneuvering it, then we heard the clicking as it came off the post (which had FIVE ridges in it for some masochistic reason). I even got to assist! She asked me to get gauze from the third drawer down in a mobile supply trolley in the corner when the ear started bleeding. It was all over. We have to keep watch for infection and keep it clean, of course, but that thing is out of her ear, thank goodness.

After discovering the co-pay with her insurance for an ER visit was absolutely outrageous--$200!!! (and something I cannot pay, but put a small amount on and will try to get her father to pay the rest...ain't the US health care system grand?), we walked out of the doors and back to the car at 6pm.

They said the quiet night was unusual. We were able to head home and update Pete, then go over to Charlie and Cecily's house to watch a movie. Amazing.

A friend indeed...

This weekend I had my first paid photography gig! Cecily had asked me to take photos at a baby shower several weeks back, and the woman for whom the shower was held, Liana,  liked my pictures enough to ask me to take her family portraits for holiday cards!

This is something I can do…not quite as much pressure as a wedding, and far less time commitment. I was really nervous about how the photos would come out, but they look very good and professional, if I dare say. I hope they like them! It was a great first shoot…lovely family and gorgeous baby—pretty hard to take a bad photo. A college friend just had his first child with his fiancée and asked me to take their holiday portraits as well, so I’m feeling a nice boost. If I could do this sort of thing once a month or so at least, the extra cash would really help out and make me feel better about pursuing the artistic (i.e., that which makes no money) photography.

In other news, the kid already ended things with the boyfriend. There was much drama with him of course telling everyone that HE broke up with HER, and then her best friend seeking some sort of revenge, but things ended well. Eventually. I’m still concerned about this best friend monopolizing all her time, but more than that, this friend has a lot of issues and some violent tendencies that are starting to make me more and more nervous. I feel badly for the girl because my daughter seems to be the one of the few who can tolerate her. She has no father around and her mom is a wreck. They see each other less this year since they aren’t in the same group of classes, but they are still interlocked pretty tightly. I’ve been doing some gentle nudging to the kiddo in a direction away from this girl, but I think I have to nudge a little harder. Just a little.

Anyone have any issues like this? I am open to advice!

Poor Baby

When it rains, it pours.

The kiddo has been coughing off and on for ages now...back in September she did a round of antibiotics for what we thought was bronchitis, but her cough never really fully disappeared.

Over the weekend she was sick again with a fever both Saturday and Sunday, but by Sunday evening she was okay. She went to school Monday with no major issues, but last night said how much her throat hurt.

Today she went to school and called from the nurse at 10am, her second visit, so I went to get her while putting a call into her doctor's office. By 11:30 we were seeing one of the other doctors in the practice (our regular doctor wasn't there). I didn't like her. She started saying the kid had some weird kind of asthma that causes coughing rather than wheezing, and I knew that just didn't seem right. But they had her do a breathing test and then a breathing treatment with a bronchial dilator, then another breathing test which showed no improvement. This was to kill the asthma theory.

The doctor then ordered a chest x-ray even though she said she couldn't hear any obstructions. Off to radiology and after waiting close to an hour and going through all the insurance information again, she got her x-ray and we went home expecting a call with results tomorrow.

They called half an hour ago instead, and she has pneumonia!! I'm about to go to the pharmacy (second time today) to pick up her antibiotics. Ugh.

Tomorrow I'll try and post about the sudden development of a boyfriend in her life and how instant messaging and the phone have at once become vitally important. Oy vay.

Busy day away from the computer

Today we had the pleasure of having Tori over for the afternoon. Charlie and Cecily brought her over around noon and we left her with my daughter (who was off school today) while we went to a much-needed recovery meeting. I even managed to share in a positive way and without breaking into tears for the first time in quite a while. Maybe I’ve turned a corner?

Afterwards, they dropped me back home and then went off by themselves for a movie date (also much-needed). The kiddo was up in her room with Tori. We played up there for a bit then came downstairs, Tori trying to get into anything and everything she could. My daughter asked for a break and retreated upstairs. I decided we needed to get outside, so I bundled her up and we went with Pete and the dogs to the park. That kid can move fast—interrupted only briefly by falls that hardly phased her.

When we got back I threw a SpongeBob DVD on the TV and Tori finally was willing to sit still for more than two seconds, at which point she passed right out…snuggled up against me. Sigh. As much as I loved that feeling, I definitely don’t miss having a little kid around full time. SO exhausting!

Charlie and Cecily arrived to pick her up literally the same second she woke up from her nap. We had a few minutes to get ready to go to my parents for dinner, who had one of my mom’s cousins over. He lives in Fairbanks, Alaska with his wife, who had to travel to DC for a conference, so he hitched along with her and took the train up to stay with my folks for the night. Then he’s off to see some other cousins tomorrow. I’ve never met him, as he’s always lived far away. It was really great to get to know more of my family—my mother’s family is full of amazingly adventurous and artistically creative people. We are now looking forward to one day visiting Alaska!

Had to come home and help the kiddo tackle homework that we put off until the last minute…she started off in tears, feeling overwhelmed and beating herself up for waiting to start, but I managed to get her back on track and helped her get through it. She’s still finishing math and has some reading to do, but she’s feeling more positive.

Why is it so simple to go easy on those we love and we are so quick to be so hard on ourselves?

Happy Halloween!

My daughter went to her first school dance on Friday night. In the weeks leading up to it, she surprised me by telling me about her friends being asked by boys to go to the dance. I didn’t think kids did that in sixth grade. Eventually I discovered that being “asked” just meant that you’d see the boy there. Maybe.

Anyway, my daughter wasn’t being asked. She didn’t seem too upset about it, but she was talking to me about it so I figured it was bothering her some. I worry about her sometimes more than I should and other times not enough. I struggle to stop myself from projecting my own issues and memories from being that age, because she is nothing like I was. But where I would fall in with a group of girls only to be turned on and teased mercilessly, she hasn’t ever really fit in with one group. She has a best friend who in a lot of ways is a burden and I think keeps her from making other friends. She is really smart and loves school, yet is tall and blonde and beautiful so she intimidates the “nerds,” who she likes.  She was never interested in the so-called “cool” kids because even from a very young age she recognized that they were phony and often cruel. So where does that leave her? She seems happy and well adjusted, so I’m not sure if my worry comes from my own baggage or not. She gets along with everyone.

On Friday after school she came in the front door and eagerly stated, “I have a date for the dance!” When I asked her who asked her, she said, “I asked someone!” Holy shit, I couldn’t believe it. No way in hell I would have been able to do that at almost 12 years old! She asked R., whom she described as funny and looking like a girl.

She showered and got ready by wearing a cute casual dress, stockings and dress shoes, with a little sweater I lent her. She put lip-gloss on and that was it. She looked so grown up but not trashy; just really sweet. I dropped her off at her best friend’s house and before she got out of the car I gave her my cell phone “just in case.” “Just in case what,” she asked. I stumbled…it was totally about me. I remembered tears and stress and wanting to disappear. “Just in case you need me,” I said. She shrugged her shoulders and put the phone in her purse, got out of the car and left.

When she returned that night she said it was lots of fun, but she didn’t even find R. until most of the dance was over. She asked him to slow dance during the one slow song they played, but by the time they were ready, the song was over. She spent most of the time dancing with her friends. She requested “Thriller” to be played by the DJ, and her and her friend did the dance steps to it. I asked if they were the only ones and she smiled and said, “Yeah.”

That’s my girl.

Today for Halloween, despite the abundance of over-sexed little girl costumes available (see Cecily’s great post about this), my kid has always made costumes from what is around the house or in thrift stores. And she’s always been interested in being something scary or weird. Last year she was a hillbilly; the year before that a “zombie princess”. This year she is being an old-fashioned schoolmarm, wearing a dress I wore to a bar mitzvah when I was about her age that my mother saved: A up to the neck, down to the shins, frilly and flowery dress, and sensible shoes.

I’m really proud of her.

She's a big girl, all the way

My daughter started sixth grade last week, Middle School (that is sixth, seventh, and eighth grade)! She was excited about it most of the summer and then, very naturally, got a bit nervous in those last couple of days. She was so cute getting ready. We spent part of the summer totally cleaning out her disaster of a room so she could begin the year organized. She now has floor space where once she had none. Her room is so freaking small, but we took out the doors to this stupid huge closet that takes up half the room and put her bed in there. We cut a little ‘window’ in the side to let in light from the actual window the stupid closet was mostly blocking. I gave her my old computer and a wardrobe. We filled up bags and bags of clothes to give away, boxes of books, and mountains of garbage were tossed. Very fulfilling. Now I just have to get my ass over to the donation places to get this shit out of my house. Heh. Also, clean out the ‘extra’ room that is now impossible to walk into because it is filled with stuff I figured I’d put away “later.” Yeah…I’ll get to that eventually!

So she’s doing really well. That first day she asked if Pete and I would walk with her down to the end of the street where the bus picks her up (in elementary school she walked or I gave her a ride). As I watched her get on the bus and get carried away I felt so nervous inside and I realized it wasn’t for her, but a reliving of my own horrid middle school experiences. Coming home almost every day in tears off the bus because of the two friends who turned on me would yell insults from the back of the bus to me in the front during the whole ride.

I thought about that for a bit and took a deep breath. My daughter is so far beyond what I was at her age…so much more aware of the way people are and I just know she wouldn’t put up with that sort of thing. Even better is that I know she wouldn’t perpetrate it onto others, either.

So each day she comes outside in the morning with her backpack on to say goodbye to Pete and I and the dogs. We watch her walk down the street looking so much older than the kid who came running home from elementary school last year; and we feel a bit old. But we also feel quite proud. She’s been on top of her homework without being asked. She’s been extremely helpful around the house. She’s gone to bed without giving me grief. It is like a switch was flipped and she decided she needed to grow up. Amazing…not that she was a bad kid before or anything. She just is more focused on being helpful and responsible this year. And it is fantastic. Makes the whole household happier, really.

Damn, I’m proud of her.

Dating as a Single Mom, or Really? An Abusurdly Long Post Cataloguing my Dates after Motherhood.

Dating as a single mother is difficult enough, I think, but add to the fact that I was newly sober on top of being a new mother, and it got really complicated.

The real problem was that I had no idea what I wanted in a man. I didn’t know myself very well—hardly at all—so how could I know who would be compatible for me?

A lot of women get sober and find guys right away…usually too soon, in fact. I was both cursed and blessed by having a baby in tow for most of my first year. It kept guys pretty far away. This was ultimately a good thing, because it is not a very good idea to get involved with someone in that first year of sobriety.

I initially figured I would never be able to be with anyone who wasn’t also sober. How could I be with a man who didn’t understand the way my brain worked? The first guy I dated was someone I met through Cecily and Charlie at Christmas in their house, right after my daughter turned one. He had a little more time sober than me, and was working in a half-way house for men. He was gorgeous and a real ‘tough guy’ on the outside, but extremely sweet to me. Even though he did carry a big knife…something Cecily’s mother wouldn’t let drop at that Christmas. Heh.

He had three kids in foster care and was working towards getting them back to live with him full-time. So he didn’t mind that I had a baby one bit. Not long after we had a few dates he bought a house in preparation for getting his kids back, and the first time we had sex I drove him 45 minutes from the city so we could be alone there. He had no furniture yet, however, so we stopped at a store and bought some blankets and pillows and candles first. It was kind of romantic and a lot of fun to play in the empty house! It had been a very long time since I had been with anyone, and I was ecstatic.

After a while I realized that he was planning a real future with me, imagining us living all together with 4 kids, and that scared me to death. I wasn’t ready for that—I had no idea if that was what I wanted. I also started to realize that we weren’t actually that compatible. We came from completely different lives and as snobby as it sounds he wasn’t very well-educated. I ended up breaking up with him over the phone by accident. I mean, it wasn’t my intention to break up with him that way, but one thing led to another on the phone and that’s what happened. I felt horrible, because he was truly a great guy, and I am grateful to him for helping me feel desirable again. I ran into him a couple of times after that and he held no bad feelings towards me. We’ve lost touch and I truly hope he is doing well.

Over the years I was only with a few other guys, and in my daughter’s early years it wasn’t an issue to worry about what she thought. The hardest thing for me to learn was to balance my desires with her needs—to stop being so selfish. That took a long time. And I was really good at rationalizing my behavior.

There was the guy on the motorcycle next, who was in school and very smart and seemed to be well-suited with me, and I let myself get carried away with him. We had a lot of fun together and he was totally into my daughter, and even went so far as to muse on one day adopting her! Turns out he was just spouting bullshit, and after he dumped me it became obvious what a jerk he could be. He was the guy who had the gall to assume Charlie and Cecily would still hang out with him (and they weren’t that close to begin with). My favorite story of Charlie’s loyalty is the night not long after when they were all at the diner together after a meeting (I wasn’t there). He leaned over to Charlie and asked when they would go hiking again and Charlie looked at him as if he had three heads. “Let me explain something to you,” he said. “There’s Sarah, and there was you and Sarah, but there is no us and you.” –something to that effect (Charlie, please give us your actual quote here in the comments).

I can’t remember the order of the next two…LOL. One was super sweet—too sweet—and he bored me. Because that was where I was still at—unable to accept someone being so kind to me and still lusting for the ‘bad guy’—how embarrassing! The other was another tough guy, and it lasted much longer than it should have. We had a lot of fun for a while, and again—one day he dumped me. I was almost getting used to it, sadly.

Oh yeah, and in there somewhere was the horrible idea of becoming sex partners with the guy who was one of my closest friends in recovery at the time. We went to the movies together all the time, hung out constantly, and he figured…we should be together! I knew it was a bad idea, yet I went along with it anyway. Guess what? It was a really, really bad idea. Changed everything.

All these guys were guys I met in recovery, and I started to realize that the ones I was ‘into’ were idiots, really. Very immature, but that was kind of par for the course with guys in recovery (and girls). All of us were still trying to figure out how to live and who we were. I thought then that perhaps I should look outside of sobriety…find a ‘normal’ guy. But I had no idea where to look. I didn’t go hang out in bars anymore, obviously! A few times at the playground with my daughter I thought maybe I’d meet a single dad, but nothing clicked. I still wasn’t ready.

Then I met D. at a recovery convention in Harrisburg. He had lots of tattoos and 12 years clean, though only the previous 2 years of being active in his recovery. He was sexy and smart and we clicked immediately. He lived two hours away from me. We exchanged numbers after the weekend ended, and he actually phoned me, and I was thrilled. I went to visit him. He also lived with his parents as part of his amends to them—he gave money and helped do housework and yard work to help his parents out.

For the next two years I let myself get swallowed up by him and the idea of him being ‘the one’. We talked about marriage. I spent most of my time driving up to spend the weekends my daughter was with her father, with him. I arranged my life around him and was completely blind to the fact that he was really not doing the same. I became very close to his parents, his friends, very involved in his world. He took a long time to meet my parents or my friends. I bought a freaking fishing license because he was into fishing. I hate fishing!! Cecily and Charlie bit their tongues.

Towards the end, my mother got breast cancer. She also had a big art show coming up. He was supposed to be here for that weekend. He cancelled midway through the previous week for one of the lamest reasons I had ever heard, and I was furious. I snapped! I screamed and yelled at him and then he made me feel horrible for it. I see now he was provoking me on purpose and looking for a way out. I didn’t give it to him, so the next time he was due to come see me (now in an apartment of my own), he had a plan. Unaware, I was eagerly awaiting his arrival and the prospect of make-up sex. He shows up, I open my door, and he holds out a jacket I had left at his house and his copy of my apartment keys and says “I’m done. It’s over.”

That’s it. No explanation. No coming in to talk to me. He turns around and leaves to drive the 2 hours back to his home. I was floored. He had no concern for my daughter then or later. No concern for me. I crumbled. My whole world had shattered with no warning, in my mind, and I felt like the biggest fool in the world. And I proceeded to behave foolishly for a while after—calling him, begging him, groveling with him. I walked around crying all the time for weeks. I was humiliated. My daughter couldn’t understand what went wrong, and I couldn’t explain it to her. After two weeks, she looked at me one morning and said, “Are you still crying over D?” She didn’t get it.

I was done. When I finally started to feel better, I had to come to the realization that I might end up being alone, and that maybe I would be better off that way. I also decided that if I did end up dating anyone else, they would not be meeting my daughter for a LONG while. She was 5 or 6 then, and it wasn’t fair to get her attached to anyone unless it was the real deal.

Eventually I decided to join some online dating sights to try and get some of my crushed ego back. It didn’t help much, because again—the ‘I have kids’ box was checked and it kept my responses down to a real minimum. I went on some dates and had some flirtations, and while most of it seemed really pointless, it did help me start to figure out what I liked and disliked and finally start to think about what was important to me in a partner. I wasn’t going to waste time anymore with a guy if they weren’t right. And I started to become okay with the idea that being alone with my daughter was not such a bad thing after all.

Enter Pete in the middle of this dating. Our emails became an online friendship in which I would tell him about my dates and he would tell me about what he didn’t like about his girlfriend who he only saw for a week or two a few times a year. We started sharing our histories with one another, our demons. We started to rely on our communication…the encouragement, the friendship, the humor. And the rest is history, as they say. And also our future.