I spent part of Sunday with an old friend. A friend who could remember that breastfeeding was not fun sometimes, kids are not perfect sometimes, and relationships, especially when there are kids involved, take work. I was grateful for her presence and her insight, and her honesty. I had missed her.
We talked a lot about how we both got to where we are. Family of origin, moving, school. We talked about the words our families used about and to us, and how we both struggle, even now, to acknowledge our childhood as less-than-ideal, while moving on to not become our parents. It is hard, we both knew, and had the sand not been blowing around so much, I for one would have cried a few times. It has been hard, we could both see that clearly.
We talked about our relationships, choices we made about sex and love and family. We both had roads where we are trying to forgive our respective partners (and ex-partners) for being human, at the same time expecting them to man-up and take some responsibility for their own happiness, without masking the problem or running away and ignoring it completely. We both knew we were working on the same things for ourselves.
We talked about kids, and just how it is to parent children in the real world we have created for them. We both try to balance being involved with our children’s schools, while trying to let administrators do their job, and trusting them to it. We both have successes and failures when it comes to how we educate our children.
We both know our children struggle with things that are different than what we would hope for them. My son struggles with not remembering a time when he lived with both of his parents in the same home, working as daily partners, and feels he missed out. My daughter remembers the “bad stuff” that happened before her father and I split, but misses the good stuff of being a mom and dad family. My friend talked about how even with two parents in a home, the styles and needs sometimes overwhelm her, and she knows it affects her kids. Each of us had different strengths and different challenges we live with daily, based almost solely on our own individual choices. We each have different regrets.
We also laughed completely as the kids ate berries (covered with sand), and jumped off beach cliffs (about 18 inches high) and let the wind carry away a beach umbrella (they were using as a hut). We moved our own blanket a couple times to avoid the sand kicked up by running and jumping feet, yet somehow, wherever we moved, that is where the kids needed to be. It was funny, and in a way sweet, that in the middle of that annoyance, what the kids really wanted was to homestead and stay near.
The whole dance, in an out of our own past, present, and future, lasted about three hours. The time was sweet and happy and melancholy and joyous all at once. I can’t wait to do it again. The next time, my kids will come, too.
On Wednesday, she and I will have lunch together. We will have no kids with us. We will eat cheeseburgers because we won’t have kids around watching us eat such junk. I hope we will talk about movies and celebrities and music. I hope we talk about paint colors in our respective new houses, and how we keep bathrooms clean with two kids in the house. I hope we talk about shoes. I also hope we get to know each other better as real women, because you can never have too many friends who know your story and want to hang out with you anyway. I am already excited about it.
