Solo Mother

how time flies when you’re having fun!

by christina on June 2nd, 2007

I don’t mean this in a callous way. Far from it. There are times I wake up in tears over what was lost, but I’m mourning an ideal, not the reality. But last night, as I sat around the fountain that serves as an ice skating rink in the winter and focal point for jazz in the summer, surrounded by friends, food, and fabulous children, I realized I’d missed my seven month mark of returning to the States. It had slipped past me unnoticed. This is a good sign, I think.

Last night was a waking dream. When I finished work, I rushed to the National Gallery of Art, where a friend waited with my child and hers. They had staked out a great spot at the fountain and were happily dancing and dipping their toes in the water.  Friends, spouses of friends, extended family trickled to our spot by the water. The kids were soaked from the waist down and famished. They danced to jazz standards with a happy abandon as yet unmarred by knowledge of the uncoolness of loving old people music. My son had a quick lesson in feminine appeasement, back-peddling like mad. His best friend had announced they were getting married, to which he replied that no, he was planning to marry an old sweetheart from Dubai, but something in his friend’s look had him quickly retracting that statement and reassuring his friend that of course, he was going to marry her some day. Phew. They practiced walking down the aisle and I was conscripted as flower girl. The King of Everything broke off rehearsals to dance, his little bottom duck waddling around in circles as he shook himself all over, and I spun his friend around and around like a ballerina. An expat friend rescued us with two baguettes of decent pain – as decent as could be found in America. Adults around the fountain laughed and flirted with the children, an easy community gesture fast going the way of small, local markets and chatting with neighbors on the front porch.

I didn’t have to worry about whether my husband was having a good time, if the children were annoying him, what he really thought about my friends. I didn’t have to run interference between him and his son or beg either of them to just try to understand the other one. There was no petty bickering, no hurt feelings or casually unkind words. I didn’t worry if I was embarrassing someone when I danced with the children. I didn’t have to strain to keep a conversation going. My little wicker picnic basket and its delicious contents were well appreciated by all and our gallant franco-grec bread expert put the tired KoE on the seat of his bike, the mostly emptied picnic basket on the back, and wheeled us up the hill, singing songs and laughing the whole way.

This is life, my friends. This is the way it should be lived. If there is little joy and laughter in your life, go find it.

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POSTED IN: emotional pain, essential reading