Wipe Out

I wiped out on my razor scooter a few weeks ago and it was the best feeling in the world.  I totally wish you could have seen it.  I stood up and laughed, jumped back on, and kept going.  Just to show everybody I was fine.  After a few blocks, I sat down on some steps and immediately Facebooked about it, telling my most amused and delighted friends:  It finally happened.  The fabric of my work pants torn at the knees.  The blood running down my shins.

I never felt more alive.

(Why can't I feel this way about heartbreak?)

I remember the fantabulous crashes from my youth.  And how we all celebrated when some kid made a most awesome Wipe Out.  I once catapulted over my bike handles and flew down the steepest hill in my neighborhood, dragging my face along the side of the road, coming up with gravel embedded in my cheek.  Admiration from one kid to another:  Cool wipe out.  We wore our skinned knees and elbows like badges of honor.

I've never gotten seriously hurt or broken any bones and I have a theory about this:  I don't try to stop myself when I fall.  I feel the Wipe Out coming and I go limp, letting my knees drag across the pavement, holding up my wrists.  The moment the skateboard or scooter jams, the split second I'm aware This Is Going To Hurt Like Hell, I let myself go with complete abandon.  I do not even think twice about jumping right back on my ride and pushing away as fast as I can.  I never shed a tear.

(Why can't I feel this way about heartbreak?)

The same week I so gloriously wiped out on my razor scooter, some girl took a wrecking ball to my heart.  I realize I write the action verbs like she caused all this, but I know I blew it.  In a colossal way.  She even warned me about what was going to happen but I proceeded as if I were somehow different.  My endless terminal uniqueness.

After everything explodes, I am reduced to sobbing and chanting through the tears, Never Again, Never Again, I am never ever ever telling anyone I like them, I am never even allowing myself to like anyone, fuck everything, fuck everyone.  Several minutes of this, I suddenly realize the energy and wish I am sending into the universe.  I drop to the floor, wince from the pain where my one knee is still raw from the crash, and insist on whispering a new prayer:  Soft heart, soft heart, soft heart, please divine source of all life, I take it all back, do not close my heart no matter how many times I trust it to the wrong person, soft heart, soft heart, soft heart, I must keep my soft open heart....

As I shift the weight off my sore knee, it hits me.  With my scooter, with my skateboard, I fall with abandon. I even EXPECT to get hurt.  And I LOVE it when I do.  Someone suggests that maybe a forty-five year old woman should not be buzzing through The Short North on a razor scooter, that maybe I should go ahead and pay for that parking pass.  There's NO Way I will ever even entertain the idea of quitting.

(What if I start thinking of falling with my heart the way I think of my body flying across the sidewalk?  Expect to get hurt and even love it when I do?)

I ride my razor scooter with no fear.  I mean, I'm not in the middle of the street or anything stupid.  But if I have fear, I lose balance and I especially lose the joy of gliding through the world.  When I have fear, when I hesitate, that's usually when I crash.  I ride both-footed and the crash happened when I was doing my stutter step full speed to switch feet.  I discovered this the very next day when I almost crash again.  I didn't remember what made me fall, but my body did.  My feet hesitate during the skip to the other foot and I laugh, realizing my mistake.  Now I have to take my brain out of thinking about it too much.  If I am full of fear, I cannot accomplish such a feat with the usual style and grace.

(Same thing Heart.  I know that fear got in my way, made me overreact, over correct.  Crash.)

I'm taking a break from FB interactions during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur because every year I use this time as a space to find mindfulness.  But the truth is I could no longer pretend I am OK.  I am not OK.  I am heartbroken.  I cried everyday for the last two weeks.  A few friends protest:  But you don't want a girlfriend anyways.  And they're right.  I don't.  But that doesn't change the facts on the ground.  I liked someone.  It didn't work out.  She's gone.

This happens repeatedly in my life and I always respond by immediately being with someone else.  I am seeking change in my life so I know the only way towards a different path is to change the pattern.  For the first time in my life, post-heartbreak, I insist on aloneness.

I choose to regard the heartbreak the same way I feel the skinned knee.  I'm holding it up for everyone to see.  If it's painful, I must become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken my heart and soften me.  Instead of running from the fall and the pain, I am going to embrace it.

The key is:  It's no big deal.  With my mind, I can make a big deal out of myself, out of my pain.  Or, just like the scooter crash, I get up and shrug.  It's even funny.  It's even something to share with the people who love me.

 I let my heart race. Fly across the universe. Cool Wipe Out.

Figuring out Queer

“Oh, you never want to go to a school like Vasser, or any of The Seven Sisters, because they’re all full of lesbians,” declared my best friend.  We were standing in the hallway of my high school sometime in 1984 and I remember a few other kids were there and even a guidance counselor, nodding his head in agreement.  It is my earliest memory of a consciousness of being gay, of actually identifying with that word:  Lesbian.  I remember thinking clearly: That’s where I MUST go, and, When I get to college, I can tell people, until then, I MUST keep it a secret. But college, college, college, I can finally be free in college.

I think about the thoughts that led up to this moment.  I have an early memory of being at Myrtle Beach, floating on a raft on my stomach with my head resting on my hands, looking at the people on the beach and thinking, I’m not like them, any of them, and I have to hide it, I have to keep myself a secret.  I was eight.   I remember in all my family’s travels across the country, when no one I knew was around, introducing myself to strangers as a boy.  I wanted so badly to be a boy.  First to have their freedom, next to have their girlfriends.   I remember watching soap operas and falling in love with Laura and thinking, I would be so much much better for her than Luke or Scotty.  I dreamed myself as the perfect boyfriend all through my childhood.  I remember how in all the childhood games, I insisted on being Chachi or Joe Hardy or Luke Skywalker.   All the sex education books told me having crushes on girls was entirely “normal” for the pre-teen and no indication of future aberrant behavior.  I don’t know at what point I realized I didn’t have to be a boy to have a girlfriend.  I could actually be a girl and have a girlfriend.

And how did I know “gay” even existed?  Again the early memories started with television.  The National Enquirer blowing up about Billie Jean King.  Rod Stewart having his stomach pumped.  A councilman shot in San Francisco.  My sister explaining the meaning of the lyrics of “Lola.”  The first time I heard the word “faggot” hurled at another kid was on the bus in fourth grade and my best friend had to explain all the words:  gay, faggot, dyke, lesbian, queer.  (My best friend did a lot of reading and had a way more worldly household.)  Martina Navratilova sent me to the tennis courts. Then Boy George appeared on MTV and when my father saw him, he muttered, What a fruit.  I looked at Culture Club and knew that was me; I didn’t have the hair or the make up and certainly not the style but I knew we were still the same.  

As I was entering my senior year, I was losing a different best friend to college. She left me with this parting advice:  Hey, there’s a girl I know from theater, you’ll probably meet her at the Thespian picnic, she’s had a really hard time because everyone is calling her a lesbian.  I don’t know if she actually IS a lesbian, well, yes, I do, she definitely is, but do you think you could try to be friends with her?   

Could I be friends with her?  Oh my god I was so excited to meet a real live lesbian who was actually my age.  This year I sent her a message on FB asking, I think you’re the first person I came out to, do you remember what I said?  She wrote back: You looked at me and told me that you were not gay and then you leaned over and kissed me. I don’t remember this, but I totally trust her version of events, especially since that sounds EXACTLY like something I would do.  

I regret  how after that kissing, I spiralled into a wave of self hatred which led me to reject my gay friends, hook up with a very sweet boy, and write suicide notes.  I was sure I was going to hell for being gay and the only thing that kept me from killing myself was that I also knew I would go to hell for killing myself.  

That time in my life completely informs my spirituality today:  

How we NEVER know how things are going to turn out. We know nothing.  I was seventeen and I was sure, absolutely certain, I was going to hell. A mere four years later, I was dancing with a hundred thousand queers in front of City Hall in San Francisco, thinking THANK GOD I AM GAY.  I imagine someone whispering to that 17 year old girl curled up, miserable on her bedroom floor:  You are perfect and soon you are going to be sooooo happy. If I find myself stuck in some kind of despair, I think of these mere four years and the distance traveled to get to such a place of acceptance and it doesn’t take four years anymore, thank goodness.

Somewhere Safe

I put my bank card somewhere safe so of course I can't find it now.  Does anyone else do this?  I put my wedding ring somewhere safe.  I put the gold necklace my mother-in-law gave me somewhere safe.  Somewhere safe in my house there is some wonderful stuff.  If only I could find somewhere safe.

When I was nineteen, I ran away from home with the woman I planned to marry and spend the rest of life. My first big grown up Love. We got an apartment together, opened joint bank accounts, and laid around talking about soul mates and forever.  In 1987, we were politically aware enough and madly in love enough to dream about Gay Marriage.  I remember insane passion when we were trying to avoid getting caught in college and at our summer job. Once we moved in together, the passion dissipates, the immature fighting starts.  She left me after a year and a half for our only other friend in Columbus, OH, a beautiful boy who worked with us.  I could hardly blame her; the heart wants what the heart wants. She told me we couldn't be friends, that she loved me too much, that she'd never move on if I stayed in her life.  I watched them pack up and leave together and when they left, I had no friends.

When I was 23, I tried the great big let's spend the rest of our lives together once more.  This time we lasted four years.  Again with the wild crazy passion for about a year, again with the boredom, again with the fighting.  About two years in, she started cheating on me and when I figured it out and all the crying subsided, we decided we really loved each other so we would try an Open Marriage.

(Here's the thing about growing up gay late 20th century:  As you are realizing you are gay, you are realizing everything you've ever been told is a lie.  Everything.  Everything about gender and the sexes and sex and love and marriage.  If something as big as the institution of heterosexuality is a complete lie, maybe every institution needs to come down with it.  I was ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Plus, I didn't want to lose another girlfriend.  I am not a jealous person.  I have abandonment issues.  If you promise you're not going to leave me, I really don't care who you fuck.  Connection is so much more important to me than ownership.)

This story does not end well.  My partner wasn't just a cheater, she was mean and abusive.  Probably not the best person with whom to have an open marriage.  For example, I wasn't allowed to see anyone else.  While my understanding of non-monogamy was about openness, honesty, and the opportunity to widen the circle of love in our life.  Her understanding of having another girlfriend was because I wasn't enough.  She justified her extra girlfriend in all the ways I didn't meet her needs.  I also found myself helping the other two work out their problems.  I vividly remember the Steelers were in the play offs for the first time in years and I wanted to get home but they got into a big fight and I was trapped in the car counseling my partner and her other lover.  Blah. I promised myself:  Never Again.

As I exited this relationship, I thought - If I had asked her to marry me, if gay marriage was on the table, she would have said no and saved me a lot of trouble.  This is one of the reasons I started really pushing  marriage equality.  The gays should have the right to ask their lover, Will you marry me?  No?  Ok, next.  I decided then and there, no relationship without Marriage.

And then came marriage.  Again with the great big crazy passion at the beginning.  By the time we hit the boring part, we were planning a wedding to distract us.  And then it was always on to the next thing, Stella, three babies at once, car seats, family vacation, preschool, kindergarten.   I discovered marriage is a little like driving in the summer with the windows up and no air conditioning.  Just as we were about the cross the finish line of every kid in kindergarten, along came a carjacker.  This time I cheated.

I'm not sure where this all leaves me.  Go back a story, where I said yesterday I am fine being single forever. I am not, however, fine never having sex in my life so I am left sorting out what that kind of connection means to me and how to proceed.

I sure as fuck am never getting married again.   If given the opportunity to gay marry, I would have married three times so maybe driving that car does not suit me.  I mean, I had a great wife.  For all the things I tried to make wrong about her or wrong about us together, it really comes down to having nothing to do with her and everything to do with my own personal misery at being trapped in a relationship.  I make a list of everything I want in a spouse and then sit back and laugh at myself because guess what?  She fills it.

I never want to be dependent on anyone else again unless I am very old and it's one of my kids.

I believe our dreams and promises of forever are inevitably at odds with our sexual beings. Especially women.  Right now pharmaceutical companies are working on a pill which will increase a woman's desire for her husband.  Not that there's anything wrong with her actual libido.  A man needs Viagra because his body is failing.  A woman's biochemistry may be completely normal, but we are pathologizing the fact of women's natural sexuality.  A cure for the monotony of monogamy.   All the scientific research about women's desire shows how when we are in a state of safety, desire dissipates.  Disappears.  Completely.  And it happens much more quickly for women than men.  The main reason this happens is because people are trapped.  You don't have sex with me because you desire me, you have sex with me because I'm the only one you're allowed to have sex with and that really bores the shit out of us.  Within the bounds of great big committed relationship, the heat of being desired grows remote.  The choice of me is no longer being made.  Blah.

While the dream of "you complete me" sounds really compelling in the beginning, this isn't love.  This is an inner child seeking reassurance - tell me I'm special, tell me I'm perfect, tell me it's forever no matter what.  At this point, I believe crossing over to the space where I surrender safety, acknowledge that I am navigating my life alone, supported by the love of my family and friends, but inescapably alone, letting go of the longing to depend and be protected, is the only space where pure eros can thrive.

I can't find my bank card, my wedding band, the gold necklace my mother-in-law gave me.  I put them somewhere safe.  It's the things I love without possession that stay in my life.  On my wrist are bracelets I gathered over the years.  Eva made me a collection of the kids' names in Hebrew.  My sister gave me a leather charm bracelet for Christmas.  Gigi gave me three matching silver bracelets for my birthday several years ago.  I toss them onto the nightstand or in a desk drawer or on the bathroom sink or in the little notch of my car door.  I don't think twice about any of them.  I never try to put them anywhere safe.  I never lose
 them and they never leave me.

For the Sake of the Kids

I didn't expect it to happen. I have low expectations these days when it comes to anything having to do with my First Wife. I took the kids to Little Minyan for Kol Nidre. Bought them some new clothes and shoes. Warned Eva. Since this is usually her stomping grounds. Our daughter asked her once, Is is ok if Mama takes us to services at Little Minyan sometimes too? As if it's something I need permission for. Like I said, I went with low expectations. This was one of those times I had to put on Katie Perry's Firework for the car ride, just to give me a breath of self-confidence. 
Everyone recognizes my kids so I was forced to introduce myself: The Other Mom. Jessica, the sort of rabbi, who was once my friend but defriended me and was the "spiritual leader" of my First Wife's second wedding, gave me a half-hearted wave. Then services began. Luckily my son was tired because he stayed beside me the whole time and I really needed that. We discovered little pieces of paper (for notes?) in the pew in front of us and he spent the entire time doing origami. I showed him how to make a frog.  Eva and Amy appeared about five minutes after everything started. They sat behind me where Georgia and Scarlett had already established themselves, having checked with me that they could escape if they got bored. When Stella saw them, she left me to go curl up in her Ema's lap. I have to admit: I am petty. I decided right before services (and even made a point to TELL God) that even though I know I am supposed to pray for the ability to forgive Amy, forget it, I'm never forgiving her. Especially if she never acknowledges she did anything wrong to me. And Eva refuses to forgive me. And now I can't forgive her for not forgiving me and yes, it's an endless circle of rat poison. (Anne Lamott says Not Forgiving someone is like eating the rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.) That was my state of mind pre-Kol Nidre. Nope. No Way. Hardened Heart. Not Gonna Do It.  

In case you don't know, pretty much the whole point of this holiday is atonement and forgiveness. Jews don't go to confession year round; we starve ourselves and stand up in services for fifty hours in a row, praying for forgiveness and the ability to forgive others. I practiced the previous ten years but I knew this year was only a physical show. For the sake of the kids.  
There was this super long piano and cello solo. Beautiful and all. But c'mon. Really? And we had to stand for the whole thing. I was like, WHAT is the point of making us stand for twenty minutes? As soon as I asked the question, I quickly answered myself - I know, I know: To make us focus. And perhaps to make us sorry. Really Really Sorry. But sheesh. I finally gave Zeke permission to sit. With his origami frogs. I didn't realize it at the time, only made the connection later, but it was on the last note, the very last strung out cello note, the denouement, the final settling of the song that my heart softened the teensiest bit. A crack where the light came in. I thought, Well at least that last note made standing the whole time sort of worth it. Ok, we got to finally sit down for a minute. But then they had a kid open the Ark and stand with The Torah for the eternity of reading the community Kol Nidre. Back to more standing.

For most of this reading, I worried about the kid, standing there forever with the weight of The Torah. It was a back and forth, call and response thing. Sometimes readers happened in the congregation, quite spontaneously, but the last reading was done together. It built us up to forgiving "vows we could not keep." That's when I started to pay attention. Vows. We. Could. Not. Keep. And then the last paragraph, I suddenly became aware: We are standing only a few feet away from each other, reading aloud a prayer for forgiveness and for the ability to forgive. And I know Eva. Better than even The New Wife. We stood next to each other reciting these prayers for 12 years. I know she is reading out loud too. And together we are reading out loud in a sacred space with a Minyan of Jews. And perhaps even beginning a new set of vows. Of course I started to cry. Because I always fucking cry. When we sat down, I put my arm around my son and smiled through the tears at the plague of frogs littering the church pew. A friend tells me: Forgiveness isn't easy. Hearing people say things out loud in front of a congregation that they need forgiveness when I believe that YES..YOU NEED TO ASK FORGIVENESS FOR THIS YOU PRICK..is powerful. And the person saying it knows that I know that I need to forgive and be forgiven. And then, I start, a little, to forgive. Some things can never truly be forgiven, but like with all mitzvot, the more I practice the "easier" it becomes. A deep sigh. I realize forgiveness is more like acceptance. Never warm and fuzzy. It all started with my acceptance of my obligation (to take my kids to this service) and moved to ACCEPTANCE and then God nudges us in the right direction: Stop swallowing the rat poison.

We left not too long after. Stella complaining that she needed to go to bed. And I was a little less angry than when I arrived.

Ring the bell that still can ring.

There's a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in......

I Love Being Not Right

So one of my big life lessons is all about how I know absolutely nothing.

A perfect example:  When I was 17, I wanted to kill myself because I was in the process of realizing I am gay.  Flash forward five years and I am dancing in the streets of San Francisco with my hands in the air, singing along with Crystal Waters (Live) at the end of the day of a giant gay pride march, thinking to myself:  THANK GOD I am gay because straight people never get to do this except maybe at weddings.

(side note to self:  maybe this is really why gay people want in on the whole wedding thing, more places to dance with our hands in the air.)

Anyways.  Now when I find myself super-depressed (like even this afternoon when I was crying at the end of The Iron Lady which is a movie not at all about England but more about having a great big true love in life who shares everything and realizing I totally fucked that up for myself and dammit I really hate Catherine and Heathcliff right now, and yes I'm probably going to bleed tomorrow morning), I remind myself how in the blink of an eye I went from suicidal depression with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY my life was going to be so miserable and I was going straight to hell to a life where I celebrate myself and totally sing the body electric on most nights (and now days).

In this past week, I am confronted AGAIN with another way I was so wrong.

And it makes my heart sing.

Eva has this brother, my kids' uncle, who never really said much of anything to me throughout the beginnings of our marriage, mostly because I came along right about the time he developed complete teenage disdain for anything having to do with his family.  One time, we were at some great big function where he was sitting sullenly next to me on the couch in a room full of relatives when suddenly he was inspired to start telling me about his art and his whole rant eventually led to him insisting to Eva and me about what it's going to be like when his art is hanging in MOMA.  Yes, this idiot late teenager who grunted when his mother helped him set up an art show at the local JCC seemed to be having a manic breakdown right in front of me with what I interpreted as full blown delusions of grandeur.  Afterwards, Eva and I talked at length about our concern for his mental health.

I am very pleased to report ten years later - I was so wrong.  He's not in MOMA yet.  But it's surely not a dream I believe crazy.

Because there's THIS <<<<<click and make sure you scroll down and watch the video if you want your mind blown.  And after that video, find the other ones HERE.

It continues to be my life lesson:  I know nothing.  We never know what's coming.  Don't piss on someone else's dream, even if it's only in your mind.  We never know what people are going to do.  We think we know.  We think we can look at patterns of behavior and predict outcomes.  And it is SO HARD to believe that people can change.  But they do it all the time.  Sometimes they change back.  And forth.  And keep moving forth.  Which is sort of what Jake's art is doing - everything is in a state of constant change, how the story starts, you never know how it's going to end, the picture in flux.  We know nothing.


One of the promises of my recovery:  I will be amazed before I am half way through....and I am.

Achievement Test

My mother took every opportunity to tell my sister and me how we were really stupid.  “Dumb as a pissant” or “Lose your head if it wasn’t attached” and especially “never amount to anything.”  I remember in Third Grade we had to take an “Achievement” test and the teachers and the principal telling us over and over how these tests do not matter, we should just try our best but they will not affect our report card or go anywhere on our permanent record.  At some point during the test, my teacher announced we could go outside when we were finished.  So I ABBA CA DABBAed the rest of the scantron and headed for the playground.  It was about four years later when I found out they lied to us as they were dividing up every elementary kid to matriculate into junior high.  I really wish someone had told me: If you kick ass on that Third Grade “Achievement” test, you get to be called “gifted” or at least “advanced.”  Later, I found out how my fill-in-the-blanks fast track to recess returned my test back with an IQ of 72 and my parents were called into school where the principal said I belonged in the Special Ed class and my mom as all: Well, that explains everything.  The weird part of this story is how my mom was actually a teacher’s aid in the Special Ed room.  She worked with these kids everyday and somehow it made sense to her when some authority figure told her I belonged there.  My teacher spoke up: Janine is most certainly not Mentally Retarded (as we called it in those days), I have a pretty good idea of what happened here and it has more to do with Dodge Ball than intelligence.

By Junior High, we were divided into curriculum tracks labeled “Advanced, Average, and Below Average.”  The Below Average students eventually made their way to the Vo-Tech program by high school.  I had all “Average” classes except I am pretty sure I fell into “Below Average” math.  I was a trouble maker.  I started hanging out with “The Freaks.”  School was one big entertainment session:  How to cut class, how to convince the nurse I was sick, how to use a cheat sheet, how to copy off my neighbor’s work, how to steal hall passes, how to make out with boys on the condemned third floor.  One day at the beginning of 8th grade, Mrs. Corona, my English teacher, approached my mother in the Faculty Lounge.  (Now my mom was a teacher’s aid in remedial reading, following my sister and me from school to school.)  My mother waved her away, telling her: No, I only talk about Janine during conferences.  This was not the first time a teacher tried to ruin her cigarette break.  Mrs. Maffie once marched up to her and slammed my cheat sheet of all the Roman gods and goddesses onto her table, for example.  But Mrs. Corona persisted:  I think Janine belongs in Advanced English.  My mother burst out laughing: Oh no, surely you’re not talking about my daughter.  This experienced teacher saw something my mother refused to see.  Perhaps I was not dumb, perhaps I was bored, perhaps I needed something a little more challenging.  She asked my mother if we could try an experiment and have me sit in on her advanced class.  My mother was not proud or even excited for me.  When she told me about what Mrs. Corona said, she insisted it was all a big mistake and not to get my hopes up or anything.  I sat in that class for one week and then marched into the guidance counselor’s office by myself and demanded a schedule change from top to bottom.  

By the time I was 23, I had dropped out of three different colleges and now found myself trying one more time at a community college north of San Francisco.  Starting all over again, I landed in another freshman English course taught by an over-enthusiastic young man named Mr. Haskell.  (In my mind, I called him “Eddie.”) He was so thrilled to be teaching English at a community college.  He loved school.  He loved my writing.  He went on and on about my great writing.  I rolled my eyes.  I think at that point, I considered myself a History major or maybe I would just default into Nursing.  Or something.  But he kept telling me:  You. Are. A. Good. Writer.  I figured it was his  job to say all this.  Or something.  We were doing a close study of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  We were supposed to read the play and write all about the meanings and symbolism.  We had to watch the Elizabeth Taylor movie and write all about the ways Hollywood changed the story and why.  We watched the Jessica Lange version and at the end of the semester, we met in the city to watch a staged version.  Up until the night of the performance, school was always a total drag for me, some hoop you jumped through to move to the next stage of life.  I did the least to get by.  Standing in line, “Eddie” was waxing poetic about what an awesome opportunity to get to see this live performance in the great city of San Francisco and for just a moment, I tilted my head and he moved into a different prism in my mind.  I remember thinking: Oh my god, you actually like this shit.  And this young man, who worshipped at the Altar of Tennessee, also put a lot of effort into insisting I am a Good Writer. I decided to believe him.

Stolen Cell Phone, Part 3

The next morning I placed my cell phone in the middle of the dining room table where it was sure to be seen.

 My kids are pretty good about getting up in the morning and taking care of themselves.  I set up all of Zeke's clothes in the downstairs bathroom, pull him out of the bunk bed with his head covered in "Froggy," and carry him in total darkness.  He hates the light first thing in the morning.  After he's gone, the girls can turn on all the lights.  I want them completely dressed, including shoes, before they sit down to breakfast. And I MAKE breakfast.  Everyday.  Like real food.  Not some pop-tart either.  My kids are mostly vegetarian and I like to send them off with a belly full of protein because I know the rest of the day is nothing but carbs, carbs, carbs.  Once they are settled, I announce:

"You people owe me $50 dollars."

I like to say whacked out crazy things to my kids just to see how they're going to respond.  For some reason, this doesn't get much of a response, so I say it again.

"That's right.  You heard me.  You people owe me $50 dollars."

This time they are looking at me like I am out of my mind.  So I explain.

"Last night.  While you were all acting crazy right before bedtime and I had to spend an extra hour settling you down, someone stole my cell phone right out of the car."

This is why I left my cell phone where they can see it.  Right away, they want to hear the story.  This is what we do at my house.  Mama, tell us the story of how you got fired from that one job.  Mama, tell us the story of how you just filled in the blanks when you were tested in third grade and they tried to put you in the special ed class. (This is a popular story lately, as they are all about to embark on Iowa Exams.) Mama, tell us the story of your first boyfriend, you first girlfriend.  Mama, tell us the story of how you met Ema.  Mama, tell us the story of how you sold all of your belongings in a yard sale.  Tell the story of my birth.  Tell the story of how you ran away from home.

So I told them.  About how I discovered it missing.  How I posted on FB.  How everybody sent text messages to my phone.  They wanted me to read the messages.  This greatly impressed them.  How the thief called me.  How I drove away while they were sleeping and retrieved it.   But then we came back to the issue at hand; I told them I never would have had my cell phone stolen if they had all been behaving ergo they owe me $50.

This brought a howl of protest.  They wanted to know why I would pay such a high reward.  Their personalities show up in their defense.  The Oldest uses critical thinking skills to argue that I am the one who forgot the cell phone out in the car in the first place, so I should pay.  Practical Scarlett says I should never pay a reward to a thief.  Georgia, ever wanting to please each person, lobbies to pay only half.  And Zeke just shrugs, I don't have that kind of money.

"Of course I'm not going to make you pay me.  It's done.  Get your back packs and help me load the car."

For some reason, Scarlett and I ended up on the second floor together again.  I have a giant clear plastic box sitting on the floor below my linen closet.  It is full of everything that should be organized into a medicine cabinet and extra stuff that can probably take up a shelf of the closet too.  Band aids.  Kids' medicine. Make up.  Cotton balls.  Nail polish.  The list goes on.  I'm sitting at the top of the steps, in the same place from the night before when the madness peaked.  Scarlett comes around the same corner.  I stop her and say:

"Look at this box.  Do you know what all this stuff is and why it's still sitting here?"

She shakes her head, "Why don't you just put it away?"

"It's still sitting here because I don't care.  I don't mind it being there.  I step over it.  It's been there since we moved in and someday eventually I'll get around to putting it all away but for now it doesn't bother me.  Look around at the rest of this house.  Now, I want you to imagine Ema living with someone who doesn't care how long a box of junk sits in the middle of the hallway.  And I want you to imagine me living with someone who is always making a big deal about everything being all organized and put away.  I'm not saying this is the only reason we're not together anymore, but I want you to take a look at my house and take a look at her house and understand there were ways I was trying to be when I was with her that were not right for me and all of those problems were there way way way before Amy came along.  Come here."

She came over to me and sat on my lap at the top of the steps.  She leaned on me and sucked her finger.  She's eight years old and she still sucks her finger at my house.  I cannot get her to stop.  She does not suck her finger at Eva's house and I don't know if that means I'm a terrible mother or if it means she knows I don't judge her.  Whatever it is, she won't stop sucking for me.

I wonder:  If we were still together and all living under the same roof, would the finger sucking have stopped altogether a long time ago?  How has the divorce affected our daughter's palette?  In my head, I go on and on with every consequence and scenario.  I spent a lot of time with her parents.  If we were still together, would the kids be spending more time with their grandparents?  How do the kids feel about promises?  Is there ever any way they will ever believe anyone's promise?  I know I wouldn't.

"I want you to know I heard what you said last night and even though I had to send you to bed, I'm thinking about how to explain things to you.  I am the way I am and I am not better than Ema and she is not better than me.  But we're different and our differences made it difficult to stay together.  I'm the one who asked for a divorce first.  We tried for a little bit to work it out.  THEN Amy came along.  I know it seems like we told you about the divorce and Amy was there at the same time,  but stuff happened way before and we weren't telling any five year olds about it. I appreciate how Amy stuck around through what must have been a really hard time for Ema, and I appreciate how she helps us take care of you.  But I want you to know I am sorry that we didn't try harder. We owed it to you to try harder.  I really wish you didn't have to live in different houses but I will try to work as hard as I can to make things easier for you, OK?"

Nearly everyday my kids find a way to remind me how much divorce sucks.  Don't do it, people.  I mean it. Penelope Trunk explains how I view divorce today HERE.  It was really hard work to stay together, but I am here to report that the work grows exponentially once the parents are apart.  I grapple all the time with the long term sadness and trying to figure out if they're going to have a lingering inability to connect to other people.

I don't yet know how this story ends yet.  There isn't some uplifting spiritual message at the end of every blog.  I'm still in the thick of things so I can't yet see how all of my mistakes and regrets are somehow "meant to be" great learning experiences.  Tell it to the kids who live in two houses so therefore have no real home.