The Freedom of Parenthood

I’ve been without child now for a week.

My great idea for this transition was to keep to myself so as not advertise myself as the needy emotional wreck I feel like inside. I mean, he’s just in college. And he’s just over the bridge from me. I’ve actually seen The Boy a couple of times this week. He’s already been home to do his laundry. I talk with him almost every day via text or phone or email.

And in a week I’ve:

Done countless word search puzzles, which is truly a mindless pursuit but I’m actually pretty good at them. Mindless pursuits are my special gift...

Gotten lots of emails, phone calls, and drop-ins from family and friends who I know are just checking up on me to make sure I’m not suicidal. I promise you. I'm NOT suicidal, but if y'all don't stop dropping in without calling first, I might be...

Slept for about 20 hours, down from my usual 40-hour-sleep week. Cranky Bitch, party of one.

Worked and worked and worked. Had to keep something routine.

And I thought and thought and thought.

All that thinking is never a good thing. I get myself into more trouble by thinking than by acting every single time, and it's been my experience that if you're thinking about something too much, it's because it's not working. But I just can't help myself. I’m one of those Devil’s Advocate people. “Well, it’s like this… But maybe it’s also like this… Or it could be…”

This week I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to be now that I’m not a fulltime mom, and the only conclusion I’ve come to is that there sure is a lot of freedom in life, for life, when you’re a parent.

Being a fulltime parent allows you to overlook a lot of things in your life that maybe aren’t being fulfilled because you’re so busy running to soccer practice or to the grocery store that you’re able to put them out of your mind. Your life is just not a priority. The kid is.

So, it doesn’t matter so much if your job is just a job or your relationship just means you have someone to have sex with on a regular basis without having to wonder if you remembered to shave. Who has the time to look for a more fulfilling job or better mate? And vice versa.

But when the kid’s no longer the priority? Then you have to face the fact that you hate your job and don’t really like your mate all that much either. And you don’t have an excuse anymore.

Now I know that not everyone’s like me. I know that there are people who won’t settle. But, I’m not really one to upset the status quo. If it ain't really broke, why fix it? When the status quo changes on you, though, you lose the freedom of just letting things go. You have to deal with all that crap you’ve managed to sidestep for eighteen years.

And all of the sudden, you don’t feel so free.

Well, This Can't Be Good...

Carrie called me this morning to tell me all about the trip she took to New Jersey to see family. Her mom had booked up most of their time, so she was exhausted now but had a great time. Then she filled me in on what's going on with the friend who's STILL cheating on her husband after a year but won't leave him because she doesn't want to be the person who broke up their marriage. Huh?

I hang up the phone with Carrie and arrive home from Dog’s second walk of the morning and notice the floor next to the wall closest to the kitchen is darkening at its edges. The people who I bought the house from had put in that Bruce Hardwood flooring over cement throughout the house, which is nice... in theory. I mean, it’s really nice to look at but not very practical in wet rooms like bathrooms and kitchens.

So I pull out my refrigerator from the other side of the wall, and amidst the dust bunnies I find a puddle. Hmm... That can't be good. The puddle’s been there for some time judging from the look of things, and I find it origins at the point where the filter for the ice maker joins the copper tubing feeding into the wall.

What you should be judging me on here is not that there are dust bunnies behind my refrigerator but that I didn't know I had a filter for my ice maker... And I've lived here for three years... And the filter's supposed to be changed every six months (!). But I digress.

So I head out to the garage for some silicone tape to stop the leak while I figure out what I’m going to do about a plumbing issue on a Sunday morning. See, I'd wanted to spend my first weekend without Boy by myself. I wanted to clean out my house and get used to the idea of living alone. It had seemed like a good idea at the time...

I briefly ponder calling my neighbor, the Young Republican, but dismiss that idea almost immediately. His business degree didn’t quite prepare him for hysterical women and leaking refrigerators. Well, that and he shares my belief that the best way to fix any problem is to sign the receipt.

It’s just a leak. I can fix this, right?


Jimbo at Home Depot thought I could do it. He had to tell me this three times while he was showing me what I needed to fix the leak this morning.

“You’ll need to cut the copper tubing – “ he began.

“Um,.. Are you sure I can do this?”

He looked me up and down, “Of course you can.”

“Okay,” I say, momentarily reassured.

“Then you’ll need to put this plastic piece on the tubing after you put on the bolt.”

“Are you really sure I can do this? I mean, do you have a direct extension I can reach you on if I run into trouble?”

I really am the biggest pain in the ass.


So I’m home now. The Young Republican showed me where to turn off my water supply at the main valve. It’s in the middle of the driveway. Who knew? This was something Jimbo “highly” recommended I see to first. Then I cut the copper tubing, and put on the plastic piece and connected the filter to the tube.

Okay, here’s where things went slightly awry.

The directions tell you to test for leaks at this point. In my own defense, nowhere in the directions does it mention that you should have something to stop the water flow on the other end of the filter.

Now every towel in my house is soaking wet and sitting in my washing machine waiting to be cleaned once my water is turned back on. This will probably be sometime later on today, after Lily comes over to holler “turn it off” when it turns out that the other end isn’t attached correctly. Something that is almost certain to occur.

She’s waking up and getting her laundry started before she comes over to save me from myself. I reasoned that by calling her, I was still handling it. Kinda. Don't ask me why it was suddenly so important that I be independent this weekend.

Anyway, I’m already drinking a beer at eleven in the morning on a Sunday, and I can't get Jimbo on the phone.

Yeah, I don't think this is good either.

Empty Nest

We showed up on campus at eight-oh-seven this morning. The Volvo was packed from front to back, and there was already a line of about fifteen college-bound freshmen ahead of us. One mother, who later told me they’d just driven down from Michigan, was already red-faced from the heat and, I’m sure, the realization that it was going to be a looooong day.

After countless rides up and down the two elevators in the building, three trips up and down six flights of stairs after we got tired of waiting for the elevator, one more roundtrip from downtown St Petersburg to Tampa, a trip to Target and the local Publix to pick up a ton of food, we’re done. Boy is officially moved into the dorms.

Carrie asked me to text her when we were finally all done, so she could lend support if needed. I texted. She called. And there were no tears.

Even when Boy and I said good-bye at the car, there were no tears.

What the Hell is wrong with me?

Shouldn’t I be bawling? Shouldn’t I be bemoaning my fate as a mom with no child at home any longer?

Or maybe I should be happy, feel somehow free. Shouldn’t I already have plans to go hang out at bars and act irresponsible with my other child-free girlfriends?

I keep getting looks from my friends. Those looks that ask, “No, how are you really doing?”

And I’m fine. I’m fine because I know he is fine. And that he will be fine. As a matter of fact, he’ll be great.

The tears? They’ll come. It will probably hit me in a few weeks when I’m in the middle of washing the bathtub, and then I’ll cry.

But for now, I’m just... fine.

A Little Knowledge

Was talking with a friend the other day about the perils of dating, with the whole dirtbag/not-so-much a dirtbag situation and how to know what you're dealing with before you’re emotionally entrenched in a relationship.

“When I met my husband, I did a background check on him,” she told me.

Now my friend had small children at home when she started dating her husband, so I completely understood her reasoning. It’s not stalking. It’s being safe. But what I was surprised with was how easy she told me it is to do something like that. So I tested it.

I looked myself up in the public records database for my state. Boom. There was my mortgage paperwork: how much I paid for my house, my mortgage company, when I bought the house, who I bought the house from, my address, my marital status, etc.

Here’s what else you can find out: marriage date, divorce date, criminal record, liens, bankruptcies, child support judgments, names of relatives, people who live with you, age, and so on... ad inifinitum.

This information age we live in offers endless possibilities. And it’s all out there for anyone who has the time and wherewithal to look it up. And you don’t even need anything besides a person’s name to do it.

Crazy, huh?


It made me wonder about the bar we’re setting for potential mates. What happened to the days when we just liked the look of someone and thought they seemed interesting? Has all that gone to the wayside in the search for the “safer” bet?

I mean, I get the whole “good provider” thing, and, of course I’m not advocating handing over the keys to your heart and brand new BMW to a guy who you know has a DUI or three in his not-so-distant past, but isn’t a little knowledge a little dangerous sometimes?

Someone has a bankruptcy from ten years ago following a particularly nasty divorce. Does that mean he’s an irresponsible mess who hasn’t grown up and grown more responsible? I don’t know about all that.

Or is the guy with the drug conviction from when he was eighteen years old and got caught with a joint morally irredeemable? I’m just saying.

Call me crazy, but I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Now, I don’t have any of these things in my background, but I’m kind of a Pollyanna. And I’m really kind of lucky. I just don’t think anyone should be judged solely by their past.

Still, I have to admit that it’s nice sometimes to know.

Breaking Bad

Caught myself complaining this week – a lot. And I hate when I do that. See? There I go again!

Here’s just a sampling of what I complained about this week:

I gained four pounds. Because I’m addicted to peanut M & M’s.

I broke a nail. And they were finally all the same length, but I just had to have that can of soda.

It’s hot. Well, it’s August, and I live in Florida.

I don’t get enough sleep. Would it kill me to let someone else get into the office before me?

I don’t feel like walking the dog. Why can’t he just go in the yard like normal dogs?

I don’t feel so good.

That last one came up yesterday, so I canceled my plans last night and picked up the first season of Breaking Bad on DVD to watch while I closed out my week long pity party. I mean, this feeling sorry for myself crap has to stop. I'm far too fortunate to EVER complain about something as silly as breaking a nail.


Lily came tapping her nails on my front door at around seven, and we took Dog for a walk while she told me all about her week. Hers was pretty stressful, too, so when we got back, I handed her a beer, pulled out my manicure kit, and got to work on my nails while I listened to how her week went.

When she seemed to have come to a stopping point in her list of frustrations, I told her that I wasn’t feeling so hot and about my date with Breaking Bad, a show that my good friend, Dan, in Vermont had been after me to watch for about the last six months. So she went over to her house to pick up some ginger tea to make my throat feel better and came back to settle in on the couch to watch with me.

I love that she didn’t leave me alone the way people do when you’re sick so that THEY don’t get sick. Still I did move over to the big chair so she and Dog’s Cat could have the couch to themselves.

Somewhere into the second episode, I heard her ask, “Are you asleep?”

“No.”

“Are you lying?”

“No,” but, of course, I was.

BTW. If you ever catch yourself feeling sorry for yourself, go rent Breaking Bad immediately. Now that dude has problems..

And my broken nail? Well, I filed down the rest of my nails to match and painted them scarlet, and now you can hardly tell that one is ever so slightly shorter than the rest. :o)

The Magic Circle of Hell

Pilates last night.

And I think the so-called “Magic Circle” you use in pilates was created in a special little corner of Hell. The same little corner where some demon’s spawn conceived of another little torture device called the “ab wheel.”

I hate this magic circle thing. Not a very popular sentiment as I found out when I casually mentioned that there seemed to be “nothing particularly magical about the magic circle” in class. From the look I got from the instructor, I can tell that I’ll be paying for that little quip for a few more classes.


Boy flew back into town today and has literally hit the ground running. He moves into the dorms next Friday, but everything he needs must be found and purchased tonight in order for it to collect the correct amount of dust sitting out in my garage until we pack up the car to head to his college dorm – twenty minutes away. God forbid he do a little thing I like to call “wait until you see what everyone else has brought before you go crazy buying things you won’t need.”

This is part of the reason I’m such a stress puppy these days. Everyone in my life needs what they need immediately, if not sooner. And, dammit, I’m always the one who makes herself crazy trying to get it for them.


You know, I totally want to chuck it all and go move to a little island in the middle of the ocean with no phones, no computers, and no one who needs me. Just me and some big guy who’ll take care of me and do my bidding.

It would help if he were good at spear fishing and building huts from palm fronds. I’m thinking that those guys who are over-educated and well-heeled would be seriously under qualified in those circumstances.

But until the day comes when I can run away from home and spend my days keeping the beach hut clean and hanging out in the hammock while I’m waiting for the Big Kahuna to come home from a long day on the golf course he created on a patch of grassy dune, I guess I’ll just have to hang here…

Hanging With the Girls

Lily came by the other night. She’d wanted to talk with me about something, and after some small talk she told me that her mother wanted to move into a seniors’ community. Lily is going to rent out her place and move into her childhood home, which is this ginormous Mediterranean-style place a few blocks away. She wants me to rent my place out and move in with her to help with expenses. Lily says that Dog and Dog’s Cat are welcome to come, too. Even after I reminded her that Dog's Cat keeps vomiting up hairballs and the weird habit she has of climbing into open purses to nap.

This house is beautiful. The street the house is on is absolutely gorgeous. Lots of giant trees and genteel neighbors. I’m not ready to make a permanent move with anyone else right now, and with Boy moving out later this month, I have to admit the idea holds more than a little appeal. I’ve never lived alone, and I really don’t want to live alone. Besides, both of us are so busy, we’re almost never home anyway.

There are lots of bedrooms, a library, a great room, a kitchen, a dining room. She said I could have the back of the house, and we’d share the common spaces. By sharing operating expenses, the money we’d be paying her mother is marginal. If I can rent out my place, I’d be saving money.

Hmm… Definitely something to think about.


Went out to hang with the girls last night.

A young, single mom who works in one of our other departments asked me to come over to her place last night to drink wine and spend time with a few other moms who work for the company. I don’t know about you, but when someone junior in my organization asks me to do something social and it doesn’t involve a visit to a crack house, I make it a point to show up. It’s just one of those things.

She’s just a sweet, smart, gorgeous girl who’d fallen for a man who left her when she was eight months pregnant to marry his surprisingly not-so-ex-girlfriend, proving once again that even ex-cheerleaders who are sweet and smart and gorgeous can get their hearts broken by a duplicitous man.

They both work for the company, and it’s just a tension filled situation for everyone around. One of her supervisors had asked me to mentor her during a particularly tough period, and over the last few months, I’d managed to build a relationship with her. She’s had some hiccups along the way, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders. And her daughter’s an absolute doll.

She’d said to arrive between six and seven, so I left my house at six forty-five after I doled out kisses all around. Then I swung by the liquor store down the street to pick up a bottle of wine and headed over the bridge to her place.

I was the first to show up, and I got down on the floor to play with her daughter who’s now a little over a year old. She and I alternated colored blocks in a stack, finally a child who’s as OCD as I am, before knocking them down, while her mom and I chatted about boys and life and work. Then we read an Elmo book on using the potty while her mom went outside to wave in another mom who was having a hard time finding her way.

The three of us moms spent the night talking and drinking wine while the kids played and, then, slept. I got home by midnight and crawled into bed remembering what it was like to be a young, single mother and feeling exponentially grateful that I no longer had to navigate those waters. Still, it’s nice to visit who you were, if for no other reason than to see how far you’ve come.

The Ugly Truth

I took the day off today. They made me. Worse. They’re making me take eleven more days off before the new fiscal year rolls around. I have somehow accumulated almost three months of vacation time, and apparently this is a no-no. So I’ve been banished from the office for at least one day a week until I use up all twelve days.

Since Boy is in Vermont and every other person in my life has a real job and is not a control freak workaholic who refuses to take time off because the earth will stop spinning on its axis if they don’t show up for work, I was left to my own devices.

So I slept in...until 6:30.

Then I did all the chores I didn’t get done this weekend because, you guessed it, I worked all weekend.

By noon, my sheets were washed and dried. Bed remade. My bathtub and sinks were clean and sparkling – I swear by Dawn dishwashing liquid to clean my tub since Carrie told me her mom told her to use it. It totally works. – The grocery shopping was done. And I’d stopped by the library, the tanning salon, and car wash.

Naturally, because my car is clean, it rained. And I was left with little else to do but go to the movies. After Carrie and my sister, Julia, and my MOTHER all called me to tell me to go see The Ugly Truth because I am “just like that actress,” I have to admit to being a little intrigued.

I hadn’t been to the movies in a year. No exaggeration. I feel trapped when I’m in a movie theater. It’s dark and uncomfortable. I can’t sit still for that long. It’s just unnatural. I’d much rather be doing something. Anything. But I'd just about exhausted my options, so I checked the movie times and off I went.


The movie house was mostly deserted, and I paid for my ticket and walked up to the ticket stand to have my ticket ripped in half and handed back to me. It was a little disconcerting that the guy doing the ripping kept staring. More so when he followed me as I walked over to the concessions stand to buy candy and popcorn.

Then, after I’d paid for my junk food, I turned to walk to the theater to find him standing there directly in my path, still staring. I just smiled and looked pointedly to the ticket stand where there was now a line of people waiting to have their tickets ripped to gain entry to the mecca that is the movie theater. He got flustered and sped off, and I walked as quickly as possible in the other direction.

There are some very odd little people at the movie theater in the middle of the week.


Well, I watched the whole movie. I had to. It was like watching a train wreck. And, yeah, I’m just like that. Dammit. I walked out of the theater feeling a little nauseous. Some of that was the popcorn.

But as soon as I walked out into the bright sunshine, I felt immediately better.

Because that's right when someone from my office called.

See? They can’t live without me.

The Five Commandments Moses Didn't Bring Down...

Thou shalt not…

1) Tell your new Pilates instructor that her beginner classes might be a “tad too beginner” for you and not expect repercussions.

2) Bring up Gerard Butler ever, ever again. Not even in passing. As a matter of fact, it might be a good idea to stay away from wearing plaid, drinking whiskey, and playing golf for a bit, too.

3) Write in your blog about guys you’re dating or have dated. Bad, very bad. Say ten Hail Mary's and a plague upon your house!

4) Utter the words “I’ll take care of everything” and be surprised when you're left taking care of everything. Since when did people start taking me seriously?

5) Speak at an event - Sure, I can spell my name for you so you get it right when you write your story for the paper - when you’re so exhausted that your mouth and brain have begun to work independently of each other.

So, that was my weekend. How was yours?

Discounts and Free Passes

Got a call from Carrie this evening as I was walking into Whole Foods.

“I know which movie star you are,” she told me. She and Mr. Carrie are childfree this weekend as Little Carrie is with her dad, and they’d just come back from seeing a movie.

“Oh, cool. Which one?”

“Katherine Heigl.”

“Really? I thought that was just because of that movie, 27 Dresses.” Devotees will remember that I’m big at weddings.

“Yeah, well that one, too, but this is the second movie I’ve seen her in where she has the same mannerisms as you and talks like you. She even looks like you.”

Boy has a huge crush on Katherine Heigl. I decide not to mention this. Too weird.

“You two went to see that movie she’s in with Gerard Butler today?”

“Yeah, it was cute,” she tells me. "Mr. Carrie even liked it."

“So does she get to make out with him in the movie?”

"What? And spoil the ending?"

Gerard Butler is so on my laminated list of people I get to make out with if I ever meet them. And, um, he’s willing to make out with me, of course. Not looking to get slapped with a restraining order or anything… I mean, have you seen him? And that accent? Come on.


Someone gave me a 30% off coupon while I was trying on clothes today at The Gap. How awesome is that?! It was good at The Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic. Since I was shopping alone, I had asked a mother and her college-age daughter in the dressing room next to mine how the Boyfriend Jeans I was trying on looked. The mom said they were cute. The daughter said they were too baggy. Then, she gave me the coupon. I bought the baggy jeans anyway.

And what’s up with all the stores making their sizes bigger? This has got to be the most annoying trend ever. If they’re going to do this, they need to keep someone on standby in the dressing rooms to go fetch smaller sizes for you. I can’t tell you how many times I had to trudge out on the floor in bare feet and pants that were sliding off me to get a new size.

I was even on the verge of telling the mother who kept apologizing for the two-year-old who kept poking her head under my dressing room door to “go grab me these in a size two and all will be forgiven.”

Would that have been wrong?


Okay, so the shopping spree is over for now. None of my girlfriends I called to come partake of my 30% off coupon could make it up to the mall before they closed at six. Got some new clothes and refills for my Wallflowers from Bath and Body Works. Now, I just have to find a way to return those boob shirts Boy’s friend shamed me into without her finding out and slide the whole, “is it okay if I make out with Gerard Butler if I ever have the chance?” thing into conversation.

I mean, after all, I am just like Katherine Heigl. You’d think that’d score me a free pass…