Stitch

Years ago, when The Boy was still small, he and I watched the movie Lilo and Stitch. For those unfamiliar with the premise, Lilo is an orphan being raised by her older sister. Stitch is a space-alien-critter who happens into their lives and (of course) endears himself to them over time. There’s a poignant moment near the end of the film where Stitch, referring to Lilo and her sister, says, “This is my family. It is small and it is broken, but it is good.”

This was the moment when The Boy, all young and naive and bright-eyed, enthusiastically said to me, “Just like us, Mommy!”

I had to hide out in the bathroom crying for a good hour or so.

Single parents will understand. That whole broken-family thing will nail you in the gut every time. It doesn’t matter how great a parent you may be, or how the world is changing to accommodate different family structures. Single parents always feel second-best. And they always worry that their kids do, too.

I thought of that Lilo and Stitch moment recently, as I found a copy of the DVD while I packed up the last of my belongings still remaining at my former home in the wake of my recent divorce. Here’s where my convoluted life probably requires some ‘splainin.’ The Ex, about whom I’ve blogged until y’all likely wanted to scream get over it already, is not my first ex-husband.

That’s right — I’m 41 and twice divorced.

Yay me!

The Boy’s father — let’s call him Tee — and I met when I was young and foolish and he was old and horny. He was a lot older than me.

A lot.

So much older that, after my family first met him (whilst I waited for the dropped jaws to to be retrieved from the floor) one of my smartass brothers deadpanned, “Well, I think it’s nice. Dad didn’t have much of a father figure. He could use someone to look up to.”

Ouch.

In the face of such quips, I did the only thing I was likely to do at that stage of my life. I married Tee. It didn’t take us long to realize that what we’d done was idiocy. Two weeks after the wedding, I packed my bags and left.

And then I found out I was pregnant.

In hindsight, I think Tee and I get an ‘A’ for effort. We did our best to make the unworkable work. Ultimately, we parted ways, fought and made a couple of attorneys richer for a while, then settled into co-parenting amicably. Tee adored The Boy and was always a great dad. For a number of years, Tee actually worked for my family, managing their golf business. He played golf with my father and brothers. He joined my family for holidays. It was about as good as it gets for an odd couple like us.

Still, I was ever aware that The Boy and I had this awkward, broken little family. His father was old enough to regularly be mistaken for his grandfather. I wondered if we would ever escape the weight of past errors.

Then I met the man you now know as The Ex. He was handsome and funny and, I thought at first, just quirky enough to fit right into our awkward, broken little family. I dared hope he might be Stitch to The Boy’s Lilo.

Over time, though, their relationship became one of the major issues in our marriage. They were just too different, and I was forever caught in the middle. There were other issues, too — stuff I couldn’t make up for any novel. As one who appreciates life most when it’s drama-free, I knew something had to give.

So, once again, I found myself divorced. I worked my tail off to keep things amicable, and before long I landed in the most unusual of situations: living as The Ex’s neighbor. Serving as his housesitter and dogsitter while he was away on business trips. Continuing to help him with management of our former home and rental properties.

A neighbor teased me as I helped The Ex dig one of our tenants out of the snow that had drifted against the apartment door.

“Forget about you writing another book. He should,” he said, nodding at The Ex. “He took your house and your dog in the divorce, and here you are still taking care of both! Now that’s a story!”

Haha. Funny neighbor. There’s a guy who’s lucky not to have taken a snow shovel to the face.

But a lightbulb went on.

There’s keeping things amicable.

And then there’s being a doormat.

The Ex had not been particularly kind to me for years. I walked on eggshells in my own home. When I begged him to help save our marriage, he was willing to do exactly nothing to that end. And yet, every time he appealed to me for help, I was there.

I began to wonder why.

I also began to wonder if I could truly move on while living so close to him that I saw him daily. We would walk and drink beer together at the dog beach while our pups played. Sometimes it seemed nice, as if we should win a medal for being the Best Divorced Couple Ever. More often, though, it was just weird and painful. Sad.

A child’s movie might seem an unlikely catalyst for change, but when I found that Lilo and Stitch DVD, something clicked.

I’d been small and broken too long.

The question was how to move forward. I took inventory.

The Boy is currently living with Tee, attending community college, and trying to figure out the path ahead.

I have plans for a small house I’d like to build. I need to save money toward that goal while helping The Boy pay for college.

Meanwhile, Tee has an in-law apartment in his home, something he and I had spoken about recently. It’s been in need of renovation since he bought the house years ago, and he wondered if I might be interested in doing the work in exchange for an affordable place to live. At first, I thought he was crazy. It sounded like the sort of thing likely to end in an episode of Dateline.

But then again?

Maybe not so much.

Tee and I have functioned as friends and coparents for over 15 years now. And I realized that, while I have been living in one of the most beautiful places in the world, it’s no longer the right place for me. Every lovely aspect of the area is steeped in memories of The Ex. And if the memories aren’t enough, there he is in the flesh: driving past the front of my house in his car, past the back of my house in his boat, walking on the beach, calling me for help with this or that.

While there may be no geographic solution for most problems, this may be an exception.

One of my very best friends lives right across the street from Tee, on the river where she and I swim together as often as possible in summer. Several other good friends live in the same neighborhood. I don’t know what’s in the water there, but it’s Good People Central. And I need good people around me right now.

So I’ve found someone to sublet my little piece of paradise for the duration of my lease. I’m working on making the apartment at Tee’s my own, an affordable place to call home while I find my way forward. The Ex seems to understand that I need to move on, and has promised to enlist a proper dog- and house-sitter.

Here’s a snapshot of my life right now:

I am 41 years old.

Twice divorced.

Escaping my second ex-husband by moving into an apartment owned by my first ex-husband.

And feeling better than I have in a while.

Truth is stranger than fiction, right?

The other night, Tee and The Boy and I were surveying the progress on my new digs, talking and laughing, and a thought made me smile…

This is my family.

It is small, and it is broken, but it is good.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

The Lucky One

I sometimes forget just how lucky I am.

This past weekend, I spent some time with The Boy, and I was reminded.

As one who has lived most of my adult life as a self-employed single mother, it has too often been all too easy to count the ways my life was lacking.

For starters, there was that whole “single” business.  Which often felt more like, “destined to die sad, horny and alone.”  Blech.  No fun.

Then there was the living situation.  My son and I lived in a series of rentals.  The place we stayed the longest - seven years - was a one-bedroom apartment.  The Boy thought it was normal for Mom to sleep in the living room.

Money?  Don’t get me started.  Paying the bills was a juggling act.  Car repairs or unexpected medical expenses were a disaster.  I hid in the bathroom and wept every time The Boy found a new interest requiring lesson fees or equipment.

Material gains I made in recent years - building my business, saving, owning a home, investing with a man I loved in a future together - were largely lost in my divorce.  The Boy is in college and those tuition bills are rolling in.  I am back to living in a rental, back to working every spare minute to make ends meet. 

Whiny and bleak with a side of poor-me, anyone?

Of course, that’s not the whole story.

Singlehood?  Sure, I’d have preferred a long-term love story, but I’ve had some really great guys in my life - so there’s that.  Even the most difficult of my relationships has helped me learn and grow.  And damn, I’ve had a whole lot of fun, too.

Those rentals?  The early ones were chosen to place us near schools where The Boy could get the best possible start in education, first at Montessori Children’s House in Providence, RI, then at Friends Academy in Dartmouth, MA.  For several years, fully half my income went to private school tuition - and it was worth every penny.

The seven years spent sleeping in the living room?  I’ll get far less pity when I tell you our small apartment was in a multimillion-dollar house on the water.  The Boy grew up able to fish for crabs from the dock in his back yard, paddle around the marshes in a kayak, make snow angels in the stillness that envelops a salt pond on a winter night.

Money?  Maybe the bills would have been easier to pay if I hadn’t been hell-bent on seeing to it that The Boy didn’t suffer for my failings.  We could have stayed home, could have socked away a little more in the rainy-day fund, but having a child felt to me like having a fresh pair of eyes with which to explore the world.  So we explored.  Hiking ruins in Mexico, skiing in northern New England, snorkeling in the Florida Keys, road trips to DC and Boston and New York.  If you want to know how to travel well on a seriously-shoestring budget, I’m your girl.

And now?  I’ve found another tiny rental with a million-dollar view. The Boy has earned scholarships that defray the tuition bills.  Business is booming.  And while, ultimately, I suppose we all die alone, sad and horny feels like less of a given these days.  

This past weekend, I drove on winding back roads with fall leaves swirling in the sunshine overhead.  The Boy and I sang along with the radio for a while, then I left him at his dormitory and continued on my own.  I felt my heart - that thing I feared mere months ago was broken beyond repair - open wide.

In that moment, I remembered:

                                  just how lucky I am.

The Kids Are All Right

I’d like to take a moment to give myself a little pat on the back.

I have excellent taste in friends.

I think this is no small accomplishment, particularly since I am well known for making poor choices in general.  But when it comes to choosing friends?  I rock.  And apparently I always have.

I recently had a whirlwind weekend adventure with one friend I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade, and two others I hadn’t seen since high school.  It was the sort of thing that could have been a shitstorm of awkward moments.  Instead, it was an absolute blast.

If our younger selves could have glimpsed us - nibbling tapas, sipping drinks, laughing hysterically and sharing meandering tales of our lives in locations near and far - I think they’d be amused as hell.  They’d also be pleased that we didn’t call it a night at nine p.m., but instead made our way to a show and rocked on, drinking beer from plastic cups, into the wee hours of the morn.  That I was only carded because I had tickets at will-call is beside the point.

Today one of my new favorite bloggers, Aussa Lorens, posted about the wistful way autumn nudges us to reflect on the past and make plans for the future.  Summer girl that I am, I have always found fall especially bittersweet.  I am reluctant to trade my flip flops for boots, yet the storyteller within me is romanced by the chill in the air and the smell of woodsmoke.  I also find myself haunted by the ghosts of plans never realized, the trail of losses inevitable in life.  While I’ve had a lot of amazing experiences and have checked a fair number of accomplishments off my lifetime to-do list, there always seems to be more I have yet to attain.

But my friends…

I am sometimes amazed at how lucky I am to have so many kind, funny, creative people in my life.  Old and new, my friends remind me that while we cannot help the losses in life, the successes are worth celebrating.  We who were once thrown out of school for everything from questionable fashion choices (exposed nipple rings, anyone?) to day drinking in math class are now running successful businesses, creating art and music, exploring nature, raising children, rising above tragedy, doing our part to leave the world a little bit better than we found it.  I’m not sure what kind of youthful trouble the friends I met later in life have under their belts, but I know that whether they were buttoned-down overachievers or wild, fired-up messes, their experiences helped shape them into the sorts of people I am very, very glad crossed my path.

This year, as I move from bare toes in the sand to the crackle of a fire warding off that seaside chill, I will try to think less of what’s missing and more of the amazing blessings I can count as mine.

Real friendship, of course, chief among them.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Part of Me

"Do we need an intervention?"

This was the Facebook comment from a longtime friend after I posted a Katy Perry video.

Probably the second or third Katy Perry video I’d posted in a month.

Here’s the thing: I’ve never been a big fan of pop music.  I have greatly-varied musical tastes, but tend to lean toward “alternative.”  Rock.  Some blues and country and bluegrass and folk.

Not a whole lotta Katy Perry.

But - as I think is now pretty much common knowledge to regular followers of my blog - I’ve been going through a divorce.  It’s been a rough year, and I’ve found support and strength in the most unexpected places.  Pop music may be the most unexpected of the bunch, but let me tell you - there is quite a crop of badass young women out there unwilling to settle or deal with BS or let the learning opportunity that comes with a breakup pass them by.  And they aren’t afraid to sing about it.

Kelly Clarkson.  The Band Perry.  Christina Aguileira.  Iggy Azalea & Ariana Grande.  Adele.  P!nk.  Katy Perry.  And - of course - the reigning Queen of Breakup Songs and my summer neighbor here in Rhode Island, Taylor Swift.

Stop snickering.  Hell yes, I’ve been singing along with T. Swift.  Sometimes a girl needs to knock off the wistful replays of Sarah McLachlan’s U Want Me 2 and affirm that We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together.  Even if said girl is 40-ish and not quite ready to bounce around in jammies and hipster eyeglasses while singing along.  Sometimes it’s just plain good to (1) chuck the Kleenex, (2) remember that you did all you could but hey, it takes two people to have a relationship, and (3) sing a pop song about feeling tougher than you really do.

If you sing loudly enough, you might accidentally feel better.

Stronger.

More hopeful.

Ready to leave the past where it belongs: in the past.

You might also feel grateful not to have Russell Brand as your ex - damn, he did a number on Katy! - but I digress…

Check out the links below.  Sing at the top of your lungs.  I’ve got a whole slew of new BFFs, and these girls have got my back.  Yours too, if you need ‘em.

(Just please don’t tell David Bowie.  He’d be so disappointed in me.)

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Beyond Desperation

Forgive me if today’s book blog post seems a smidge familiar.  A while back, I hosted author Anthony Paull for a fun collaboration: a conversation between the unlikely heroines of each of our novels.  My post this Tuesday was about failure, perseverance, growth and humor in ‘real life,’ and that got me thinking about those qualities in fiction.  This, in turn, brought me back to Anthony Paull and his novel Desperation Lingers.  It is arguably the second-strangest book I have ever wholeheartedly loved (The Love Song of Monkey by Michael S.A. Graziano holds steady in first place).  In spite of its surreal qualities, I found it immensely relatable.  I never thought I’d consider a plunger a symbol of freedom and defiance, but sometimes you really do need to break out the ugly tools to separate the muck from the men.

So here’s my (five star) review of Desperation Lingers, the e-book version of which happens to be on sale at the moment for only 99 cents.  Or if you’re feeling like a big spender, you can splurge on one of those paper-and-ink thingys.  Those who are my kind of weird will find this to be a book worth reading more than once.

Enjoy!

Where to begin?

How to describe Desperation?

Anthony Paull has created characters and a story unlike anything I’ve read before - and that’s a good thing.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have a personal love affair with Miami that may have slightly predisposed me to enjoy this novel. I was born there and my frequent return visits feel like soul-deep homecomings. That Paull so perfectly captures the flavor and quirks of the city that is my “woman hood” made me smile

That said, this isn’t a story for everyone. But it should be. Desperation Lingersreads initially like a farce, with characters and events so absurd and larger-than-life, it’s a cross between Shakespeare and Tom Robbins, with maybe a dash of community theatre and a hint of Miami-fied BBC sitcom.

Got it?

The genius of Desperation lies not just in Paull’s outrageous characters, hilarious observations, and perfect turns of phrase, but in his ability to turn the world of this novel on end every time the reader thinks she’s got a grasp on things. To be frank, this is a book with an unlovable protagonist, and if not for the colorful world Desperation inhabits, I might not have cared enough to read past the first few chapters. Desperation is a brusque, physically-unappealing aging alcoholic whose level of self-absorption is impressive even by South Beach standards.

Except that she’s not.

In Paull’s skilled hands, this unlovable woman is transformed. I don’t want to say too much, because the ultimate beauty of this novel is the stunning twists and turns it takes - particularly in the rollicking final quarter - but I will say this: tough it out past those points where you want to throttle Desperation and you’ll be rewarded. She has good reason to be hard and staid, and she could easily have remained the caricature she seemed at the outset. In the end, though, her absurd qualities are her most endearing and enduring, and this larger-than-life tale shrinks beautifully until it is just about heart-sized.

If you believe people truly can change, or if you’ve ever felt disapproval from a Frieda Kahlo portrait and wished you could change, this book is for you.

If not, this book is also for you.

Grab a plunger and wave it proudly. Desperation Lingers is not what she seems.

And neither are you.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Conscious Uncoupling

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin recently made headlines when they announced the end of their marriage, perhaps less because of the split and more because of their use of the term "Conscious Uncoupling."  While some explored the concept earnestly, it was widely derided - this is, after all, a couple who named their first child Apple, and Ms. Goop is the poster child for all things flighty and New Age-y.

But it gave me pause.  We as a society love cliches and catch phrases when they're the equivalent of a battle cry toward success.  What repels us about the idea of trying to find civility in failure?

Back in the Stone Age, as I completed my senior year of high school, I was thrilled to be selected to deliver an honor essay at graduation.  Thrilled, but if I'm honest, not surprised.  The honor essay competition consisted of taking a quote provided by the powers that be and weaving words around it to a predictable, graduation-ceremony-appropriate end.  The quote, from Andre Gide, was standard commencement fare: "Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."  I was good with words, better at leaping through hoops.  I took that quote, spun it in the direction my teachers and school administrators expected, and then spit the trite piece out from the podium at graduation.  I'm sure my classmates and their families alike fought to remain conscious as I went on.  And on.

The funny thing was, I knew what a farce the whole exercise was.  "Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."  Well, duh!  Who the hell were these fools afraid to lose sight of the shore?  Who, at seventeen or eighteen - perhaps particularly at our provincial high school - wasn't utterly ecstatic at the prospect of discovering new oceans?  I, for one, was beyond ready.

Except, as it turned out, I wasn't.

I left my provincial high school certain I was destined for great things, and I went on to fail spectacularly.  I had a scholarship to an enviable college, and I let an eating disorder and depression take it from me.  I gained admission to another impressive school, and I let important paperwork slip, rendering enrollment impossible.  I married, had a child, and divorced, more or less in that order.  I made a career of a job I'd intended to hold temporarily.  I found and dated every emotional train wreck within a considerable radius.  I felt myself shrinking under the weight of the chip on my shoulder.  I was a master of self-sabotage, yet I wondered why my life wasn't improving.

And then, about a decade or so ago, a shift began to happen.  A friend introduced me to the work of Dr. Susan Gregg, whose approach to life I initially found insufferably optimistic.  Yet it's funny the way the human mind and heart work: once a door is opened, it can't be closed.  Considering the possibility of the world as Dr. Gregg saw it led to considering other possibilities.  Slowly, my very paradigm of life shifted.  I gave thanks for the short-lived marriage that gave me an amazing child to love and learn from.  I felt grateful for the career that sustained me as I began doing more of the creative work I loved.  I stopped dating the train wrecks and gave marriage with a reasonably decent human a shot.

And you know what?  I continued to fail.  I still fail.  All the damn time, to be perfectly blunt - it's part of this pesky business of being human.  But at least I now have a sense of humor about it.  I accept it as part of the journey, and I do my best to turn negatives into positives.

That was my gut reaction to the news of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's "Conscious Uncoupling" - they were doing their best to turn a negative into a positive.  This pair of people so accustomed to success had failed at something important, but they weren't going to let the failure define them or their family.  There would be no knock-down, dragged-out battles to feed tabloid headlines.  They would protect their children and work through the failure of their marriage with civility and love.

Funny?  No.

Admirable.

I may not have had much use for the Andre Gide quote assigned to me at graduation, but this quote from Erich Fromm rings true:

"The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity."

Insecurity has been a companion for more of my life than I'd have liked.  But it's a companion I've learned to tolerate well.

Even as I edge the bastard off onto the sidelines.

www.kcwilder50ways.com