Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The Long Weekend

Life goes on over here, and I am super lucky to have so many great friends and family around to keep us all busy.  Case in point, we had a fun-filled, but packed, long weekend.

Friday night we stayed home, just me and the kids.  The kids took long baths...we watched a movie and ate popcorn, and just rested after a long week.  It was really nice.  Then on Saturday one of my clients came by the house to pick some work up and spent a good amount of time with my kids.  They love this particular client so they were very excited to show them their bedrooms and backyard.

Then, The Ex told me she would take BOTH the kids on Saturday morning (for new-er readers, my Ex is the other mother to my son, but not my daughter so she has NO reason to take The Girl...she is just super nice and volunteered since The Girl was begging...).  So I had an unprecedented 4 hours of kid free time!  I took a long shower with my music up loud (no kids to have to keep an ear out for...) and then went grocery shopping.  By myself.  I know this might not mean a lot to my readers, but for me?  What a luxury!!

Then Saturday night I had a babysitter and I went to the 40th birthday party of my BFF's husband.  WITHOUT my children.  I would have had a great time no matter what, but after having a good portion of my day sans kids, this party was just the topping on the cake.  It is kinda weird sometimes showing up to a party full of couples by yourself, as the "single girl," but I did it for 5 years, so I have some practice.  I fortunately found a couple of other single girls to sit and play with during the evening so I wasn't that awkward third wheel.  They had great food, even better beer, and when I got home, both of my kids were fast asleep.  Win all around!

Sunday we got up and headed over to the beach.  I have a client with a beach house and I needed to stop by there and do a quick bit of work.  So we did that, and then headed to a yummy little taco place and had some lunch.  Then another friend of mine had rented a two bedroom Villa at a hotel right on the beach, so we headed over there for the rest of the day.  Our day was spent in the sand, playing in the water and soaking up the rays.  It felt really nice and the kids had a BLAST.  Then once it got a little too windy, we headed back to their villa and hung out there until after the kids had dinner.  We left at 10:00 in the morning and didn't get home until 8:00 at night so it was a full day.  But a fun one.  I live less than an hour away from the beach and I rarely take my kids over there.  Need to do that more!

When I left for the beach on Sunday the plan for Monday (Memorial Day) was to have my mom and step dad and my grandmother over for a little BBQ for lunch.  Nothing major, but just a relaxing day to enjoy.  I got a call from my mother at 8:15am on Monday and she said, "You better get up and start cleaning...you're having a party!"  It turns out that our little BBQ went from 4 adults and my two kids to...10 adults, 4 kids...and a dog.  My mother had spent all day Sunday inviting all sorts of people to the BBQ...  But you know what?  It was a beautiful day.  My 90 year old grandmother got to spend the day with 2 of her 3 children, 4 out of 5 of her grandchildren, and all 4 of her great-grandchildren.  We put up the bouncy house and the hammock in the backyard...had tons of yummy food and adult beverages, a kick-ass BBQ (if I do say so myself...I have become quite the proficient BBQer) and just a really, really nice day overall.  I am really lucky to have so much of my family so close that my kids are able to grow up with all of their extended family around.  It was a blessing that I had as a child, and I am so happy to be able to pass that along to my kids.

Overall, the weekend was crazy busy but wonderful.  I'm sure I have some pretty cute pictures on my camera from the day yesterday, but that's exactly where they sit:  in my camera.  :)  I will try and upload some pics later in the week.  Hope everyone had a happy and safe long holiday weekend!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Place Holder

That last post is bumming me out and I don't want it to be at the top of my blog anymore.  So here are a couple of pictures of the kids to make you smile.  The girl last week, and The Boy at his Mother's Day Tea for both of his moms at his school.  Love these babies.  Aren't they getting big?



Friday, May 18, 2012

Alone and Sad

Hello!  How is everyone out there in blog land?  Obviously things in my life have been a bit hectic, hence the lack of posting.  So there are lots of things going on in my life right now, but I will tell you about one of them today.

The Girlfriend and I broke up. 

I am sitting here staring at the blinking cursor to try and figure out how to explain "what happened," and why we are no longer together and it just isn't that easy.  I will try and give the readers digest version (but we all know I am not very good at that).  As I had mentioned in several previous posts, this girl was perhaps the nicest woman I have ever met and she treated me like a queen.  We had a fantastic time together, the chemistry was amazing physically, she adored my kids...  I could go on and on about the great things about her.  But here's the thing:  If you were looking forward to actually combining our lives together, it just wouldn't work.  There are too many fundamental differences in how we live our lives, raise our kids etc...  She stays up late and sleeps in late, I am the opposite.  I am anal-retentively clean and organized, she is...not.  I am pretty strict with my kids and have certain things that are non-negotiable where they are concerned (eating healthy...sitting down to the dinner table with no TV as a family every night...no video games...certainly no "fighting" video games...etc).  I eat super healthy and take care of myself (take vitamins, use sunscreen religiously etc...) and she is super happy just enjoying the moment she is in.

None of these things are "bad" at ALL.  I would never tell someone else how to raise their kids or how to live their lives.  We are all different human beings who live our lives differently.  And if I'm being honest, a lot of that is why I am attracted to her.  It is exhausting to be me, and I would never want to be with someone just like myself.  I like how relaxed she is about life and about actually stopping to enjoy said life.  In a lot of ways, she has shown me that it is okay to sit down and snuggle on the couch with your girlfriend even though there are toys on the floor that need to be put away and laundry that needs to be folded.  She brought me that.  And it's part of why I so enjoyed dating her.

See I have learned that being compatible in dating is a MUCH different thing than being compatible to live together and be true partners.  So for the past 8 months I have really enjoyed dating her.  I love being with her, and like I mentioned, even the things that would drive me mad if we were together all the time are endearing and fun when you are dating someone.  They have their house and life, and you have yours and every once in a while you get to be together.  So over the course of our relationship I have been very honest with her about my feelings (super strong towards her) and where I am right now (not at all ready for a full "partnership" and wanting to stay in the dating phase of things).  She had expressed concern with me not being "as far in" as she was, and I just tried to keep it really honest.  And she tried to "tone it back" to the point that she could be comfortable just dating me, and not wanting more.

Ultimately it didn't work.  She wanted more from me, and I just couldn't do it.  And it ended up that she kept getting hurt (thinking I didn't care based on something I did or didn't do), and I kept getting frustrated because I never even knew when I was doing the "things I did or didn't do" and would get defensive because, "What?  What are you talking about?  I didn't even KNOW you wanted me to do that...how am I possibly in trouble because I didn't?"

So on Monday night, we sat together, holding hands, both of us crying because we knew we just had to stop.  And even though I know this is the right thing; I know that ultimately she would have been hurt more than she is now, it just fucking sucks.  Because here's the thing:  I DID really like her.  I DID really want to date her.  And I was super happy with her.  And now it's gone.  And I miss her like crazy.  I didn't expect to be this sad about it, but I am.  9 months ago, it wasn't a big deal that I spent every evening after the kids went to bed alone...and 9 months ago a weekend didn't seem so long...but now it all does.  I still know that we did the right thing for both of us (last thing I want to do is hurt her more), but I don't know how to get past the hurt and the sadness.  I just miss her.  It's hard to go from talking to someone 5 times a day and seeing them all the time, to just...nothing.

I spent the last 5 years single and not even thinking about it.  But once I met her and had her in my life...I realized how nice it is to have another adult in my life as a companion.  And now I don't have it anymore.  And it sucks.