urbanstepmom.com

I took my husband out for his birthday dinner last night to a high end trendy Indian restaurant. We drank a bottle of wine, laughed, told stories about our lives and gushed about how much we love each other.

I’m not saying this was a first, but it was close.

Not the going for nice dinners together, we have always enjoyed good food and wine and a great atmosphere. What was unusual is that we didn’t fight. No one shut down, sulked, or stormed out. We actually had a great time.

We have a very loving relationship but without fail whenever we went out for a nice dinner, it ended badly. It seemed the more expensive the restaurant, the bigger the fight. And we could never figure out why.

So what was different?

We were standing at the bar having a glass of wine waiting for a table and my husband who was being relaxed and conversational, said to me, “you know, you have really grown”. 

“What?” I said, slightly taken aback.

“That Don’t Take it Personally thing that you are doing is really making a difference in our relationship” he says.

He went on to say “we’ve been out for a few nice dinners and we haven’t fought. I think it is because of you”.

I thought about it for a minute and he was dead on. Not that I’m big enough to take all the responsibility for our penchant for public drama but I realized that when I choose to not take things personally I am more in control of my emotions and I can control how I react. It is empowering. I can choose indigestion, or I can choose to enjoy a glass of  Malbec and samosas with my husband.

The choice seems easy now. He gently pointed out that I had been misinterpreting, or at least negatively interpreting his intentions, and with that little party crasher gone, we are free to have a fun night out and enjoy each other’s company.

This little skill I’ve learned after 35 days of practicing “the 40 day challenge” to not take things personally that Peggy put out there from http://thestepmomstoolbox.com has literally transformed not only my dinners out, but my relationship with my husband.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but we fight less all around. There is less drama in our lives. Okay, I am less dramatic, I’ll admit. When we do fight, I am able to see that I am taking something personally, and in that moment, I can shift.

Whahoo!, I have the power to shift where the conversation goes. I have the power to say, this is my stuff, or that is your stuff and react accordingly and calmly. What happens when I do this is it opens up a world of possibility of how we can be together. Without the constant conflict, we have a more relaxed relationship, easier, lighter, more fun. 

 I hadn’t realized how my negative interpretations had been affecting my husband and our relationship. I had only been thinking how hurt I am. I had only been thinking about my self.

I hadn’t anticipated how much easier not taking it personally would make my life and how much more loving it would make my marriage. What a great lesson indeed.

I didn’t see this coming. When I took on this 40 Day Challenge (thanks again Peggy from http://thestepmomstoolbox.com), I thought I would see how often I take things personally, how hard these guys are on me,  and how mean they are to me. I thought I would feel more justified about complaining and feeling sorry for myself.

Then, as referenced in my last blog, I had a big Ah Ha moment where I realized that all this negative interpretation is based on not loving myself and feeling like I didn’t deserve to be loved. I found that phase of the process rather overwhelming and discouraging. I had a long way to go, I thought.

But I continued on my daily journey and popped out of the chute in a brand new phase. And I like this one.

I am quite surprised to have emerged after 28 days feeling very non-victimey (I know that isn’t a word yet). In fact, I feel stronger, more confident and I have more energy.

What I realized I was doing was every time someone said something that hurt my feelings I immediately owned it. I wore their words like a big grey heavy cloak. For a girl that should never wear grey, this fashion statement did nothing for me. I assumed, after many years of training, that if they say something bad about me, it must be true. And if it’s true, wow, what a loser I am; no one loves me, I am unlovable and heck, I should just live alone in an igloo in Alaska and spare the world from my eternal badness.

A little overly dramatic, yes, but the point is that it is somewhat ridiculous and self centered I may add (thank you Don Miguel Ruiz) to take everything people say to me or about me as the truth about me, or even about me at all. Frankly for the amount that I was taking personally I should have been pasted to the floor in a heap of self induced depression. It is shocking I have still managed to be a functioning human being while wearing that grey cloak everywhere I went.

So when I got it, that it isn’t about me, it is about them, that gave me a great deal of freedom. Knowing that I’m not those things that they said or I interpreted them saying, means that I get to be someone else. Someone who perhaps wears a tailored hot pink coat that ties at the waist. Maybe with a matching bag and shoes. Why not? Choosing the hot pink over the grey makes  me feel stronger and more confident. I feel centered in the face of other people’s pain, yet somehow more compassionate. I feel lighter.

Also, from a time management perspective the shift enhances efficiencies. I all of a sudden have more time on my hands because I’m not dwelling on negative self beliefs. I have more energy for the good stuff like laughing and joking and tickling the twins.

I’m sure like anything else along the self mastery lines, not taking things personally is a life lesson and needs to be constantly reinforced and practiced just like positive thinking.  It is like a muscle that needs to be worked on a daily basis that eventually gets stronger and stronger.

I still have 12 days left in this process, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

As you know from my previous post, I agreed to do the 40 Day Challenge to Not Take it Personally thanks to Peggy from thestepmomstoolbox.com. And as you know on day 3, I wanted to quit. I really did want to. I thought, this is stupid and depressing, I need therapy for how much I take personally. Today is day 13 and I am not only hanging in there, but I had an Ah Ha Moment which will change the way I look at my life.

You know how if you give up chocolate, all you can think about is chocolate right? You see it, smell it, hear it calling your name all the time. Same thing with this Challenge. I have become really conscious of how often my feelings are hurt. One day, my husband told one of my step sons to go snuggle me on the couch. I was feeling sick and didn’t want to be “bugged” by a nine year old who I thought was playing a game with his dad to get on my nerves ( a common game they like to play). And so, I rejected his snuggle.

When I went to tuck him in later he asked me sincerely, why I rejected him when he came to snuggle me. I defensively responded that I don’t like it when they do things just because their dad tells them to, like snuggling me or telling me they love me. As soon as I blurted it out, I regretted it. The nine year old was perplexed, “why would I not want to snuggle you?” he asked me. The other nine year old, from the bottom bunk piped up “why do you think we don’t love you?” equally shocked.

Enter my Ah Ha moment.

Now I was feeling like the child. I felt mortified, revealed and extremely vulnerable that they witnessed a window into my fragile, broken heart. And they wanted answers. How could I explain to them that deep down, I didn’t think they loved me. That I thought they did things and said things because their dad told them to. That every time they say they love me I don’t believe it. I couldn’t. I muttered something about how sorry I was that I misunderstood the snuggle opportunity and that it won’t happen again. I kissed them good night and I hastily fled their room.

 As casually as I could, I went into my own room, closed the door, flopped on the bed and started sobbing into a pillow. They love me? Are you kidding me? All these years I thought I didn’t matter to them, they don’t care about me, they want their mom back, and it turns out they actually love me? I was mixed with overwhelming feelings of wasted time (on feeling sorry for myself and always feeling hurt), and of acceptance of love from them.

And that’s when it hit me, the reason I am always feeling hurt and taking things personally is because deep down I think they don’t love me. And I was wrong. So then that got me thinking what would I be like, and what would my life be like if I accepted that my step sons love me? How would I act differently, how would I feel differently? How would things change? 

I also asked myself, 13 days of incidents when I took it personally, was it really personal? Or did I maybe project that they don’t love me and interpret things in a negative way? (that is now rhetorical). When I told my dear husband about my Ah Ha moment, he asked me in his ever probing way, “do you think you love yourself?” I may have the answer for that on Day 40, but at this point, I am still trying to process that I am loved at home.

I like a challenge, and I like to grow. I like to push myself and I like to come out the other side victorious. I set goals and I set out to achieve them. I also know myself well enough to know that when I commit to something, at some point, I will want to quit. 

This recent challenge to blog, twitter or journal about “Don’t Take It Personally” that www.thestepmomstoolbox.com put out there, is no exception. I committed to twittering every day on things I will not take personally. I got to Day 3 and I realized I had lots that I take personally. I thought I would find it very challenging to Twitter about something every day that hurt my feelings. Uh, no. I have the opposite problem. I am having a hard time picking  just one thing that hurts my feelings in a day. On day 3, I wanted to quit. See,  this is who I am. I want to quit, but I won’t.

I want to quit because it is depressing that I have hurt feelings every day as a step mom. I wasn’t aware of that fact. Am I really that sensitive? Are they really that mean to me? Do they have any idea how much they hurt my feelings? But I am not quitting, I am still here, (probably depressing my Twitter friends), still challenging myself. 40 days is a long time to stick to something. It is a long time to become aware of something that is painful. But I think there is something here for me to learn and grow, so I am going to stick to it, and I’m going to blog when I feel like I have learned something about myself, that might help you.

Maybe at the end of this, I won’t take it personally as much as a step mom. Maybe I will have grown and strengthened and achieved the mastery to look at life a little differently. Maybe I’ll have an Ah Ha moment and the angels will sing and life will be easier, more joyful with my little family. Maybe I will see that I take things personally on a regular basis in the rest of my life too. And maybe I will be free of that and will achieve great things in my life as a result, not wasting time with hurt feelings. Maybe.

In the meantime, I am going to continue to  track the little things that niggle at the cracks in my heart.  I am going to journal about what might be behind it. I am going to have the guts to look at it, and the guts to let it go. Maybe I’ll have the guts to take my relationship with my husband and my step sons to the next level of love and trust. Maybe.

The beauty of a challenge like this is you don’t know where it will all lead, but it is always worth the journey. I challenge you to join me, in the 40 day Don’t Take It Personally Challenge and we will all learn and grow together. We will not quit, together.

Thanks to Peggy at  www.thestepmomstoolbox.com for the challenge. You could have a huge positive impact on a lot of step moms on the continent.

I just have to look in my fridge to see how big the adjustment is from single career gal to urban stepmom. We have brie and kraft singles, a beautiful bottle of chilled white wine and a row of apple juice boxes. I have left over filet mignon and left over spaghetti and meatballs. Such is this crazy life of contrast. I used to order take out sushi after work, and watch Entertainment Tonight with a glass of Chardonnay, now I’m on deck for dinner for four on a shockingly regular basis.

Getting my head around what to eat when we have the kids (half the time)  has been the biggest logistical challenge I have faced.  It causes me a lot of stress. There are weekends and school nights and both require the creativity of Jamie Oliver and the speed and efficiency of Rachel Ray. I’m starting to think I should leave work early and watch Rachel and ditch Jamie. It’s about efficiency, not creativity I’m learning.

Take this past weekend for example. There are hockey games  that end at 7pm, soccer games that end at noon, and Olympic events that got us home at  8pm. One option is  I could stay home and do all the cooking and meal preparation while my husband attends all the sporting events and Olympic festivities with the twins. (Oh sure, and why don’t I just do a quick swish of all the toilet bowls and change the vacuum cleaner bags while I’m at it?)

Or, I could wing it.

These used to be my two options. One, even though I felt good about what the boys were eating, made me feel resentful. And the other just caused me massive amounts of stress. For example, one night last weekend the boys were all at a hockey game so I made roast beef and root vegetables and apple crumble for desert. It would be served hot and amazingly delicous when they arrived home. I was so pleased with my self. However, by the time they dragged their little bodies to the table, they were so tired they hardly tasted the food and it was all over in 8 minutes. And of course everyone was too tired to do the dishes. Last night I decided to wing it (also a bad choice). We had been out all day and home by 8pm, unfed. Just for the record, my husband was in charge of the logistics of the night and said he had it under control. (note to self, sometimes husbands forget to feed kids). By the time we all got home, everyone is cranky and tired including me. I scroundged around the kitchen and produced soup for one, left over Chinese for another, and heated some pasta for my husband.

The only real solution is to take a page out of Martha’s book and be organized. Plan ahead. Pre make healthy meals and snacks. Shop on Sundays for the week. But the trick is don’t try to be Martha because again, that will just lead to resentment. No one will appreciate the little extras, the fresh cut flowers on the table, Granny’s silverware or the new napkins that match the meal. When these nine year olds and my husband sit down to a meal, they  need large amounts of tastey, healthy simple foods.

And so I start my quest, my new hoby if you will, to figure out what boys like to eat,  how to make it and how to prepare for their busy schedules.  I needed recipes and ideas that are easy to prepare and well received.

I’ve got some good resources. I have some good recipe books such as  The Best of Bridge, The Guy Can’t Cook, and Betty Crocker. I also have a Slow Cooker, which they say is great for someone like me. So now all I have to do is dive in and get organized. It won’t be as easy as take out sushi and a glass of Chardonnay, but maybe I’ll find it fun, easy and way less stressful!

Get them girls, I’m not messing around. If you are thinking about taking your relationship with you man and his kids (and their mother) to the next level, sit down and sharpen your pencil. I’m not talking about a pre nup, I’m talking about an upfront agreement about what you are and are not going to do as this man’s wife or partner. This may sound outrageously unromantic, especially in February, the month of  lovers, but you will save yourself years of weight gain, self loathing and martyrdom if you do this!

Sit down and think about all the things you love to do, the things that make you happy and write them down. For example, how often do you like to see your friends (for me, once a week, I need some female social interaction with good wine, ample appies and comfortable sofas). Are there specific TV shows that you insist on watching (don’t ever bug me on Monday’s between 8-10pm during the Bachellor). Do you need time away from the house to go workout every day? Do you need time alone in the house to clean or secretly eat chocolate? Do you need one big adventure trip without your man once every 5 years? Every year?

And what about the things that don’t make you happy? Like  household duties, how are they going to be divided? Just because you are the female, doesn’t mean all the laundry and toilet bowl cleaning and meal prep should fall to you, but it will if you don’t establish the rules up front. And what are the rules with the kids? What kind of house rules do you want? Are they allowed to sleep in your bed with you and your man? Are they allowed to kick you out of your bed in the middle of the night? Do they go to bed at a certain time? Will they have chores? How many times a week should you have dinner together as a family?

What about the ex? Is she allowed to come over? Is she allowed inside? Does she have a key to your house? Is she allowed in your hot tub? Will she be there on birthdays and joining you for turkey on Thanks Giving?

As for your man, will you have weekly date nights, trips together, new experiences, ten minutes at the end of the day to connect with out the sports high lights on?

And then there is what you need in your house. How about two sinks in the bathroom, two bathrooms, a bath tub, two TVs, two PVRs, your own space, room, wing? How does he feel about pillows and over stuffed sofas? What about closet space and drawers and lights beside the bed? How does he really feel about your mother’s artwork, her mother’s art work, her sister’s art work?

You might think I am being anally insane, and maybe I’ve gone overboard on this one because I did not have the slightest clue to even discuss these things with my husband before I moved in to his house. Instead, I did go through years of weight gain, self loathing and martydom, and it is a long road back to skinny, let me tell you.

You might want to keep the pre nup to the pen and paper, but please, sit down with your man in a very serious, yet loving manner and iron out a few of the details about the nuts and bolts of your relationship. And while you’re at it ask him how he feels about ironing!

I often hear from the urban step mom that her girlfriends and close family members do not get it. We plan these pity parties and no one shows up. Or they show up and they want to drink the martinis but they are at a loss as to what to say when we started spewing our negative emotions about our home life. It used to be that we could call our girlfriends in any boy crisis and everyone would rally and offer hours of support and wine. Now, I’m afraid my dear, you have entered a realm that most people cannot comprehend.

And it isn’t their fault. If your friends are single, on some level what you talk about terrifies them and they retreat into a self protective shell. If your friends are mothers, well, most biological mothers simply have a wall that goes up when you discuss “your” kids. They can’t help but project, “what if another woman was taking care of my kids?”, and then things turn all ugly for them inside. They cannot be there for you. In their world, you do not have kids and they can’t help but secretly judge you for “pretending” that you do. 

But this doesn’t have to mean that you are on your own. You can still drink martinis with your friends, in fact I encourage it, but don’t expect them to jump on the band wagon and give you their full sympathetic attention. The fact is, that you are on your own to deal with life as an urban step mom, unless you know other women in your situation. And it is up to you to figure it out. This is a huge adjustment for us, but it also offers great learning and growing opportunities. There are not “how to be an urban step mom” books out there. There isn’t a right way, and there isn’t a wrong way. In fact, every way is different. That is good news because it means, you can make it whatever you want. You can create your life, your relationship with your man, his kids, his ex however you desire. It is all quite empowering really.

Now, back to your friends and family and those martinis. What I have found over years of needing to vent and blow and scream and shout, is that being an urban step mom is not my entire life. I have an exciting career, I have hobbies, dreams, goals and I have lots of friends. I have learned that it is wise for me to regularly walk away from the chaos that my home life can be, and continue to develop the rest of my life. When I return a few hours later, I am fresh, happy, re fueled and feeling groovy. 

 When I am with my friends and family now, I do not even necessarily discuss my home life. I do this for a few reasons. First, it is very important for me to have a life outside of my husband, his kids and his ex. It empowers me and I remember that I am a confident, fun loving, self sufficient human being. Second, my friends make me laugh and that is very healing all on its own. 

I meet so many urban step moms who are in the throes of overwhelm and frustration and emotional turmoil. And I was there for most of my five years in this step madness. But eventually things settle down. They either settle or you realize this is not for you, either way, you are ahead of the game for trying. And once they settle, you hope you still have your friends. You hope they still find you fun and pleasant to be around, and not consumed with the negativity that can come from dating or marrying a man with kids.

So even though they might not get it, continue to spend time with them. Go for long walks, go to movies, the theatre, take off for a girls weekend, and just try to not even bring up your man or his kids. I guarantee you will feel lighter, more like your old self, and you will have more fun.

I spent the better part of my Saturday night with my husband’s ex while we watched one of “our” son’s hockey games. We were so engrossed in conversation we missed his first goal. 

I always find it amusing the way that other parents react when we sit together and engage. Because of schedules we are often not at games together, but when we are we are now at the point where we tend to sit together and genuinely enjoy each other’s company. You can usually see the shock on people’s faces when this happens. It is just not the norm that the mom and the step mom interact without awkwardness. We are getting to know each other and we are starting to like each other.

“Like” is a strong word, and it wasn’t always the case. There was always civility and being polite, but there was a lot of tension and discomfort to say the least. But after five years of both of us doing separate, deliberate, focused work on ourselves, we have come a long way. 

It is work, we both agree, to deal with everything that comes up in dealing with each other, as women, as mothers, as  spiritual beings on our own journeys. It is work, but it is an opportunity to grow as humans. To “shed our shit” so to speak.

She wouldn’t have been a person I would have sought out to befriend. In many ways she is the opposite of me. I would describe her as a free spirit, a quality that has always intrigued, yet alluded me.  I have been driven my whole life to “be something” (also an alluding quest), while she has focussed on accepting herself and taking on as much in life as she is comfortable.

Although our lifestyles are very different and in some ways our values, we share many experiences and in fact have a great deal in common. Of course we have shared the same man, which is where a lot of the problems and threatening behavior is born between the ex and the urban step mom. We are both “mothers” to the same boys, another land mine for two women. And we both acknowledge that this ride is an intense personal growth boot camp, which we both seem to be up for!  

I find that I can share things with her that I can’t share with other girlfriends. I still feel a judgement  that my experience doesn’t count even from my closest friends when I weigh in on parenting issues. But with the boys’ mother, the experience is the same and that cannot be de valued. Whether it is their rules of snuggle time or a sudden stage of obstinacy, it is exactly the same experience for the both of us. They seem to treat us both the same. We can then share the best way to handle this, how it feels and further talk about the nuances of their developing personalities.

When people ask me, shocked at our ability to relate, how we do it, I have to say the secret is we both recognize the importance of  getting over it, dealing with it, letting it go and getting on with life. We recognize that we do not want to be carrying feelings of anger, animosity, control, fear around with us. 

I credit her. She has embraced the fact that her precious sons share a maternal bond with another woman and she has decided to look at this as a healthy, positive experience in their lives. She has expressed that she is grateful for me in their lives, or at least that she is grateful for how much I love and adore them. She decided that she did not want to fight “what is”. I decided I did not want to go through the rest of my life feeling jealous and threatened. We both just let it go. A simple, but not easy task. It took five years.

It is over, done, finito. The year is done, but more importantly, the Christmas, New Years Crazy season is over. This is a great achievement in my books to have survived it without having a nervous breakdown. It is always a fine line as an urban step mom at Christmas time. But what would Christmas be without some step-drama?

The plan this year was that we would get the kids on Boxing Day. I’ve never liked this plan but the urban step mom has little or no say over such things. Everything depends on what Santa and Mrs. Claus work out as the best situation. I would rather the switch take place on Christmas at 2pm ish (not that I’ve thought about this…much), so that one parent gets them Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and the other gets them for dinner on Christmas. Makes sense to me but apparently not to those in the North Pole.  So for me and my husband, the holiday was all focussed around Boxing Day, the day the boys arrive and have Christmas with us.

 With Christmas “done” in terms of decorating the house and the tree, buying and wrapping all the presents, stuffing the stockings, my husband and I were free to have a night off on Christmas Eve. We had our neighbors over for a drink and had a romantic dinner just the two of us. No drama there.

We woke up on a gloriously sunny Christmas morning, opened a few presents, walked the dog and visited my parents. The boys and their mum  dropped by with some presents for us and she had asked if she could take my dog for a walk. It was the first time she had asked to take my “baby” for a walk and at first I resisted. Then I remembered  that I take her “babies” all the time, it would be the least I could do. While she was gone I thought, “we should invite her to stay for a drink or some tea” but when she returned with Dexter, the words did not come out of my mouth.

We had invited some kid less friends over for Christmas dinner while the boys were spending a quiet Christmas with just the three of them.  As I was putting out appetizers and decanting the wine for our friends I thought we should invite the three of them over here to join us, but again, the thoughts did not produce an action. We had a wonderful time with our friends, lots of laughs, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking about the boys and their mum.

Then Boxing Day, the day we were all waiting for, the kids came over around 8 am and had a wonderful second Christmas here. We had a fun day doing nothing except playing with our new stuff, eating chocolates and  and enjoying being all together. 

The next day, the boys and their dad all left at the crack of dawn for a hockey tournament while I prepared to have 12 people for a big turkey feast. The boys’ plan was to come back around noon for an hour or so and then leave again until 5:30. It was my goal to give everyone involved the Christmas dinner of their dreams. The boys would have a big family around them sharing a big traditional feast and their happiness was their father’s happiness, my parents would be grateful for having all three of  their kids together, my father would get sausage meat and sausages with his turkey, my sister would get rum and eggnog and I would get the altruistic joy of creating a wonderful evening for everyone. There would be laughs, joy, amazing food and an incredibly beautiful table set for the feast.  It would be perfect!

With the boys gone and the house empty I suddenly realized the magnatude of what I had gotten myself into. This would be only my second turkey I had cooked, and it was 20 pounds. I was alone in the house and I was freaking out. I could hardly carry the thing (which took on many nasty names as the day went on) from the fridge to the sink. How was I going to do this? I had made the stuffing the night before which was smart, but I did not know which way the bird was up and which end the stuffing went into and which end Dad’s sausage meat was supposed to be stuffed.  I had Martha’s “how to do Christmas” book out on how to prepare and  cook a turkey (it’s her fault I got a 20 pound bird as she says it is the juiciest) but it may as well have been in Greek.  I suddenly felt completely over whelmed and  in ept at the endless, urgent tasks ahead.

The table was supposed to provide the Entrance of  Awe with gorgeous white linen table clothes, sparkling red and gold center pieces, red chargers and regal, and radiating candelabra. That was until I realized with the extra table to accommodate everyone I was half a table cloth short. Many of my go to people for such things to borrow were out of town so I called my parents and told them to bring one when they came over later in the day. There would be no Entrance of Awe when they walked in the door, sorry Martha, and it seemed like the end of the world to me.  Why was it so important to create this perfect, flawless dinner? Why were the wheels of the Christmas train rapidly falling off?

When my husband came home  between hockey games (he was smart enough to not ask me what was for lunch) the turkey was miraculously appropriately stuffed and in the oven, and the potatoes were peeled, but I was in the middle of the melt down, slumped over, head in hands, “what have I done, I have no idea what I’m doing, why don’t I know what I’m doing, I am a lousy woman”, I kept saying over and over like a crazy person. This is my default head trash when faced with domestic issues that I feel some how I might have known how to do if life had worked out differently. If I had had my own children I would know exactly what to do with this 20 pound beast, I somehow rationalized. He tried to calm me down as best he could even offering to get someone else to take the kids to  the hockey tournament. I couldn’t let him miss his kids play hockey for my meltdown, so off they went leaving me alone with all my insecurities, my neurosis and my 20 pound “Muthu Effer” as it soon became known as.

My brother the chef, showed up with all my family around 5:00 and swiftly rolled up his sleeves, donned an apron and got me, and It, under control. The turkey was delicious, there were mashed potatoes, yams, peas, gravy and cranberry sauce.  The dinner was indeed filled with hilarity and joy and a spectacular feast (and table) enchanted us all. My sister was a Saint who did all the dishes at the end of the night so I wouldn’t have to wake up to them in the morning.

I was pretty much catatonic the next day and in the days to follow from expending so much energy and emotion. People had given me good books for Christmas so I plopped myself on the couch for the entire day. My goal was to zone out and put all the turkey trauma behind me.

As for New Years, I was done trying to impress everyone. I just wanted to be outside, preferably somewhere snowy with the kids and some other close friends who would understand if my holiday exhaustion rendered me quiet. My wish came true and the kids all enjoyed snow ball fights, sledding and hot chocolate. I got to be with my best friend and her family as well. The fresh air and snow lifted my spirits and rejuvenated me. It crossed my mind during one of the snow ball fights, to wonder where their mother was on this special night, the end of the decade? I’ll bet she’ll wish she was with her special boys on this night too.

The next day, in the morning, she called. She misses the boys. Can she see them earlier than planned, she asked? Maybe next year, I’ll be grown up enough to know which end is up in the turkey, and maybe even, I’ll call her if I need a linen table cloth, and even invite her to join us for a spectacular feast. Wouldn’t that be something.