Staying Friends With Your Ex

For most of my life I've been known as the girl who stayed friends with all her ex-boyfriends. How's that one guy you dated for six months your senior year of high school? He's great, just got married. We're Facebook friends.

I never completely understood why there was so much stigma attached to staying friends with your ex. In my mind, you just spent months, or even years, sharing saliva and a mutual love for 80's movies. How do you just walk away from that? How do you break up and just be like "Thanks for all the old t-shirts and new found commitment issues, you sack of shit. See you later."

I never had it in me.

Well, I guess I should say rarely had it in me.

There were a couple of ex-boyfriends that even my sentimental self knew you shouldn't stay friends with.

Like the guy you lost your virginity to.

I mean, what could you possible ever have to say to each other again? "Hey I heard the song 'I just died in your arms tonight' on the radio and then had a bologna sandwich. Takes me back to that sweet two and a half minutes we shared on your parents couch 10 years ago! Hope you're well :)"

No. Just no.

Also, its probably uncommon to remain friends with the person who impregnated you and then left the state, like you were a liquor store he knocked over and the cops had his picture.

Still, the relationships that didn't end of paternal abandonment or you texting all your besties to let them know you'd finally surrendered the old V card, it seemed to me had a good chance of turning into friendships.

I'm learning though, as I get older, that its not as easy as it used to be.

Maybe because feelings in relationships are more intense, or because breakups are typically more ugly, or maybe because as adults we've become more jaded and withdrawn and don't want to continue feeling vulnerable over lunch with someone who's seen you naked, but then decided they'd prefer to see other people naked instead of you, but are still down with having a burger together and talking about the movie they saw last weekend.

Probably with the girl they're now seeing naked all the time.

Awesome.

It really is unfortunate that staying friends with your old lovers is so hard, because some of those old lovers started out as your best friend, and over the course of your relationship, however rocky and regardless of how often you may have lost sight of it, they still were your best friend, you just loved them in an extra way that made you hope to be with them forever. 

When that second, bonus love dies out and you have to move on, wouldn't it be lovely to revert back to the friendship you once shared, and be able to go on as if nothing else had ever happened?

Maybe not as if your relationship never happened at all, but maybe more as if your relationship happened but with someone else instead. Someone else hurt you, lied to you, stopped loving you, not this person. Not your best friend who, when not saddled with the responsibility of being your boyfriend, is actually an awesome friend and person.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could, just for a moment, go back to a time when being just friends seemed possible, and everything wasn't "lovers or bust"?

Who knows. Maybe sometimes staying friends is possible.

Maybe it depends on the person, the relationship you had together and how well you're able to adjust to not being in that relationship anymore.

What about you? Do you stay friends with your ex's? Have you? How did you do it, how did it work, and are you still really friends with any of them now?

Leave your experience in the comments.

Thankful

I am thankful for long, full days at work that make time pass quickly and have kept me away from myself.

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I am thankful for little boys who always want another hug before they go to sleep.

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I am thankful for chances. Seconds, thirds, fourths.

And hopefully making them count.

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I am thankful for work friends who become real friends. Who drive you home when your tire goes flat and pick you up when it's still not fixed, and answer texts and phone calls and questions, and are always willing to tell you it will be ok.

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And this morning, maybe just a little bit, I am most thankful for coffee.

Especially of the delicious and free variety.



Monday Momisms: On Mom Friendships

 

I read a post recently about whether or not moms and not-moms can be friends. 

Good points were made for why they can't. Things like: as moms we become boring creatures with little to talk about except baby poop and nap time and the cute shit our kids say incorrectly that provides us possibly the only entertainment we get in a day, and grocery shopping.

It's true.

Since becoming a mother I have over the last 8 years become increasingly more boring.

And the prognosis isn't good. 

I see myself only becoming exponentially more boring until I basically cease to exists as anything other than a machine that puts clothes into another machine to be washed, and cooks food on yet another machine that gets hot and beeps and smokes.

It will eventually be an endless cycle of my boring machine self, communicating with other machines in order to complete tasks that keep my children alive.

This is quite literally a nightmare I have often.

The writer of the post about moms and not-moms being friends, also went on to say that efforts could be made on both sides: not moms could be more patient, and kindly listen to our crap ass mom talk, and then when we're done bitching talking, we moms can indulge in a little not-mom vicarious living by listening to our not-mom friends tell stories about the normal lives they're still carrying on, in a world where they get to take a shower ever single day. 

I agreed with almost everything the writer was saying.

But it brought up another question for me along the same lines - or maybe another question asked in a different way: can moms and not-moms be friends when their lives are just so different?

Imagine that you did have normal shit to talk about, and you didn't ever tell stories about baby shit or grocery shopping {yeah right}, and you were actually able to get away once in a while for a girls lunch without your babies?

Would you still be able to maintain friendships with your friends who didn't have kids?

Would the two of you be anywhere near the same place in your lives? Would you be able to honestly relate to the things the other person was going through in their very different universe?

Once you live a new life for long enough, your old life begins to feel very foreign. It becomes harder and harder to recognize the native language, and communicate with the inhabitants of that now very distant land.

Do you ever feel like you're a little more grown up than your friends that don't have kids?

I mean, with no disrespect intended to the childless women of the world, but doesn't getting married, or being in a serious relationship, or doing it all alone while raising babies age you a little, if not a whole hell of a lot?

I am 24 years old and I don't feel anywhere near the same age as the girls in my office who are even a couple years older than me, unless they also have kids or a husband or lead a somewhat similar life.

Would your not-mom friends never get bored with just having girls lunch and getting your nails done, if they're still hitting the bars on Friday night, trying to find a man or have some fun, or just enjoy being young and still relatively unattached?

I know that the experiences I've had tell me it's incredibly hard for me personally to have close friendships with girls who don't have kids. 

It's frustrating on both sides when it comes to going out together: I can't ever go to happy hour after work, I cannot go to a bar where my tab will be over 20 dollars for two freaking drinks, I don't can't talk on the phone with them every night and sometimes I get so busy/tired/rundown/forgetful that I may not return a call for several days.

And during the times when I am overwhelmed, lonely from being the only parent/adult in the house, and a little bored after months and months of nothing but Rugrats on T.V. and World War II over getting little kids to finish their goddamn mac and cheese, it's hard for me not to feel a little jealous of my friends who are seeing concerts, going to movies and surrounded by their other friends constantly.

The resentment definitely comes out, and that adds strain to an already fragile friendship, and before I know it I'm saying that our lives are just too different and I need to find more grown up friends.

So I guess I'm saying I don't know how it all works, I don't know how to balance those worlds. 

I don't know if it's about maturity, or parental status, or if one determines the other and in the end they're all the same. I don't know if my own immaturity affected my ability to be friends with people with less responsibility than me, without allowing them to be poor influences on me, or if the way that raising babies just naturally wears you out and wears you down sometimes, makes being friends with people who have less responsibility than you a bad idea because there's almost no way to avoid them being a bad influence.
Oy. It's confusing, and I think there are no hard and fast rules or absolute truths.

I just know that friendships only become more vital, yet simultaneously harder, as soon as someone says

"Here comes the head!"

 Quote = Jerry Maguire

Single Mothers Have Gills

"I feel like I can't keep my head above water right now. I'm so overwhelmed, I can't get a breath." "Your breath will come. Don't worry. You're a single mother. You have fucking gills." -The Roomie

I just want to take a moment to rant a bit about.....everything. Before I begin this rant, I want to put a disclaimer out that I love my children. I love being a mother, and most of the time, I am pretty damn good at it. I would not trade my kids for all the stars in the sky, all the tea in China or anything else in the world. This is not about how much I love them, this about me being human, and having limits.

I am a single mother. Everyone knows that. I have been a single mother pretty much ever since I had Tiny, because The Jedi's dad was kind of always useless from the moment we found out I was expecting. So, Tiny being almost 8, that means for 8 years I have been raising kids by myself. Take a moment and try to wrap your head around that. 8 years. Being a single mom is hard. It is hard in ways I never imagined it could be hard. It's hard to the point that I sometimes believe it might be completely impossible to do it and come out even moderately sane.

Everything is on you. Everything. If I don't go to the grocery store on time, and get enough food for the week, we don't have dinner and we're left with mac and cheese or take out which I cannot afford and makes me feel like a shitty mom for feeding my kids CRAP. If I don't do the laundry, we all smell like dirty clothes and feet. If I don't make enough money for all 3 of us to survive, we live without something, like power or, oh I don't know, a HOUSE. If I don't wake up on time in the morning we're ALL late for school, preschool, work, etc. If I don't clean the house looks like a crack den. And the list goes on. Baths, bedtime stories, teeth brushing, pajama putting on, room organizing, question answering, playtime, homework help, it NEVER ENDS.

You are completely alone in your life of craziness. Not only is there no one else to pick up the slack or help out if you get sick or take on just some of the responsibility, but you drive around all day and have no one to talk to. I mean you have friends, sure, but no one to talk to about the daily life stuff. What will we have for dinner, what should we do with the kids this weekend, can you pick up some wine and sour cream at the store? Nope. You have those conversations by yourself.

At the end of the day, it's just you. For those of you that have kids, do you know those days where everything just goes so fucking wrong, it's almost retarded, and the kids won't stop crying and asking for stuff, and you're bone tired, and you can't catch a break, and all you want is to put the kids to bed so you can have some peace and quiet? Yeah, I have those too. But then you put the kids to bed, flop on the couch, and you're alone. No one to flop down with and sigh, and say "Oh my God, what a day. What do you wanna watch on T.V.?" No one to look over at and laugh with because neither of you can believe you survived the day, or cry to because you're overwhelmed and exhausted and all you want is a bath, some Starbucks and a freaking hug. You can call a friend on the phone, sure, but most of them don't get it. They either don't have kids or they have a husband or wife so they will never understand the overwhelming isolation that can come from doing this all by yourself.

And sometimes all you want is to have someone to call who gets it who will say "Awwww honey, I'm so sorry. I totally understand. What do you want from Starbucks, I'm coming over!" And they come hug you, and listen to you, and dispense tissues like magic, and wait with you until you're laughing at how silly it all is, and you remember how blessed you are to have the kids you have, husband/partner/involved other parent or not.

I don't mean to whine, I don't. But this shit gets hard. It gets exhausting and sometimes all you want is for someone to come through, and listen and be there, and make you feel like you're not in it all alone. Like in some small way, you are part of a team. You're in this together. Maybe someday I will have that, or maybe I will live the next 15 years as a single parent, and if that happened, I know I'd survive. I think my friends would just see me cry a lot more than they would like to, and I might seem like a whiny little bitch more than I would like to, but that's life. You do what you gotta do to survive. And sometimes, that's calling a friend, and crying it out.

Thank you to my friends that always answer your phone, and come over with coffee and hugs and love whenever you can, and are always there when I feel like my head is being held under water. Thank you for being there when it sucks, and laughing with me when it's good, and never telling me "I told you so" or "You chose to have these kids, what do you expect?" and for never judging me at all. I love you all more than bacon.