Collisions

I have no real understanding of what post-separation dating as a single parent is supposed to be like. L is so unbelievably wonderful and understanding, and my relationship with the ex is generally so... even (that's the charitable word I can come up with now) that the early period has been a road of only minor bumps and inconveniences: "No, I can't do that because I have this... Hey, can we get together at time A because of event B?". These are the rhythms of parenting life that I got used to for years before becoming separated, so handling them post-separation isn't jarring in and of itself.

But coming into it unprepped, unprepared and inexperienced at those rhythms? That has to be a difficult thing for L, and she has been an amazing cohort, confidant and champion the whole time we've been together. That peaked last week, when she proactively suggested, "I want to meet A. I want to show her that I'm not something to be afraid of". 

This came from A's repeated resentments over my parenting choices in terms of spending time together with Z and L. When A learned that a group of us - L and Z included - were going camping, she expressed her extreme displeasure. Weather concerns led us to cancel the trip, and instead a group of us went to a Renaissance Faire. This sent A into a tizzy, still reeling from the fact that her son dyed Easter Eggs with L weeks earlier. Perceived threats and maternal insecurities were bubbling to the surface, and I'm not at all going to say those aren't valid or understandable fears, but it's so easy for the conception and the idea to take root that it obliterates any form of the reality. L quickly recognized this, and decided that the best way to mitigate this was to introduce herself to A. She suggested a phone meeting, but A upped the ante with coffee, and after some consideration, L couldn't wait for it to take place.

When my friend V heard the news, his eyes practically jumped out of his head, and everyone who heard this - especially me - couldn't help but look at L with total admiration for her class, guts and gumption. For me, it was the class most of all, and it demonstrated just how committed she is to me, and respectful she is of Z's situation. It was an amazing gesture, and I was deeply touched, which is how I suspect L felt when I confronted her ex-boyfriend to say that I was dating the girl that he was with not so long ago.

The  meeting went exceptionally well, with L hearing A's litany of concerns, listening to her history of resentment over her own parents' parade of boyfriends and girlfriends, and expressing how she has Z's best interests in mind, and it dictates how she acts with him. Amazingly, she told A that all the things about me that A hated were probably the things that she adored about me. A said she was "almost certain" that I wouldn't have any interest in getting back together with her - that I've moved on - and L had to bite her tongue to keep from forcibly removing the word "almost". I would've liked to have done that for her. It was only 8 months ago or so that I thought I could rescue our marriage - or that I should at least try - but now it seem so utterly foreign to me. What was I trying to rescue, anyway?

The meeting ended with the two women expressing that they actually liked each other, and was followed by A even throwing out the potential idea of L picking up Z from pre-school if necessary. A mutual show of respect and understanding, and everyone felt great about it, presumably. 

This weekend was a slightly different story.

It started on Saturday, where A's never-ending habit of being late reared its head before plans L and I had. No matter how many times I established that I needed to be out of the house by 5, A showed up 25 minutes after that, and didn't apologize for the major inconvenience. To be fair, I was so irritated that I didn't give her much time to apologize, but I would think that reaching out over that issue would be a natural human response. Yet, I don't think that A feels any need to justify any inconvenience shown me. I think she somehow feels that being married to me was such a hardship that she's owed back taxes for the misery of being my partner.  

Four year old Z started ice hockey last week, and it was a debacle, with him sobbing about wanting to get off the ice, being afraid of getting hurt, etc, etc. Then A and I took him to the ice rink for figure skating, and he fell in love with being on skates. He was great at it when he just believed in himself - something that comes up on a near-daily basis. Still, he insisted he didn't want to go to hockey again. He did, however, and apparently was fantastic. When I called A to ask how it was, I got a shit-filled guilt trip over the fact that I wasn't there, and by the way, "we're going again tonight" and that I should be there. I say that I'm with L and hear in return that, "you were with her last night, so clearly you have your priorities". 

So now I've been put into the unenviable camp of being an absent father if I don't show up, so of course I do. So now I have been guilted into attending night skating, even though I had previous plans. L points out that A, basically, has my balls in a box on her shelf. I try to explain the fact that there are some hills that I want to charging into battle to tackle, and some that are not worth the effort. But, yes, she has a very good point.

We agree that I should go, and from moment one, it's tense and ugly. I don't pay for A, and this clearly pisses her off to no end. It's not long before I express that her "passive aggressive guilt trip approach" to getting me here was, frankly, bullshit. She denies it, and then says that Z was so upset that I wasn't there to see him that morning. Again, turn me into the deficient father. 

I return home to find that L has not taken this turn of events well. She has finished a bottle of wine, and she's more than a little resentful about the fact that my parenthood is a constant factor in our relationship. But not via Z, but through A. To L my ex is an ever-present shadow - something like Mozart's father with his big, outstretched black cloak that envelops and overwhelms. And, for the first time, it seriously tweaked her out. I think that given the incident itself, her reaction was severe, but it was the culmination of many little events that led to this frank, open discussion of the reality of someone dating a single parent whose child's mother is still in the picture. And mothers inevitably hold a good deal of power in this relationship, with that trump card that can be thrown down at any moment that a father doesn't necessarily have any fair defense for. 

And L is right about setting boundaries, and A's need to control the situation, and at the same time, she can't understand just how fucking hard it is to try to keep a child happy, and a tenuous relationship with my ex-wife from tipping onto the wrong side of the emotional ledger that will have larger repercussions than any short term satisfaction that winning any given skirmish has. A wraps herself in a cloak of self-righteousness about virtually everything, and continually accuses me of being selfish, while remaining willfully ignorant of how thoughtless she is about so many things, demanding my time, my attention, my money, whenever is suits her. And what on earth has she given me through all of this process, aside from the (much appreciated) respect not to try to completely screw me in a separation? She can be often be cordial and diplomatic, but how often do I inconvenience her versus the amount of time I spend attending to her needs? It's not a very even ledger, although I'm 100%, completely certain she would characterize it as something radically different. We just don't see the world - or each other - in remotely similar ways.

Tonight ultimately had a certain purging flavor to it, and I think that L needed to get a lot out about the situation as a whole moreso than the events of the evening itself. Because these events are going to seem mild by larger issues that will inevitably arise as time goes by. It's incredibly hard raising kids as a couple, much less as single parents who must deal with and find common ground with the other parent. Especially when you don't want to be around that parent at all. 

L will accuse me of lacking some testicles, certainly, but I truly believe that there is limited upside to handle certain issues in certain ways. It's very easy to win the battle and lose the war. I feel that A works on a daily basis to win those battles - perhaps because she feels that so much of the world is beating her down - but that, to my mind at least, she is losing the war. I used to respect her a great deal - and there are many ways I still do - but that respect is draining away in so many interactions I have with her now. But I would rather be the one to take the irrational right jabs now rather than the knockout punch. Or at least I'd rather be the one who didn't sink to shots below the belt, like A telling L that "you shouldn't expect him to take you out to dinner". Not the classiest of moves, for so many reasons. 

It completely ruined L's night, and that breaks my heart. Yet, our conversation feels like one that will, long-term, be constructive and foundational rather than destructive. L could tell me just how difficult things sometimes are for her, and in the next breath say just how lucky she is and how much she loves me. Wow. That's a healthy, honest, integrity-filled relationship. Though I wish she had been able to let some of this roll off her back tonight, I have such admiration for her in so many ways. 

Eveyrthing about our relationship has been absolutely perfect. I am sorry that, for perhaps the first moment, our expectations and hopes didn't live up to the reality.

Low Points

Today is my ex-wife's birthday.  The economy has hit her life very hard, as she's been unable to find work for the last month.  She's amazingly talented, but she's in a niche field where it's easy to find oneself without work, and she's not well-established enough in her career to weather economic storms like this. So, in short, she's kind of fucked right now.

And it's taking a toll. Between starting a new life, not having a job, having a failed marriage, etc, she's at the lowest point that I've ever seen her at. Which is really saying something, because I've seen her at many, many low points over the last 12 years. Family problems, the death of her mother, the insecurity of your twenties, professional dissatisfaction, friendship frictions, miscarriages, a difficult pregnancy, horrible illness after the birth and near death, my own failures for her, etc, etc, etc. It hasn't been easy for her. 

But now is one of the first times that I've seen her spirt nearly broken. And I'm really, deeply worried for her. She's clinically depressed (even a layman can see it), and I think she's near having a breakdown. Sometimes I fear the worst. I reached out to a bunch of her friends and family today, asking them to reach out to her, because there's only so much I can do.

My friend E put it best a month ago, when I complained that the ex thought I wasn't sympathetic enough to the problems she was having: "She fired you from that job", he said. This has been echoed from a number of quarters. That doesn't change the fact that I feel responsible for her in some ways, and that I want the best for her, and that I'm worried about her constantly. CONSTANTLY. She doesn't believe this, and somehow thinks that I wish ill to befall her, but I truly want the best for her. Of course, that doesn't necessarily extend to her finding another guy (aren't we ALL petty and jealous that way?), but in every other way I want her to be happy, content and secure. 

I'm worried on all of those fronts these days.

Happy Birthday, A. It's not a good one, even though you deserve it to be.

Companies have Salieri Moments Too

The work I've been doing all year has been exploratory in hopes of finding new, diversified revenue streams for my company (we're a prominent player online). We have a vision of something that hasn't quite been done exactly in this way online, a business plan, a product vision, product specs, the whole deal. A great deal of thought, and effort went into this. And my presentation bowled over the CEO, who was firmly behind it.

The comes strategic planning for 2009, involving the entire executive team. Each person with their own agenda, and a collective vision that we need to radically shift our company's agenda for the next year. That's all well and good, but the problem is that it means decreasing the overall size of our business and revenue. Which means that a new revenue stream is ALL the more important.

Collectively, the group took an alternate view: they need all their best people on crucial, mission-centric tasks. That means no new business verticals. That means no product that I've developed, envisioned and championed. That means... that really sucks.

From a rational perspective, I get it. We are sharpening our focus and anything that consumes resources outside the core objectives can be both a distraction and a headache. Yet, the investment was minimal. My time, time of a few others, a couple tech assists, and a modest outlay of money. Not a gigantic deal, truthfully. But they didn't see it that way.

The upside is this, however. There's a certain amount of flattery that the company wants "good" people on important projects, and apparently, one of the main considerations was, "Hey, we can have this guy - who really stepped up to the plate - building us something new, or we could have him playing a role on something that we view as short-term critical". So it's nice to be felt of that way, but at the same time, it's like being kicked in the gut. A couple of times. A year's worth of work pissed down the tubes before we even saw any return. 

Ironically, our corporate shift is due to a desire to put long-term company stability ahead of short-term revenues in the pecking order. Yet, the irony is that, again, we fall prey to short-term thinking rather than long-term vision. 

A Salieri moment. For all of us.

Kids Can Be Salieri Too

So I titled my blog after that feeling you can have where you've got it all together, you've got it figured out... and just as fast you can feel awash in the crowd, lost despite it all... the Patron Saint of Mediocrity.

And while Zach is my Mozart, even he has his Salieri moments.

Yesterday was his first soccer practice. 3 1/2 - 5 year old class. Well, Zach's just 3 1/2, and he's never going to be a big kid, so he's probably sized closer to 3. He's also wicked athletic, and he did a good job learning the soccer drills, started trapping the ball on sporadic occasion, etc. Though admittedly he grew restless at times. C'mon... he's three.

But when it came time for a "game", it was another story. The coach picked the two oldest kids to play with, against 12 other kids, and Zach's age and speed was exposed. Coach rolled the ball onto the field, and Zach was the first one to it. And he tapped it, and before he could tap it again, the inevitable swarm of 4 year olds descended, taking the ball like a pack of bees and running in random directions, the ball careening ahead of them. Well, Zach didn't understand the whole notion that you're supposed to take the ball away, and none of the kids could grasp the concept that you're not supposed to take it away from your own teammate, but there you have it.

Zach had a meltdown, sobbing and crying that "I can't get the ball" and "They took it from me". It was so sweet and heartbreaking, because he both didn't understand that basic concept of futball, but that it was also painfully true that he wasn't going to be able to get the ball back - the other kids were too much bigger and faster. Most of the kids averaged between 4-4 1/2 I'd say, and that's a huge divide. Just like Zach's 2 1/2 year old friend Spencer can't physically keep up with Zach, Zach couldn't match their size and speed. He really felt like Salieri.

Coach and I agreed that Zach should move down to the smaller kids class, where he'll be on the flip side of that age divide. Maybe then he'll be the one with the ball... maybe he'll feel like a Mozart.

Salieri Meets Wolfgang?!?

What the hell does that mean?

Well, many who know me know that Milos Forman's AMADEUS is my favorite film. It came out when I was about 11, and that doesn't make any rational sense why I'd like it. Wasn't I into STAR WARS and Legos at that point? Well, yes... But when I started getting into film in high school, I discovered this sumptuous, musically-astonishing period piece that was filled with life, and energy and also moral complexity. It also featured two of the best - and most underrated performances in film history. I'm not even a costume picture kind of guy, but AMADEUS seemed to defy any of those expectations and cliches, whether it's Mozart's insanely inappropriate laughter, or the sight of a modestly talented composer throwing a crucifix into a fireplace, engaging in a never-ending fight, not with the genius who torments him, but the god who created him.

That feeling of being inconsequential, of being caught up by forces outside your control, of not being good enough, knowing that the world isn't a level playing field... those were striking themes to a teenager. Even if you felt smart, competent, liked... there's always somewhere you don't stack up - whether or not that's in your own mind or someone else's is up for debate. Is everyone else walking around, worried that they don't stack up too?

These are powerful messages to a 16 year old, and frankly, they're no less powerful the older you get. The problems change, the circumstances evolve, the people are switched out, but it's all still the same stuff in the end.

And this is what makes Salieri one of the ultimate anti-heroes, and by extension, one of the heroes. All at the same time. He can't measure up to Mozart, but it's only in comparison to Mozart that he doesn't live up. Otherwise, he'd be the apple of the Emperor's eye. But there's a flip side too - Mozart's genius doesn't exist unless it's in counterpoint to everything else around it. How do you recognize brilliance if you don't also know mediocrity? In fact, the Patron Saint of Mediocrities is one of the true gifts to the world. I could make religious analogies and comparisons, but that would be pretentious... though I've probably already shot long past that mark.

But what's most interesting is that all of us have parts of Salieri in us, and parts of Mozart. We all have moments of strain, failure, and frustration. But we also have moments of grace, beauty and forgiveness. That perfect line that lights up a room, the thing you did at work that just worked, the way a three-year-old can say "Daddy, I love you" in a way that you know you're doing something that's really important, really right.

So, yes. Salieri meets Wolfgang. Not in a bar, not in the concert hall. But in each of us. At exactly the same time.