Hope and Despair

It's a fine line between Hope and Despair.

I know because I've been walking it for the past month, since the day I was told in a 3-minute meeting that my job, my career, my life as I know it was over.

Since then I have been on a roller coaster of emotions. Some days I'm up, exhilarated even. Thrilled at the prospects before me.


Some days I'm down, feeling the after-the-drop pit in my stomach acutely and wanting nothing more than to throw up on somebody's shoes.

Mostly, I just wonder, "What in the hell am I going to do now?"

On the "Up" days, I imagine myself doing all sorts of things we all imagine doing if we ever get around to it --  develop killer abs, become a gourmet cook, craft like Martha Stewart.
 

Some days I'm thrilled at the prospects of a life of freedom, with no clock to punch, and imagine how productive I might be able to be. I can be a blogger, launch my genealogy page, find a publisher for  my two children's books, write the book on how to  have a great relationship with your husband's ex wife. No, really.

Or, I could just move to the beach. 


Perhaps even write my own 50 Shades of something.

Or just paint my house.

That's all fine and good, but I also have to earn a living. So, I imagine myself as a freelancer, writing wonderful feature stories on fabulous people from all walks of life; blogging here daily on life and family and love and adoption and baseball (but not necessarily in that order) and having people flock to it to read my words.

But mostly I imagine doing what I really love to do -- spending Friday nights in the press box, even ones with mosquitoes and wasps and banana spiders, writing gripping accounts of thrilling games (and boring ones) like I did for more than 20 years. And I will.

But then there are the "down" days, when I remember that I have a hefty mortgage and a car note and bills to pay and no job come October, and no severance after about May. And that I have to find a "real" job that will pay that mortgage and car note and those bills. And I try to figure out how to write a resume that will catch the attention of an employer who is looking for some 20-something kid right out of college who doesn't need a big salary because they don't have a mortgage yet, and not some 50-year old woman with a husband and a kid and a mortgage and a car note, who has worked only one job in the last 26 years. Me.

And what in the hell else do I want to do, anyway?

And those are the days I think I'll just go jump off the Hale Boggs Bridge come October 1st. But then I remember that the newspaper has just laid off 201 of us -- including ME, the crime writer -- and some cub reporter from NOLA will have to fight all that traffic to get all the way out here to the burbs  to cover it and, why should I ruin their day? And they'll probably just misspell my name or something. And, well, that's just messed up.

So then I just pretend I'm Scarlett O'Hara and don't think about it. I'll think about it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.

Friends like these

I know there are a lot of people who don't understand it. Some who wonder how we do it. And others who think we are flat out nuts.

Mostly, those are the ones who don't know us very well. Those who do have just come to accept it. They still probably shake their heads, though.

That woman over there, sitting on my sofa, eating at my table, picking up my child on Tuesday afternoons just because, helping my husband and me coach our daughter's volleyball team, and giving me high fives when we won one without him? Yes, she is my friend. Yes, she is family. Yes, she is my daughter's Godmother.

She also is my husband's ex wife.

Go ahead.  I'll wait...

Cheryl is the woman my husband fell in love with in college. The woman he married in a big, splashy wedding at St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter. The woman who bore his two children. Who celebrated his first victories as a coach. Who waited for him at home. And waited.

One day she decided she had had enough of waiting for him to come home. He didn't see it coming.

Then one night I found him. In a bar. Trying to get his feet wet again. We fell in love.

Cheryl and I? Not so much.

Although we always were civil to and with each other, there were some awkward moments, especially at first. We are women, after all. No woman wants to see her man -- even the ones we don't want anymore -- with someone else. We want them miserable and missing us forever. Right?

So we had our tussles and our dustups. Nothing major. No shouting matches. No fisticuffs. Most involved the care and feeding of the children.

But it was the children that brought us together.

Besides coming from the same home town, Cheryl and I both are products of divorced parents wh didn't get along. We remembered the pain and angst of the anger in the room, and we both decided we didn't want that for our kids.

Yes, our kids.

Her children, Daniel and Courtney, are my kids too. I never asked them to choose between me and their mother. There was no choice. She came first, as it should be. They had their parents. And they had me. A bonus mom. Actually, in the early days they called me their "Semi-Mom."

Although, I have to say, I don't understand the whole stigma that goes along with the word "stepmom."  I'm proud to be one. A wicked one at that. And I don't mind the word at all.

Eventually, Cheryl and I figured out our pecking order. We found a comfort zone. Then we found that we genuinely liked each other. We formed a friendship.

When Courtney and her friends had to go see The Backstreet Boys and N'Sync at the Superdome, I was invited to go too. There, Cheryl and I made a pact. If Donny Osmond ever went on tour, we were going. Together.

When I heard the news that he indeed would be playing nearby in Mississippi, we did go. Together. Our husbands went to dinner.

One day when Daniel was playing baseball, Cheryl and I were sitting in the stands together. He was in the dugout and needed a Gatorade. He called to his mom. He called to me. Neither of us heard him, until he shouted, "Would ONE of my moms please get me a drink?"

And on the day of his wedding, I was on the front row, right next to his mother. And halfway through the mother-and-groom dance, she stopped, called me over, and oh-so-graciously passed her son -- our son -- on to me for my turn.

Lora's Christening

And when, after six years, Marty and I finally received our miracle child from God (and a woman named Gail), he and I barely had to discuss who her Godparents would be. Cheryl was an easy choice. First of all, her faith is inspirational. But more than that, we wanted -- no, needed -- to include her in the family circle. I didn't want her to call Lora, "their" child. I wanted her to have a "my."

And it was the best decision we could have made.

Not only does Lora adore her "Nanny," but Nanny loves her right back. And she and the children were the first to welcome us all home from the hospital.  And since then, this oh-so-creative kindergarten teacher has filled my house with handmade treasures for every occasion, all made with footprints and handprints of all three of my children.

She comes to our parties.  We go to hers.  We have sat together at weddings. And funerals.  Lora stayed with her when Marty and I went away for an anniversary weekend.

Like many of our acquaintances, Lora doesn't quite understand the complete dynamics of this relationship. (Daddy used to be married to Nanny?)

And, late to the party, Cheryl's husband, Henry, needed a little time to figure it all out himself. He has since come around. Lora calls him "Uncle." I call Henry's kids my step-step kids.

But people do question our little arrangement.  During our evacuation to Houston for Hurricane Ivan, my friend Janine introduced me to some of her book club members. Their jaws definitely dropped when I told them that my husband's ex wife was my daughter's Godmother. But not as wide as when I told them that I didn't have a dishwasher.


We even were included in a USAToday article a few years ago on blended families inspired by Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore and Bruce Willis.  We are in good company, apparently.

Cheryl, Lora and me. Mardi Gras 2011

We certainly didn't do this to be role models for anybody.  We know that not everybody gets it. And we know that not everyone can do it.  Some hurts and anger can't be put away.  And we didn't do it to be on Oprah.

We just decided we would rather all be friends. Life is so much easier.  And much more fun. For us and our children.

Plus, she makes a mean pineapple dip for my luaus.