LonelyMomDotCom "Anatomy Of A Freindship "We Meet..."

     I posted this on my other long forgotten blog about a year and a half ago. I make friends very rarely...real friends. This relationship was shaping into one, or so I thought. I was "pursued" by this woman relentlessly for quite a while. I use this word because in my original post, I liken a blossoming female friendship to that of a couple romantically courting. After months of pursuing this friendship, she simply stopped. I was shocked. I took it personally, at first. It was months before I realized that she had done this disappearing act from our entire circle of friends, not just me. She had stopped answering emails, phone calls, and facebook posts.

     The odd thing was that whenever I would see her, whether weeks or months had gone by, she would act as if she had just seen me the day before. I did not and still do not know what to make of it. This post, and the one I posted after this (which will follow in a few days) has significance because recently due to schedules of our children, she has come back into my life. She is trying to get back into my life. After the way she treated me before, I hesitate even getting involved with her. I am still pretty unsure about what happened with her. 

So here it is....

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     I see a lot of people during the course of a day. You go to school, drop off children, pick them up. There are events, field trips, activities, parties etc. You smile politely, make conversation that is age appropriate to your child. For an infant at gymboree you may discuss eating/sleeping/pooping habits. Kindergarteners??? Adjustment issues and napping…First//Second grade???? Homework and making friends Third/Fourth grade??? Study habits and overbooking activities for their schedule. At this point in my parenting life, that is the limit of my experience.
     So, as Moms go, I am pretty introverted. Some Moms make friends easily, some do not. I am a “do not”. I sit and wait till the last minute, then race in to get my child. I watch as the other Moms congregate and discuss playdates, etc, envious. I have even willed myself to get out of my van a few minutes before absolutely necessary (a huge feat for me). Only to find that I stood alone with no one to talk to, as the other Moms still congregated, just without including me. Standing there, alone, feeling like I was a sole performer on a stage, as if all eyes were on me, reinforced my Mom style choice…self imposed social seclusion….or so I thought…until recently.
It occurred to me over the last few weeks, that making new friends at my age has started to resemble the everywoman search for “The One” that we look for in a mate in our teens and twenties. We start out open to every and all possibilities…old, young, nice, the bad boy/or girl (as the case may be), employed, unemployed. Then, as we go further into the dating field, we narrow our search…like a Google search. We exclude words or categories…such as “momma’s boy” (and I can say this now that I am raising a son), “recently released” (from jail, rehab, a mental health facility) or swinger/polyamorous (that’s one I learned the hard way…more on that later).
     Well, it’s the same with a friend. We tend to narrow our search as we get older. We look for people that have something in common with us from the get go. Whether it’s a child of the same gender/age/interest or a spouse at the same firm/department/etc. In my case, rarely do I meet someone new without one of those pre-existing conditions (spouse/child in common) because I learned to face it a long time ago, there is room for nothing else in my life that doesn’t sprout from their world first.
     I met D a few months ago…actually I met her husband first. My hubby and I were on a field trip and I noticed that our daughter was gravitating to his daughter. As we picked pumpkins, I started talking to him. He told me that his wife was not well but was recovering. We spent the rest of the morning talking…then goodbye.
     A few weeks later, I noticed D. I wanted to say hi, but knew she had been ill and didn’t want to bother her. A few weeks after that, another mom invited my daughter over for a playdate. D and her daughter were there. The three of us moms sat and talked. D and I, it turned out, had quite a bit in common. The three of us laughed about it. I was relieved, actually. Normally, I dread playdates. I am awkward, to say the least and making conversation is quite difficult for me. I found talking to D was the same as when I had girlfriends as a single, young, unattached girl. When I chose friends and my friends were not CHOSEN FOR ME by circumstance. We talked about things OTHER THAN OUR GIRLS. OMG! I was having a conversation as a person…not a mom!
     As the playdate ended, I was actually sad to leave. I went home and told my husband that I think I was about to make a new friend….

LonelyMomDotMom "Raquel Welch...Getting In the Game..."

I originally posted this on my other blog over a year ago. I forgot about it until I saw Ms. Welch on television the other day. It made me think about her message...

Well, I was watching Oprah the other day...keep in mind that my DVR is backed up with 3 weeks of Oprah, Dr Phil and my soaps, so for me to watch something within a day or two of air date is pretty unheard of in my world. However, when I saw the topic, something like "Raquel Welch shares her anti aging secrets", they had me. I love her and think she's gorgeous, and she's 69!

So she was being interviewed, and let me say first that she shared no secrets, which is to say her surgeon's name, but hey, it works for her. What intrigued me more was something she said. She said that at a certain age a woman has to make a decision...is she going to stand by the sidelines, or "get in the game"? That hit home for me. She was referring to maintaining yourself/your looks or letting yourself go.

In a few weeks, I will be 41. The number doesn't bother me. I have never been one to shy away from volunteering my age. What does bother me are the sudden, not so subtle changes I am experiencing. From the inability to drop 5 pounds at will, to the "sharpei" sag around my mouth.

I have spent the better part of the last few months of mirror time examining my image and trying to make that all important decision that all women must eventually face, "to alter or not to alter". Thread lift, brow lift, mini face lift, botox, eyelid surgery...all of these are procedures that have screamed out at me from the other side of my mirror. Then there's "aging gracefully". This was something that I was fully prepared to do all through my 20's...you know, before the real aging process began.

I have noticed the "cloak of invisibility" that accompanies you once you reach your mid 30's. In your 20's, you walk into a room, and if your lucky, you turn a few heads. Then, as I approached 40 (and I speak only for myself, because as anyone can plainly see, in Hollywood, 40 is still gorgeous!), I noticed that less heads turned in my direction. Did I look unkempt? tired? sloppy? or ....dare I say it???? OLD?????!!!!

New face creams, perfumes, clothes...all of these things followed my revelation. Now, keep in mind that I am happily married. I do not measure myself in other men's eyes. That being said, I think most women, if they were being honest, would say that one of the adjectives that they would like to be described with is "attractive". I am vain and shallow enough to feel that way, yet embarrassed to admit it.

I faced this question dozens of times a day with each mirror, reflection, angle of myself that I faced. Should I learn to live with never feeling like "my old self". Should I accept this cruel fate? The fact that my mind and body would never match up. I feel great. I take care of my body. Am I that shallow?

I know that there are women out there who are the picture of confidence. They would shame me for even feeling this way. They would say "...to hell with what people think. Worry about what you think and everyone else be damned!" I wish I could but, alas, I do not. I want to feel desirable. My hubby says all the right things, bless his heart. There are times when I really think that he means them. Can he truly not notice the pooch of my belly when I lean over, or the droop of my face when I bend down. (That reminds me of a scene from Golden Girls. Dorothy showed Blanche a mirror and told her to watch herself bend over. Blanche said she would always be laying down on her back from that moment on!)

I guess it's instilled in you early. I also recall an interview of a fashion designer, or someone like that, when I was a young girl. He said something to the effect of what a shame it was that women had to age. He said that women were like flowers that bloomed only for a moment then the corners of their mouths turned down. I guess that really stuck with me.

So there it is. You certainly didn't expect that I would end this entry with my decision, did you? Well, I haven't decided yet. I have a daughter. I weigh the impact of my concern with my outward appearance with how it must conflict with what I try to teach her. I try to instill the value of a person's character, honesty and compassion for others. Yet, from as early as I can remember, she would put a tiara on, or hair barrettes and look at her reflection and say "Do I look pretty?" Just as I didn't teach her to "Mommy" her dolls, I didn't tell her to look in the mirror to check her hair. I guess some traits are truly there from birth. Are they gender specific? Do men worry about the frown lines and sagging skin? Well, that is an entirely different topic.

We are all put in the "game", like it or not, from a young age. We try to attract friends and lovers into our orbit. Is there a natural point where we are supposed to gracefully bow out and make room for the new players? After all, aren't we just starting to understand the rules?

LonelyMomDotCom "My Inspirations..."

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet forget that he is someone TODAY.

LonelyMomDotCom "My Inspirations..."

"A boy doesn't have to go to war to be a hero. He can say that he doesn't like pie when he sees that there is not enough to go around." Edgar Watson Howe

LonelyMomDotCom "Bullying... in defense of being different"

Another new group, another bullying problem. There's one in every crowd, they say, huh?

My son is a pre-teen. He is small for his age. In most groups of children, he is the smallest...not that you'd know it from his attitude. He is a very confidant young man. I have instilled in him that he can do anything, despite what anyone says to him.

On top of being small for his age, he is a severe asthmatic. This causes a lot of problems for him. There are a lot of absences from activities when his asthma is acting up. I try to minimize his absences. There are times, when even present, he will be forced to sit out...even for a few moments, which makes him feel singled out.

I have spent more time then I had  ever planned at his young age talking to him about human nature. You see, because of his small stature, and his quiet nature, my boy is quite often the target of bullies.

This started in kindergarten. I wasn't phased because I thought that it was the nature of young boys to have a pecking order. After all, I was a girl...I thought that I was a mother that was overreacting. It continued throughout the years, getting worse, as the other boys got older and bigger. I tried everything. I talked to him (walk away, laugh it off, ignore it), then I talked to teachers. When that didn't work, and the years continued to roll by, I started to talk to parents. This is where it really got challenging.

I couldn't understand why this continued to happen to him. He was quiet by nature. Through the years, he had learned to be quite the comic, in an effort to win people over that were making fun of him. Sometimes this worked, but when it didn't, it really didn't. He is kind by nature, the king of second chances. Whenever a child is mean, he still tries to make nice. He would say, when he was younger "I'm giving them a second chance." I would not discourage him.

He is smart. He reads and absorbs books like a sponge. He can memorize encyclopedias. Literally. I pick up encyclopedias that people offer. He can't get enough. I love this about him. I think that it will serve him well as an adult. Other kids do not. They use this as another reason to make his life miserable.

He's been assaulted physically, verbally, and through email. He has no Facebook accounts. He has one lone email address that he gave out to friends. Thank Heavens I check it first. (He is not even allowed to know his password. I sign in for him.) I was able to intercept it. He never even saw it. He was absent for a few days, ill, and someone sent him an email making fun of his asthma.

One child even threatened to bring in a gun to school. The principal gave him a "stern talking to." That was supposed to make me feel as though my child was safe.

Last year, as a result of this bullying, I had to pull him from school. The bullying had caused my boy to pull into the fetal position every morning and beg me not to make him go. After I dropped him off, I would cry. I did everything I could...called parents, talked to his teacher, even the principal said that it was out of her hands. She (and the teacher) said that kids don't fear adults like they used to.

Well I had fear. Real fear.

One day he walked out of school beside himself. He told me that one of the boys "grabbed" him in a private manner...in a private place...and laughed. He went to the teacher. The teacher yelled at him and told him that he knew better than to be near this boy. WHAT?!?!

My son was walking up the steps. The boy ran up behind him. To make matters worse, if they could be, was the fact that the teacher NEVER CONTACTED ME. I called her right away. No return call. I emailed her. She responded...THE SAME WAY. In an email, she told me exactly what my son had reported to me that she had said to him...he should just stay away from the boy. WHAT???

My boy never went back. My husband saw the bully's mom at baseball weeks later. She tried to shoot the breeze. My husband was beside himself. He told her that she obviously had no idea what happened. She didn't. THE SCHOOL NEVER CONTACTED HER. She was apologetic. She said that her son had problems. She told my husband that she would contact us in a few days. That was seven months ago.

Fast forward a few months. We homeschool. We pulled him from the scouting program associated with school and started anew. Nice people. Nice kids. Then one day, a few weeks ago...

He had a scout meeting. He came home covered with mud...but for his shoes. Yet, his socks were caked with it. What had happened? I asked him. He shrunk when the question came out of my mouth. I knew.

He said that he had been playing football with the boys. He was approached by the two biggest boys in the troop. The one took out a knife and threatened to stab him (What?? I tried to hide my horror so as to not upset him further and make him clam up or shut down.) Then after threatening him, one boy grabbed him from behind and held him while the other boy took his shoes off and threw them.  (I could've cried.). Then each boy grabbed him (from head and foot), picked him up, carried him off to the woods and dropped him into the mud...leaving him to run around in his stocking feet to find his shoes in the wet cold mud. He was humiliated.

I was aghast. How could this be happening to the sweetest, gentlest, kindest boy I know?

My husband and I brainstormed. We would try to handle this quietly. We didn't want to make my son a spectacle. We approached the troop leader quietly. He did the right thing. He talked to the boys. We were satisfied that this was over. Then...

He came home from a scout meeting two days ago. The boy approached him on the sly. He told him that he'd better never tell again. My boy was afraid. So was I. In two days, they would be camping together. The boys slept in a different place then the parents. Here we go again.

I called the troop leader. He was not home. The camping trip was in five hours. I was worried  My son would be alone with this boy all night in the woods. ALONE. I was not overreacting. I was not taking chances. My husband called the boy's father. It went well. The bully's father said that it would never happen again. Problem solved.

NOT!

Camping trip underway...currently...as I type. I received a call. My husband was stunned. The bully's mother had approached him and said that her son had done nothing wrong. She basically called my son a liar. Never mind that her son admitted what he had done to the troop leader when it happened, and he was warned. Now his story changed. The bully now felt empowered. Back to square one.

Now what?

LonelyMomDotCom "She sleeps till noon..."

Well, I do not, for the record. Apparently, however, for months, my husband has thought that I do. Here's how I discovered this...

For about a year now, give or take, I have been homeschooling my children. It is challenging and fulfilling at the same time. (You cannot imagine my joy when I saw the light go on in my daughter's eyes the moment she finally understood the concept of reading a clock.) Make no mistake, though, it is quite an undertaking. Homeschooling two children, several years apart, different curriculums, is the equivalent, for me at least, of taking on two full time jobs. This is in addition to a SAHM's already endless list of duties.

Because of homeschooling during the day, I have found that my usual housework, shopping, etc., falls by the wayside. This has been problematic for me, as I cannot exist in chaos, and find myself doing work after I finally get the house to sleep. (Have I mentioned that both of my children are nocturnal, by nature, like their mother?). So there are nights when I do not hit the pillow till 3 or 4 am. I THOUGHT my husband knew this. He is an early riser, you see, even on weekends, so he usually goes to bed before me.

Last night, when my husband arrived home, I was having a particularly hectic day. The children were not in a learning frame of mind, to say the least...causing me to consider using crazy glue to keep them in their seats...is that frowned upon in the homeschooling community? So, much to his dismay, I used his arrival and obligatory "how was your day?" as an opportunity to unload on him.

I told him how the children were not cooperating, how dinner wasn't cooked, how the laundry had gone untouched, and how I had struggled through the entire day on only a few hours sleep. Now here's where our conversation went south...

His reply? "Well if you went to bed earlier, you'd be able to get up earlier. What are you doing till 4am anyway."

My initial response? Mouth agape...disbelief...silence....seething....hearing my own heartbeat in my ears....

I gathered myself enough to say"Remember when you went to bed last night and the sink was full of dirty dishes and the kitchen was a mess. Then when you got up, POOF, it was clean..."

He mumbled a frightened "uh, huh"

"That was me." I continued on, getting louder, as he backed into the kitchen counter, cornered, with no escape in sight. "...and what do you mean 'what do I do'? What do you think I do, wait until you go to bed so I can skype with George Clooney in private? Who do you think does the dishes? The dish fairy?"

Hubby's reply "Well, I'm just saying, if you got up earlier, you'd be able to..."

My left arm started to tingle. Is this what a heart attack feels like? Maybe I was having a stroke. "WHAT?!"
"What time do you think I get up?" He hesitated "Well, if you can stay up till 4am, you can't be getting up..."

"SEVEN THIRTY! EVERY MORNING! When I am up until 4am, it is not because I slept IN. It is because I am STILL going."

Now, you have to understand, I have been married over a decade. I like to think that my husband and I are fairly close, as spouses go, but for the last year, his job has required more hours than usual, as has my new role as teacher. Well apparently we were more far apart then ever. He assumed because I was up every night, that I was making up for the sleep in the a.m.  He could not fathom that I had been existing in 3-4 hours of sleep a night. After all, how can anyone do that?

Hello!!! Have you been listening to me, at all? I had been telling him for months that I really couldn't continue this way. The lack of sleep has caused so many problems. Daily headaches, short tempered, crying jags. There are mornings that I get up where the day before, only a few hours ago, seems like a dream...foggy at best.

Our conversation was one for the records. I have learned that if I don't say it, he does not know it. I should not assume that he knows what I do or how I feel. All of these months, I have been, I must admit, a little resentful that he hasn't come to my aid. He does the occasional set of dishes, sure. For this, I know, I am lucky, in comparison to a lot of husbands out there. But he doesn't ask if I need help with school instruction, or the children. I have been waiting...and waiting. I was sure that he would see me struggling and jump right in. He, on the other hand, figured since I didn't come to him, that I had it well in hand.

I didn't. Lesson learned.

LonelyMomDotCom "In Awe..."

Yes, that's what I am. In the few days since I started blogging, I have really begun to read the blogs of other mothers. I have found that the "lonely mom syndrome" is an epidemic. I mean, really...without exaggeration, an epidemic. First of all, it comforts me to know I am not alone. I would like to thank the mothers that have contacted me to assure me of such. One sweet mom even offered to friend me on facebook. To "A", thank you. I will take you up on that. I am starting a facebook page under my pseudonym so as to not offend anyone in my life if I speak of them in a negative light. Also, speaking of facebook I should point out that my 59 friends, are including a large number of "pages" not actual people, so my actual person count is lower.

Second, it concerns me as to why so many of us are lonely. Are we really lonely, or are our expectations too high? When I was a child, my mother had NO friends. She never went out, she never spoke on the phone, she never had anyone over. She woke up long before my siblings and I did, to start her housework. She stayed up at night, long after our bedtimes for the same reason. Consequently, my siblings and I had no friends, no playdates, no sleepovers, no dance or sports nor did we expect any. We knew no other way to be children then "go outside and play".

When I became a mother, I vowed to change all of that. I watched my own siblings raise their children as we were raised...in a bubble, and swore my children would never be afraid to walk into a room full of people. As I have watched them grow into the young people that I had hoped, I think that I raised the expectations  that I had for myself. I expect that if my children can walk up to new children and say "hi, wanna be friends?", that maybe I can too...of course I phrase my "wanna be friends" a little differently, such as " is he/she your only child?" or "I hear that this is a great class".

Anyway, it has yet to work out for me. I will re-post an old blog entry regarding what I thought was really shaping up to be a promising friendship. It was, looking back, quite a comical experience, though at the time it was not.

LonelyMomDotCom "Facebook, lonely Facebook…"

I don’t know about you but I joined facebook because I fell for that line about “connecting”. I had high hopes for my facebook account…envisioning mornings spent over the computer answering what would undoubtedly be the dozens of emails I would receive from my friends. So I joined….and waited. I would one by one acquire new friends, all the while waiting for MY friend requests to roll in. Where were they? Did they get lost in the *gulp* mail?

My grand total after a year and a half on facebook is less than 100…more than 50…okay, well, just 59…at the moment, but I have hopes of hitting the big “6” “0” any day now.

This morning I check my newsfeed. It’s become a rather daunting task since kid genius changed up facebook on all of us. Now there are lists. Lists you can make of “important” friends. This way, you can see their posts first…or something like that. It is supposed to make us “connect” even better. It has made me connect with REALITY! The reality that I am not on anyone’s “important” friends list. (I cringe even thinking about it.) At least before, on their way to reading the posts that they REALLY wanted to read, my “friends” would be forced to scroll past mine, thereby randomly clicking “like” or typing a cute little smiley face in the comments section.

My cute little smiley faces have now been replaced by the sounds of chirping crickets. As I read various friend’s accounts of parties, playdates or worse…see picture proof posted before me, I cannot help but wonder…who really is facebook helping me connect with??

LonelyMomDotCom "My Island..."

Lonely? Yes. The kind of lonely that makes you understand exactly why Tom Hanks talked to the Wilson soccer ball in "Castaway". The kind of lonely that makes you chat up the girl that calls you to survey you about your last hospital visit. That poor girl didn't know what hit her. She couldn't get me off of the phone fast enough.

I was reading a magazine a few days ago. There was a woman who blogged about how larger women use fashion as an art form. When asked why she blogged, she answered that she saw a need for people just like her...a void that needed to be filled.

BINGO! A void. That's what I had been existing in for years. This void that connected to no one in my hemisphere. A sea of well put together moms that came in and out of each other's days and lives effortlessly. All the while, it took me 3 hours to prepare for a 10 minute drop off for dance class!

A void. I had to wonder if out there in this great blogosphere there were others like me. The same way I imagine people once wondered about the other side of the ocean, or the other end of the solar system. Are there other lonely moms? Moms on there own little islands just like me. My island is in a major metropolitan city. A place that one would never expect an island to be. It just sits there, quiet and undisturbed but for the comings and goings of those that inhabit it.


So I sit here, typing...using what is probably the last functioning cells in my brain...sending out my S.O.S. Is anybody out there? 




Yes.