I was thinking today about being in relationships, and what makes them work and what makes them fall apart. I reread some of the 100 Miles stuff tonight, and I was thinking about how I finished up right when the Kid was born. I didn’t continue with the rest of the story…one, because there wasn’t much drama left to talk about, and two, because writing about the end of my relationship with GoodMan was just a little too much to stomach at the time. It still is, kind of.

photo credit: F. Tronchin via photopin cc

Not in the “I’m still in love with him” kind of way, but in the way that some days, when I’m driving forty minutes away to pick up my son from daycare in the nick of time before they’ll charge me for being late, I think about how different things would be for me, and for him, and for our family, had I not made the decisions I made.

I wonder sometimes how my son is affected by his parents’ being divorced. Does he think it’s wierd? When he starts school this fall, will they have Mommy-Son day where everyone brings their mommies to school and he wonders why he doesn’t have a mommy that lives with him like all the other kids’ mommies do?

I remember one time, at his third birthday party, he introduced me to his father.

“Mommy, did you know this is my daddy?” Everyone kind of looked at me.

“Are you sure?” I riposted weakly, trying to defuse the awkward moment with a joke. Sadly, as in most situations when I try to do that, it kind of backfired. GoodMan gave me a wierd look and his girlfriend eyed me like I was the devil (well, she did that most of the time anyway, but still) and meanwhile I just tried to sink through the floor.

It hurt that he didn’t realize that his father and I knew each other. It made me sad that he never got to see us in love, only apart. I wish that he could have seen us on our wedding day, with my belly expanding (with him inside) and his father and I crying, with makeup on GoodMan’s shoulder and my headpiece half falling off because of how he picked me up and swung me around after the ceremonies were over.

I wish he could have seen us at our best.

GoodMan and I don’t argue, really. We don’t trash-talk each other, we chat when we meet for “the exchange”, we trade invitations to go camping together that we never actually take each other up on. We’re actually almost friends…he’s got a girlfriend now (a different one than the evil-eye one) who’s got some kids, and they make the most perfect little (big) Brady Bunch you ever saw. They go camping and do stuff together as a family, and sometimes I wish that it could have been me giving my son those experiences, and not some woman that I don’t know.

But, such is life. Decisions made can’t be revoked, and I wouldn’t even want to. I’ve got a special relationship with my son, and we do fun things, and I have some very special people in my life that take care of him and care about him, and me too, and that’s what’s important.

What kind of man will he be as a result of all of this? Only the best one he can be, with two great people as his parents and many wonderful “aunts and uncles” to teach him things, and take him places, and protect him and keep him safe and make sure that he gets all the best things out of life that it’s possible to have. Ultimately I don’t think it matters whether parents live together or separate, what matters is that they love their children and make sure that their children know it.

All in all, I think he’s one lucky Kid.