Simpatico

Last night while  Anthony Bourdain spoke about how he would not buy a Hawaiian shirt, because it was “SO Don Ho”  I drifted off into Snooze Land.   Once I arrived I began to dream…

It was all of the women friends I have had in my life.  They passed by me one by one and I was forced to face the good, the bad, and the bitchy.  To each one I either said Thank you or I am Sorry.  I was forced to see the influence each had upon me and what I think I may have left upon them.  There were some I love, some I hate, and some who are just acquaintances but still as important to me as the air I breathe and my MAC gloss.

I believe I said I am sorry to some of the women in my dream not because I have wronged them necessarily even though I may have, but more for closure.  There are honestly only about three people in my life where a friendship has ended sourly.  I have had heavy heart about each one.  Because for it to go out so passionately must have meant there was a good friendship to separate from.  There was a reason I was drawn to them in friendship.  But, there were also reasons I was pushed away at the end.

I realized once I woke the dream allowed me to find resolution where I couldn’t before and then I realized, I am no longer mad.  They may choose to still carry the Montana sized chip on their shoulders and speak harshly, or shoot me the “Eye of Death” when we pass, but it is time to move on. It is time to cherish the friendship and dismiss the falling out and all the carnage that came from it.

There can be times when women don’t get along well.  We can when we choose to, but I have found that there are times we choose not to.  I believe jealousy and envy play big parts in why women can be so catty.  Some of my most passionate friendships have ended just as passionately.  Somehow they never go out with a whisper but with a big FUCK YOU!!

Granted, I can be a very large and intense Bitch when warranted.  Normally I fear confrontation so much that I don’t say anything until it has gone way too far.  Once pushed into the abyss, my eyes turn red and my blood pressure rises to allow some of the most horrible things to come spewing out of my snarled mouth.  Only a handful of people in my life have witnessed this very ugly, yet some times necessary, bitch on wheels form of me.  I am never proud, but I also never regret what needs to be said.

Even though there are women out there who hate me, loathe me, probably would be happy to see me meet a very painful demise, I currently have some of the most fabulous women in my life and I don’t know where I would be without them.  One friend I have had for over fifteen years whom I consider to be as close as a sister.  Some I have known less than a year or for just a few years that have had such a positive influence on my life, it is indescribable.  Some women I have never met and yet they touch my life daily.  To them, I say Thank you.

And hope that I have given to them a fraction of what they have given to me.

And to these fabulous women I say one last thing.  You guys are much prettier and smarter than the girls I am not friends with anymore.  I am just saying.  OK, now that is done, NOW I am over it all.

Has a friendship ever gone sour for you?  Was it calm and mature or catty and bratty?  Do you feel the same now about it as you did when your friendship ended?  Share with us today your stories of current pals and long lost compadres.  Please don’t make me start singing, “Thank you for being a friend…”

I want a new girlfriend!

I want to have a dinner party. Provided I give a few months notice, I can guarantee I would have a kick-ass dinner party with the best guests and friends on the planet. I know, because the last truly kick-ass dinner party I’ve given was for my fortieth birthday. That was last January. It’s been awhile!

Here’s my problem. My closest friends all live hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from me. I have two exceptionally close friends in Nashville. Years ago, I had a large circle of female friends. I had seven bridesmaids when I got married. I had a different circle of 6-10 women who would show up for Wednesday night dinners when I was married. It was an open invite night and whoever showed up, showed up. It was dedicated to be women only and my husband accepted it because it gave him the perfect excuse to hibernate in the bonus room with his computer games.

That’s my preference, still. Low key, no pressure, come by if you can. There will be food and good beverages. There will be interesting conversation. Laughter is all but guaranteed. I liked not knowing exactly who would show up. I liked watching my friends meet other like-minded, yet different friends. I also enjoy an occasional girls night out, dinner, throwing darts or just chilling at home with friends.

Over the past years, that circle has dwindled. More specifically, I pruned my friendship tree because some of those relationships were toxic. I lost about four of those women in the divorce. Three more moved away. Two got married and decided that single friends were no longer worthy of their free time. One rededicated her life to Jesus. One became a major drug addict. You get the picture. My dinner table is close to empty.

People change. I am not oblivious to it. Basically, I woke up one day and realized I was missing the joy previously known with my girlfriends. I reached out and met some of the most amazing women ever put on this Earth. I met them in Maryland, California, Texas and North Carolina. Others from Louisiana,Seattle, New York , New Hampshire, Michigan and elsewhere traveled to meet me in Tennessee. I have soul sisters scattered across the country. Phone, texts and emails are great for the day to day. They do not allow for random Wednesday night dinners.

What’s a smart, yet single woman to do? I used a social networking website to attempt to meet quality women in my geographic area. I didn’t send out invites willy-nilly. I put substantial thought into what I could glean from their profile. I invited five and only two have responded. That was two weeks ago. I even went so far as to invite one to join me and another local friend to hear a band play. I think she may have thought I was an axe-murderer. Or something.

I tried another social networking site geared towards dating. I figured, “Hey, who better for a friend than someone who is obviously seeking to meet men.” They are single and they have time to socialize. Brilliant, right? Yes. Well, except for the deterrent of “must be male and have photo to contact this user”. Plenty of fish, my ass. Seems to be a bunch of women only in search of sausage.

Being a *cough* sausage lover myself, I mean no ill will. It is simply my personal experience is that most women over the age of thirty are closed off to the possibility of truly extending their circle of friends. The last person who responded to my face to face invitation to friendship was 23 at the time. She was literally firing my company and I invited her for beers and hot wings. Voila, a priceless friendship was born!

I was on the verge of placing a free ad on Plenty of Fish. So much so, I decided to just take the plunge and go for it. My profile at the moment reads as follows: Wanted, girlfriends. I am single, fun, bright, occasionally hilarious and have no desire to explore lesbianism. I have no bi-fantasies, no boyfriend with whom I secretly want to extend a threesome and I have no hidden agenda. If you are relatively sane, have a sense of humor and desire for a genuine connection to another female friend, contact me.

I threw caution to the wind and just hit “post” to the direct and honest approach. What I really want is for YOU to write a new synopsis for me. Surely, I will get at least a few good options to try from my Eve-101 family. I’m going to post them without fear and report back in a month on the results! If your ad results in meeting one decent friend, I will be sending you a gift card for TooTimid.com. Consider it my way of sharing a very different type of joy.

Question of the day…how do you go about meeting new people you actually wish to know in the day to day? Is there a secret password that I didn’t get, a lost memo or some decoder ring that was lost in the mail? What is YOUR theory on why people are so closed off in this day and age?

The Overprotective Single Mommy

Parenting magazines can be positive resources. Divorced five years, I have yet to find a helpful article on when to introduce kids to a potential romantic interest. Perhaps there is a “Leave it to Beaver” or “Cosby” complex. It seems articles in leading parenting magazines focus on married couples raising their kids in idyllic families. Perfect pictures, perfect ideas and perfect solutions.

I have news, folks. Parenting is never perfect. Children are never perfect. Mine, well, they are amazing. But, they are far from perfect. Shhhh…don’t tell them, it would break their little hearts! Just kidding. They know they are not perfect. They know I am not perfect. They do, however, feel perfectly loved. It was no great surprise to me that after their daddy got engaged two years ago, they became more vocal about wanting someone else to love me, too.

Even with the best co-parenting situation possible, divorce brings a litany of issues to single parents. When their father left me, my son was 2 1/2 and my daughter was on the verge of her first birthday. The list of challenges was greater than the echo of screaming guests on The Jerry Springer Show. For me, one of the biggest questions was if and when I would introduce other men to my children. My immediate and emotional response was that no one needed to meet my children for “X” period of time. I was going to protect my babies, dammit! I had 873 excellent reasons to not let any man meet my children, in particular. I was the poster child of The Overprotective Single Mommy. Worse, I was expressing prejudice between men and women.

I was wrong. Oh, boy, was I wrong! (Go ahead, write the date down!)

Quickly, sanity returned and forced me to realize my own hypocrisy. If someone was good enough to spend time with me, they needed to be good enough to meet my kids. Male or female. I am the first to admit this helped me make wiser choices on the front end of many a friendship and relationship. While I have friends who are not particularly in love with the idea of kids, or have any of their own, almost all have met my children. Often, those are the relationships I most enjoy watching flourish.

Come on, people! Meeting someone’s children is not the equivalent of forming an insta-family. You don’t take a single parent, add kids, another single person and have a family. Spending time with someone’s children is not a life-long commitment. It is, however, an opportunity to learn more about your friend, more about their children or possibly, something FROM the children. It is hilarious to me that I can send a man packing faster than a hooker drops her panties on a Saturday night with a simple sentence. “Would you like to hang out with me and the kids?” Any man who sees a box of Insta-Family when he hears that question likely has much bigger issues.

It seems to me those men are getting way *cough* a-head of themselves!

Children do observe both the positive and the negative. If they never meet your friends, it seems to me they lose the best example of how to have a healthy friendship. If they don’t witness conflict, they don’t learn from experience how to resolve them. My kids have learned many valuable lessons from meeting those in my life, whether romantic interests or not.

They learn that people are different. They learn acceptance. They learn that people come and go. My initial fear was simple. “What if I introduce him to my kids and they miss him when we break up?” What? Talk about projection. Yes, that kind of thing happens all the time. But, what was I really afraid of? That my kids would learn that people come and go out of our lives? It has proven to be a positive lesson for them. For example, they have learned you don’t have to see your friends every single day for them to be your friends. They have learned it is okay to meet people and not necessarily like them. Ultimately, they have met many people and have only ever missed one or two.

In five years, my kiddos have only seen me romantically involved with three or four men. A peck on the cheek was the most they ever witnessed with one of those men. Only four times have they ever seen a man spend the night in our home, usually at their encouragement. Only twice have they ever known me to share my bed with man. Don’t get the wrong idea. They have never come into mommy’s room and seen naked people! In fact, both times I was wearing pajamas and the arrangement appeared innocuous. The added bonus for me is that I will never have to deal with my kids not knowing or liking someone I may choose to have a relationship with in the future.

My kiddos do not see a revolving door of men coming in and out of my life. What they know is a wide variety of wonderful men and women who happen to embrace all of us. It makes them more a “part of” instead of “apart from” another side to their mom. They have learned the abundant joy of true friends and are grateful we share them.

How do you feel about it? Just once, I would love for someone to convince me of a few good reasons a man would not wish to meet a woman’s children, or why a woman should not introduce others to them. Any takers? If you are a single parent, what prevents you from introducing your offspring to others?

Help! I need somebody

In the wake of a few recent catastrophes I’ve come to an overwhelming realization that I’m not particularly fond of…I can not do it all alone. As much as I like to portray myself as an uber independent, self-sufficient woman who doesn’t need anyone’s help, that simply isn’t the case. We all need help; we all need to ask a favor or two now and again, but why is it so incredibly difficult to utter the phrase, “I need a favor“?

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The Arbor

She dreamt of creating a place where peace and silence would reign. A quiet retreat where the sun would shine on her face and the wind would blow through her hair. Years of diligent landscaping would provide the tranquil backdrop for her sanctuary; surrounded by pine trees, honeysuckle, dandelion fields and rolling hills she selected the ideal plot for The Arbor.

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