How I Found MY Prince in a Pile of Frogs

Every now and again I’ll be chatting with people who have older kids and they will ask “How old were you when you started dating?”  

This question always stumps me, because I was never really one to “date” at any point. Sure, long before I was “allowed” to go out with anyone, I had boyfriends. Or I didn’t, which was fine too. But even after I was out of my parents’ house, I wasn’t really a “go out on a date” kind of person. As a singleton in my 20s, living in NYC, I tried dating websites, but all I found was a plague of frogs waiting to be unleashed.  

Now that I'm thinking about this, my mom actually encouraged me to go on more dates. Sometimes this was rejected by me in favor of fun with friends. But more often, time and again really, I ended up diving right into long term relationships.  I imagine the restless nights mom had, worried I was going to run off to get my MRS degree before I finished college. 

She need not have worried. Maturity, they say, is what comes with age. Wisdom is said to come from experience. I considered the lack of these qualities in most of my boyfriends as a strong reason for not getting married young. 

Naturally, I watched many friends walk down the aisle in their twenties. Some of those unions were successful, others were very much not. To my observation, however, age plays no role in the divorce rate. 

Growing up I just had an understanding (reinforced by my mother) that when it came to getting married, it was better to wait. Both my parents were married/divorced prior to marrying each other. As it happens, my husband’s father was also divorced prior to his marrying my mother-in-law. 

It’s therefore interesting, I think, that Hubs was married for close to a decade & in the process of divorcing before we ever met. While I wasn’t married before, I too had been in a long term live-in relationship. If you want to get technical, it was a domestic partnership. 

I suppose it is worth noting that at the time in NYC a domestic partnership was actually intended for same-sex couples to have a "separate but equal" alternative to marriage. It was also a way hetero couples could legally co-mingle without actually taking the plunged. In my head, I saw it as a step toward marriage. Looking back, I’m pretty sure my partner saw it as a sidestep.

This was the relationship I was in when mom died. I’ve said before that after her death I ran from responsibility and kept running until I found someone who made me want to be a grown up again. So it should come as no real shock that after her death my “Legally Not Married” status suited me just fine. True, I’d have protested this at the time, but I was very clouded in those days. Frankly I made poor decisions with fierce abandon. 

Spoiler Alert: The “someone” I was referring to? The guy I now refer to as Hubs. 

"The problems of your past are your business. 

The problems of your future are my privilege. 

That's all I have to say, that's all I need to know."

~John Watson, to his wife Mary, in Sherlock ~

Obviously when our paths joined, my husband and I each had a past. There is always the tricky bit when you first meet, right? How to paint yourself in the best light? 

I was 34, and after nine years in The Big Apple I was finally living life the way I imagined it would be.  I no longer felt a need to try and hide part of myself to please a significant other. Honestly, that shite is exhausting. Suddenly I found myself chatting up someone who seemed even less interested in all that silly preening than I was. 

Better still, in the same way I knew we could have a fight without blowing the whole damn relationship up, we both came in with a "take me as I am" outlook. Maybe that doesn't sound romantic, but my eyes saw the perfect prince to my princess in a tarnished tiara.

We spoke of things in our early months together that I'd never felt safe to talk about with any significant other. You know, the sort of things you in trust to your best friends and swear them to never tell anyone ever? That stuff. Without ever saying it in so many words it was clear: he was asking about my past to know and understand me, not to judge me and someday use my mistakes as leverage in our relationship. 

Not that there aren't still things to learn, of course. One of the best parts of marriage is you can spend a lifetime getting to know someone, especially someone who had 3 or 4 decades of life lived before you got them. I can't speak for Hubs, but every day I gain a little more knowledge. Sometimes it makes me love him more. Sometimes I shake my head & decide I still love him anyway. 

Occasionally on my Facebook page I will post examples of obscure ways I realize my husband is my perfect match. I call these moments #ReasonsWhyWeWork. Romantic, right? Whatever, we may balance the high level of sarcasm with our tender moments, but this is way more accurate than something all lovey-dovey. 

Mostly we are just wryly embracing the beautiful mess we have made of our lives - Together.  

This piece was inspired by, and written as part of the #MarchMarriageChallenge, co-hosted by 

The Eyes of a Boy & Huppie Mama. 

You can find all of the amazing marriage focused posts here. 

Sweet Mother of Serendipity!  Did you enjoy this post? Please be so kind & click to vote for me. 

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Keep Your Scale of One to Ten: I'm a 12

I am exceptional for many reasons, but one you wouldn't likely guess is that for a reasonably healthy 40 year old I've gone under the knife a bunch. Nothing cosmetic, and I have no bionic parts. Maybe that makes it more extraordinary? Hard for me to say, but statistically I'd imagine so.

When I first went back to the podiatrist about getting the screws removed from my foot, she was fine with doing it if they were bothering me, but the X-rays showed no reason why it should be. So I waited a few extra months, hoping to avoid the procedure. Hoping the discomfort would go away; instead it became more painful to wear any shoes. It would appear my immune system was working hard to reject the screws. In fact by the time had surgery the other day, the doctor was a bit surprised to find this reasonably large granuloma had formed. And so, although it meant a more involved operation, the doctor decided to take the plate out of my foot too.

As I sit here with my foot on my desk, recovering from #Frankenfoot: #TheReturn, I've been thinking about this.  Everything about that story should be extraordinary. For my world, that is par for the course. 

I had to recite my medical history several times leading up to the surgery & I noticed it brought about a one of a few responses. "Goodness, you've been through a lot." "Oh... I don't have room for all that in the space provided." "Wow, that's... a lot of surgery."

Truth be told, I always laugh at whatever is said. I make jokes, because otherwise I get uncomfortable. Otherwise I have to deal with the sympathy.

I used to joke that each visit to the operating room was going to be lucky 13. Well, as of the other day, I've made that trip a dozen times. Just for giggles & clarity, here's the list:

1. Arthroscopic: my right knee to remove torn cartilage. 
2. Arthroscopic: my left knee, lateral release on the ITB
3. Inner Tibial Osteotomy: left leg/knee, with lateral release
4. Removal of hardware from left leg (screws)
5. Surgical biopsy of my right breast (2 incision sites)
6. Inner Tibial Osteotomy: right leg/knee, with lateral release
7. Removal of hardware from right leg (screws)
8. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (gall bladder removed)
9. C-Section: Boy
10. C-Section: Girl
11. #Frankenfoot: Foot surgery to remove bunion, fix hammer toe & reshape arch of my right foot
12. Removal of granuloma & hardware (screws & plate)

I'm not even including the injury on my 12th birthday when I broke a bottle over my right leg, which resulted in a deep laceration that required a feckton of stitches, on top of a visit to 2 different emergency rooms. (Don't ask - It is a good story I'll save for another day.)

Stop! This is not a cry for sympathy.  Frankly, I'm not even sure what my point is. All of this is just a part of my story. A small slice of what makes me the person I am.

Here's a peek behind the curtain at the short and random Serendipity:  Every day I wake up and there is pain somewhere. That is as much a part of me as the scars I have from all the surgeries, my brown eyes and the filings in my teeth. If you didn't know where to look, you wouldn't see anything to give you that knowledge.

If it's a good day (and most are) I won't tell you about my pain. I doubt you would know the difference. If it's a bad day, and I happen to mention it, believe you'll never know how bad it must be for me to speak up.

Honestly though, I usually just get up, stretch and get on with the business of living. As one does.

Although, looking at this picture of Baymax (from Big Hero 6) I'm now thinking, I would love to have the big squishy robot as my personal health care companion.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your pain?

Can you just imagine what that would be like on a bad day?

"It is okay to cry. Crying is a natural response to pain."
I'd curl right up, hug, cry, while Baymax pat my head. Then I think I'd have him cushion me as we fall backwards out a window and bounce. No harm, no new scars. Seriously, that would be sweet.

Am I the only one who has this fantasy? I really have always been more of a laughter through tears kind of gal.

I started off saying I'm exceptional. And I guess on one scale I am. But I certainly never feel extraordinary. Maybe that's my point here - on my scale, I'm normal.

Well, I'm may still be using that word a bit loosely, I suppose.

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Revisiting Conscious Coupling

I originally published this piece about a year ago, not long after Gwyneth Paltrow & her husband Chris Martin had just announced their separation. Only they were calling it a Conscious Uncoupling. This got an awful lot of press for being a very unusual and new-agey sounding way to say "we are divorcing". 

Today would have been my parents' 42nd wedding anniversary. So much of what I learned about love and marriage came from watching them. I wanted to honor them by revisiting this piece for The March Marriage Challenge. 

Paltrow & Martin's split happened just before we were to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary. And while all the talk was about what it meant for a marriage to break up, it got me thinking about the very idea of marriage. More to the point, why my path had led me down the aisle when I could just as easily have skipped it.

Sheesh! Lots of talk on the interwebs today about consciously uncoupling. Who's doing it & what the hell does that even mean?

Eh, no one here in Toddlerville has a clue about that stuff. 'Round these parts we are all about the coupling that was solidified 3 years ago today. That would be Hubs & lil ol' me - Serendipity.

I won't bore anyone will all the delightful wedding details. (5 hour open bar!) I will admit, however, to being outshone at my own wedding by the cutest attendant EVER - the darling Boy, then 10 months old.

Now, some folks would say we did things a bit backwards. Some would probably say we eventually did the "right thing."  I can say with certainty lots of people didn't understand why we were doing it at all. Frankly I would imagine that whatever most folks thought, they reckoned we got married to "legalize" our family.

Of course, there's truth in that. But as beautiful and amazing as my Boy is (or any kid, for that matter), he's no reason to take the plunge into wedded bliss.

In case you're not a regular (of the blog or the bar), Hubs and I met in our local Irish pub in Queens. At the time I was one half of another couple. So we were friendly, but not friends. I can recall three honest-to-goodness conversations over the first year or so I knew him.
1st: about the tandoori chicken he was making on BBQ Sunday.
2nd: about trivia night & my possibly joining his team (never happened).
3rd: a heated discussion about baseball. He is a naturalized Mets fan & I'm a life-long Yanks fan. Yeah... As I recall we rarely chatted for a long time after that one.

Eventually I uncoupled, moved a bit further away & didn't frequent the pub as often. Then yada yada yada... I got a new iPhone and we started spending time together.

Yep, I just yada yada yada'd right over that.

Yes, the iPhone is important. As it happened, he was one of perhaps 4 people I knew with an iPhone. Two of the others were other friends at the pub. They all hung out in their spot at the bar, playing on their phones and talking about apps. Now I would maybe be put off, but 5 years ago it was kinda endearing. Particularly because they were all Irish & weren't gadgety type guys.

So when I got an iPhone I realized I had a reason to chat him up. And the rest, as they say, is history. Without speaking for Hubs, I knew pretty quickly I never again wanted to wake up without him.

For her part, my mother always told me to marry someone who I enjoyed even when we were mad at each other. She would tell me the truest test of a relationship is if you can argue & make up & truly move on.

Which reminds me of a fight we had early on. Hubs was literally grabbing up a bunch of movies he had scattered at my place - basically taking his toys and going home. I remember telling him that he was being silly. We were arguing, not ending. He could leave, but we weren't done by a long shot. I have no idea if that moment stayed with him - but that was it - I knew. Ya know?

The fact is marriage should be a conscious coupling. We had options & marriage wasn't the only, or easiest, one. As the vows often say, it's not something to be entered into lightly. Hubs & I married because we wanted to stand up, in front of all the friends & loved ones we could gather, and declare that we were on this path Together. 

Marriage is a union, a joining of lives and families. So while it was strange to lots of my friends, it made sense to me to take his family name. Frankly, I hardly considered NOT taking his name. 

Did it all make some things easier, legally? You bet. 

But what mattered is just this: I am able to say we are married, he is my husband. These words carry a whole different weight in our society than to say he is my partner. Or my lover. Or the father of my children. Or my best friend. 

He is all of those things. And So. Much. More. And THAT is why we got married. 

I don't know, maybe it's me, but I think that's kind of why anyone wants to get married. Am I wrong? 

*Any reading of this post as either a social or political statement about marriage equality would be solely based on the reader's bias & not the author's attempt to draw such parallels. 

**Not to deny I'm 100% in favor of marriage equality & sincerely don't get why anyone would be against it. But this post is just a little riff on my own choices on the occasion of my 3rd Wedding Anniversary. 

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The Shy Poet & Unexpected Treasures

What follows is the twisted tale of how my photographs came to be published in a best selling poetry book. If you find this to be far-fetched and completely random, well, I would wholeheartedly agree with you. It is, nonetheless, entirely true.

Like all good stories, we must begin with a prologue:

Not so long ago, but in a part of my life seems so very far away, I designed the album artwork for a band. (Like for real, it's on iTunes and everything.) 

You see, my significant other was a friend of the guitarist, & we'd seen them perform countless times. They weren't a "hair band", though oddly all had fantastical hair. Each performance I'd think “I have to bring a camera and capture all of this.” So, naturally, I did just that; taking photos during bar gigs, playing at being Annie Liebowitz or something. 

Maybe they just liked my chutzpah, or probably because they wanted me to knock it off during shows, I found myself invited to shoot during their rehearsals. 

Yada yada yada... my proximity to the band led to me doing not only some photography, but all the graphic design for the band's EP. 

As it happens when artists work well together on one project, the guitarist and I became collaborators on any number of things. Some, like the band’s EP, were brought to fruition. Others, well, not so much. You know how it goes with “artistes” and their artistic endeavors: personalities clash, passions and tempers flare, relationships explode... Finally the project, no matter how utterly brilliant or beautiful, is abandoned. 

Flash forward about 6 years. Which is also a rewind to just a few months ago. But that’s confusing, so never mind. 

So my friend Chasity (aka The Shy Poet) announces she has a deal to publish a book of her original poetry. In our little corner of the Internet this is a very big deal. Her poetry is universal, approachable, often heartbreaking & lovely. 

Not terribly long into her work on the book, she publicly declares a need for images that are not previously published or copyrighted. 

I was sure I’d have a photo or two that she could use & if it would help her, why not? So I threw my hat in the ring & offered up my photography. As did about 90 other people. I mean that literally. And I am being totally honest when I say I NEVER imagined she’d want to use any of my work. Well, maybe one or something, to be nice. I offered because I wanted to help my friend. The fact that this was for print publication was so far out of my thoughts it barely registered.  

So you can understand my total fecking shock when she tells me she’s not only hoping to use some of my photos, she’d really like to use only my photos.

Oh, and can we do this in a matter of days?! Deadlines… 

My first thought (after OMG, yes!!!) was “Whoa... she wants 12??? That means she needs to see a collection to choose from. No, no, no… Oh dammit, I can’t pull together a portfolio of photos for her to pick from in a matter of hours!” Yes, friends and neighbors, full on panic was the emotion. Elation? Yes. But massive panic. 

Then it hit me: The abandoned project.

The guitarist & I had been working on an audio-visual piece under the working title of “Pure.” Had it been destined for gallery installation or YouTube? We weren't sure, but both of us had been pumped. For my part this meant all my spare time was spent editing photos and video montages. With the project shelved, hundreds of photographs went into cold storage on my hard drive. I was too disheartened to do anything with them. 

In that abandoned computer file was the answer to my anxiety attack. I had an archive of photos that were unused, unseen, and easily sorted in a matter of hours. I was able to present Chasity with a portfolio of photos I loved but hadn’t had a reason to work with for years. Finally some of these pieces would get to be a part of something extraordinary: a collaboration with a friend & an artist that I could trust with my work. As intended. 

Problems resolved, I hurried to get things sorted out so Chas could make her deadline. It was days after she'd seen all the photos & maybe not even until the whole project was wrapped that I realized how remarkable the situation was.

Truly the stars had to align for these photos to finally find a proper home. 

Serendipity. Queen of Silver Linings. These are my monikers because I know I have stumbled my way into some fairly remarkable things. I've always come out of the darkness of yesterday into a brighter tomorrow. I continue to be honestly surprised (and humbled) by the path my life has taken. 

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