Sweet Indulgences

It is 6:43 AM and a balmy 39 degrees in scenic Bartow, Florida. I am sitting in bed propped up by pillows wondering why I am awake so early on a day when I could be sleeping late? In a few hours Gerald and I are off on another wondrous adventure....taking the grandkids to the park and out to lunch! Ella, our granddaughter,who is 3, is a delight; she adores her Papa, she is very loving to her Gigi, and she indulges my sweet tooth for all things pink and princess-like. For you newcomers, Gigi is me. The name is derived from the fact that when she was born I was not yet married to her Papa. Thus, at my request, I became known as the Grand Girlfriend...G.G. In the written form, Gigi...a way to show deference to her "other" grandmother and to pay homage to the idea that I am way too young to be a Mamaw! Tucker, our grandson who is 21 months, is another chapter. He, too, adores his Papa, but he is in that phase of life where his favorite pasttime is clinging to his Mama's leg. Which makes it imperative that we take them out for a while, to give him a chance to exercise his independence and to give his Awesome Mama a few hours of alone time. Later tonight we are headed to Tampa to the Gasparilla Night-time Pirate Parade with a raucous bunch of scalywags...sure to be a night of memories made and tales recounted.

Being in Bartow is one of the most luxuriant aspects of my life...like having a vacation home that someone else maintains and cleans and stocks with all your favorite things before each arrival. After 5 years of coming and going I have made deep connections with a few friends who arrange to spend time with me when I am here. I know my way around town, there is always something new to discover and I don't feel the pressure to work my checklist the way I do when we spend time in North Carolina. The first time I came here my life was in a state of chaos and I was running from it. This town and our Towhead friends gave me laughter, acceptance and a place to come to sort through the jagged pieces of my life, one weekend a month. In this bed, I sleep more soundly than in any other place in the world, so far. But as peaceful and replenishing as it may be, the renewal I receive here is also bittersweet and wrapped in a thin sheet of guilt. Some of the guilt is residual...a reminder of those I crawled over to get to this point in my life. But the bulk of the guilt is perpetual.  Because most often, when I am here, my kids are not.

To most folks in the outside world, the specifics of our family life are peculiar, and therefore subject to scrutiny. "Let me get this straight", people will say, "you are married.....but you live separately?" Pause, pause pause...."Like a long-distance kind of thing?" Then they look at me befuzzled. "Yes", I inevitably reply, "exactly like a long-distance kind of 'thing' (with air quotes)." And it has been this way for our entire relationship. Ironically, when we were dating, people would look at me with empathy and talk about how hard it must be to be so far from someone with whom you are in love. Now that we are married, almost without fail, people will think for a second and then say "Wow! That actually sounds like a Perfect marriage!" And most days, it is nearly perfect; heavy on the NEARLY, at least for us.

I have my job and my Rowdies, a few relatives and the bulk of my life in North Carolina where the boys have their dad, their school, their sports and their buddies. Gerald has his job, his friends, his daughter and grandkids and a lifetime of memories here in Florida. More simply put, I am and forever will be, a Carolina Girl, and he is Grizzly Old Gator to his core. We are both fiercely independent people who liked most parts of  the lives we were building before we met. But we also came to love each other in the deepest way I have ever experienced; in a way that gives me the only real contentedness I have ever had outside of parenting. So having everything we want out of our lives with our children and doing everything we need to do to keep our family ship afloat requires us to live in different states.

Will it always be this way? I don't know. Just like I didn't know five winters ago that I was walking off a plane and into the next phase of my life. Is it complicated? Sometimes. This weekend I am missing Jackson's first sleepover (is that what you call a pajama party for boys?) and both of the kids have basketball games today. A part of me feels anguish to be there only via text and the sparse details they will report if they feel like talking tonight when I call. Constantly, I juggle the work to be done before I leave and the work that is piled up when I get back. But everyone I know has a life that is complicated by some circumstances...illness, job loss, heartbreak, financial troubles, etc. We just happen to wear our complications on our lapel for all the world to gaze at....like a Modern Family Freak Show. So I am definitely not complaining....most days my life is a Sweet Indulgence. Instead, I am going to haul my widening butt up, make the bed and hop into the shower...okay, I will lumber into the shower. Because it is now 7:31 AM, a balmy 40 degrees and there are adventures afoot. Happy Saturday!