Category: Doing Divorce

“Angela? Party of Four.”  We waited patiently on the bench in the Chicago airport for our table at the crowded eatery during our layover to a short weekend vacation.  We watched and waited for the other Angela to get her table.  “Angela? Party of Four!”  The server tried again, annoyance seeping into her voice.  My eldest daughter said, “Mom I think she means us.”  I stood up and tentatively approached the counter, my two daughters behind me.  “I am Angela, but there are only three of us.”  “Follow me,” the server replied, setting down the extra menu and extra napkin

I encouraged her more times than I can count to collect all of the items from my house she would want or need for her trip to Mexico the following week with her dad.  The day she was leaving my house I ran through a mental checklist with her.  Swimsuit?  Check.  Sandals?  Check.  She gathered her bag of items and off she went.   A few days later – the day before her departure – I get the message.  “Mom, I forgot my tennis shoes at your house and I need them for the trip.  Can you bring them after work?”

Sitting on the beach with my toes warmed from being buried in the sand, my senses were engulfed with the sounds of seagulls cawing in and out of the sky.  My daughters’ laughter shrieked up over the crashing waves as they tentatively toed their way into the icy cold waters.  I felt my entire body relax as I smelled the wood burning from a nearby bonfire.  I could taste salt on my lips from the spraying sea mist.  I had captured pure contentment. In advance of my departure to the Oregon coast for a vacation with my family, I crafted

I have a regretful confession.  I nearly forgot my dad on Father’s Day this past Sunday.  Father’s Day was sandwiched between coming home from a week long family vacation on Saturday and dropping my daughters off to camp on Sunday afternoon.  While I was doing parenting pirouettes with laundry in and out, suitcases emptied and filled, and finding the plastic rain ponchos I knew I had somewhere, I was distracted to say the least. Add to this, my daughters and I gave my dad – their Funpa – his Father’s Day gift a week prior to the actual day.  We

We nearly broke into a run when we first spied it.  The wind whipped through our hair and the telltale smell of fire-faded driftwood blew through our bodies.  After awkwardly walking through the dry shifting sand, we reached the stable ocean line where the waves tickled our toes – easily mesmerized by the methodical movement of the ocean tide. My daughters and I spent the last week at the Oregon coast.  Several times we made our way to the beach and as I watched them delight in dancing in and out of the frigid water, I found myself thinking of

As a child, I was annoyed when other kids colored outside the lines.  I fundamentally did not comprehend how people could not stay in a straight line behind our teacher on the way to the cafeteria. I could spend hours organizing coins, decks of cards, or colors – by strict classifications of size, color, and numerical order. These were early signs of my Type A personality being born. As I moved into junior high and high school, I over-achieved with a jammed-packed activity schedule while working 2 jobs and maintaining Honor Roll level grades.  A crumpling crying feeling would strike if I

When Santa came to visit my house for Christmas in 1984, he gifted me a Fisher-Price Kids Kodak 110 Film blue camera.  It was the second-best Santa gift I ever received next to the “Pretty In Pink” Barbie from 1981. My camera came with a cartridge of eight flashbulbs to use indoors. I fancied myself a photographer while posing my Barbies, my cats, and my favorite Raggedy Ann doll around our backyard.  Soon after the first set of prints were picked up from the film developer, my mom bought me my first scrapbook. I meticulously kept scrapbooks from 1984 to

A letter to the moms I have worked with over the last 20 years Dear Moms, I have been watching you for years.  I have been listening to your struggles. I have been hearing your hope.  You have been teaching me strength, grit, persistence, passion, and loyalty.  You have been showing me the path of motherhood and I thank you. I see you reach for the tissue when you mention your child’s name the first time we meet in my office.  I hear you struggling with the decision to disrupt your intact family for a better life in the future,

I recall it with precision.  I saved every dollar I earned doing chores for my mom and grandma for the entire summer until I reached the magic number of $20.  That was enough to purchase the Pink and Pretty Barbie my seven-year-old heart coveted. We went to Mervyn’s (a West coast retailer in the 1980’s akin to what Target would become) and I pricked with pride as I took the hot pink box to the cash register.  Tucked inside our family’s turquoise station wagon on the way home, I didn’t take my eyes off Barbie’s blue eyes staring at me