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Sparkle (1)
I have thought a lot about other moms since my divorce nearly five years ago. We moved after we divorced and had to make a new set of friends. I tried at first to be the mom I had been before the divorce. We were at a new school and I wanted to volunteer and be that over-achiever mom I used to be, in another life, another place, another time.
The other moms seemed so self-assured, smug almost, in the safety of their bourgeois existence: marriage, good-looking husbands, healthy kids, cute dogs, stylish active wear, shiny hair and Botox parties, and Tupperware containers with lids made specifically to hold 24 cupcakes. I couldn’t begin to get excited about fitting in. I couldn’t even get mildly interested. I was done. It wasn’t that I didn’t try. I volunteered in the classroom here and there and went on a few field trips, but the goodness was gone.
Sometimes I wonder at what a self-absorbed creature I have become.
I crawl around town with my car pointed toward escape. Escape from this house, escape from the unnecessary turmoil that accompanies too many of my interactions with certain people. I am a creeper of this greater seaside town. Creeping through neighborhoods hoping to catch the secret of what makes a happy family, what makes a happy family tick. I think I know. But do I? I look at these people who I see everyday: working, jogging, bicycling, laughing, playing, walking, swimming, surfing. What are their families like? Are they happy? Maybe they too are creeping through life, searching for who knows what...
