And Yet....

What a wonderful, glorious Thanksgiving. Actually two Thanksgivings. One on Shelter Island with my children and Capt and the other with Capt and his family.

It’s been a whirlwind of a week. An exhausting week. It’s great to be home, well sort of. I’m staying at a neighbor’s house watching his children while he is in Aruba with his girlfriend. I’m doing him this favor because he totally remodeled one of my bathrooms for an obscene discount. OBSCENE I tell you!

Anyway, I’ve been pondering something for a few days. When you focus on one thing so intently, like painters do when they focus on painting just a leaf on a tree, you fail to see the whole picture clearly. This weekend I got to meet, now try to follow me here, Capt’s ex-wife’s fiance’s ex-wife. Her children are going to be Capt’s children step siblings this summer.

As a side note, many of you know that I am a matrimonial paralegal and I specialize in custody and visitation matters. I see it all, the bad and ugly mostly....and very, very, rarely the good.

Meeting Kate (not her real name, but one of my favorite names because I really like her) was kind of mind-boggling, and great. We watched PookieBear and Kate’s daughter at basketball practice, they are on the same team since her children and Capt’s children reside together half of the time. Most of the time I sit there feeling a little uncomfortable, so does she.

Kate and Capt are in the same position, each co-parenting with their former spouses. They make it work. I asked Kate how she gets passed all the hurt and Kate said something to me that Capt says all the time, “I focus on what’s best for my kids”.

If more divorced parents actually looked past the leaf of anger and vengeance and saw the harmony in the distance that awaits for their children, children would be more balanced . And I’d be unemployed. And I’d get some good sleep.

And yet.