The Path not taken

Words are hard to pick from after the whirlwind of this weekend. My girls dressed to the hilt, my son turned 15 and I, in a heap from the weekends events. That was this weekend, and thinking I had got through it all, at the present moment I would love to slip back into the craziness of that weekend and avoid dealing with what I have found in my email today. Another letter.

My ex hasn't been dealing with me very well lately. Im not really sure what the deal has been but yesterday I received in my email a note from him demanding that he has Easter with the kids. Our parenting agreement states I get the kids on Easter Sunday and he the day before each year. Not the 'a typical' custodial arrangement, I realize but this and having the kids on Christmas was one of those things I wasn't going to budge with early on. After gently trying to remind him of that and even checking with the kids to see if they wanted a change, I suppose he didn't take it well. In fact he took it horribly wrong. I received first thing a really long rant about, what Im not really sure of. A half winded threat about him taking me back to court and a bunch of things only seen from his perspective. This is the aspect of a broken family. The parents only see things from their perspective. The children get put into the middle of it all, and absolutely NO ONE wins. On top of it all I had conferences at 8 am this morning. The teachers were great and knew that all three girls were in the production and didn't expect more then what I had to offer. In fact the fact I had it all together (minus the return of one costume) had them impressed. Whats the right way to respond is what I was left pondering all morning?

I could have blasted him with one fact after another from all the things he accused me of doing, pointing out how he would take one thing I said and make it sound like another. I could slam him with the way the kids 'really' felt, or my take of it. I could get knee deep into it and start slinging the mud right back. I chose not to.

I called my girlfriend and forwarded it over to her. She was good the night before helping me see that just by adding tone to my other letter Bill was probably going to take it wrong. While I read it to her all sweet like, he wasn't going to hear the sweetness in my voice. She said I hadn't said anthing wrong, but he would take it wrong. She was right. I called her back and we discussed how Christ would handle this situation.

In the end I acknowledged he was missing the kids, but he had a perspective that was not mine. I told him I didn't know what to answer in his letter because it was so filled with emotion I didn't want to get suck into it. I told him I could start mud slinging with him but to what end? In the end I took the road less traveled. I tried to acknowledge he had feelings that needed to be addressed, but I couldn't figure out what. I try as a mother to see things from my kids perspective. Im not infalliable thats for certain. In fact I probably screw up each and every day with the kids, but I haven't given up trying to do the best by them I can. These are the struggles that single parenting brings about each and every day. God didn't design a marriage to break apart and leave such a mess in the path we leave. But it happens, more then we want to acknowledge, and we must learn how to communicate with each other better.

Communication or lack thereof, is what usually ends a marriage. Communication is key when it comes to dealing with each other with regards to the children in a broken family. The road less traveled, is the one I find myself on this morning.

One of my favorite all time poems.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.