Or when my daughter texts me (news from the DQ often comes in a text) to say she's invited a male college student to her father's house a half an hour after I've gone for a statistics tutorial at the new house.
Or when my son puts out the garbage an hour or so after the garbage guys have already been and gone.
When I haven't signed him up for a chess tournament, connected with the Boy Scout dad who drives him to the meetings, left my own homework for the last minute.
When their dad calls from the hospital and I bitch about my day before I ask him about his.
When I don't get the kids to doctors this week and put it off until the next.
"You aren't good at this" they tell me. Other dads or moms would handle these circumstances more adroitly. Other people are more compassionate, competent, efficient, composed.
And then this one-sided dialogue becomes even harsher.
Not good at loving. Not good at being loved.
And truly horrible at statistics (though the lovely man who volunteered a session to tutor me was encouraging).
I know that much of this negative self-talk is born of exhaustion, stress, and the emotional burden of being a single parent (at least for a while). I also know that I am not used to asking for support from my local friends -- a pick-up here, a shared meal there.
I don't think that anyone would be "good" at picking up all these balls and keeping them in the air.
Inevitably, things get dropped.
I have to accommodate myself to being exceptionally imperfect.
Hopefully even lovably so.
Time will tell -- but I'm not very "good" at being patient, either.
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