Jack is eight years older than me, and our early lives were very different. I went to college and started working and then got married. He took a job out of high school and got married and had kids early. I think that contributed to the fact that we never had friends who were in our same phase of life, so to speak. Because we weren’t exactly typical. I walked into having a teenager before I was 30. He gained a 1-year-old when he was pushing 40. What “phase of life” we were in was hard to define.
My friends didn’t have kids at all. They didn’t understand my life. I had no extra energy to spare, and when the kids were busy or in bed, the hour to myself was too valuable to give up to any kind of interaction. When we did talk, my friends said things like, “Do you really need to go to EVERY baseball game?” And I understand why they felt that way, but it was very clear to me very early that showing up was the one thing in my power that would make a difference. I showed up 100% of the time. I showed up whether they wanted me to or not. If they could count on nothing else in life, they had to know I would be there.
My children all have other parents. I have great respect for that, but the truth is that those other parents were never great at showing up. In fact, Jack’s ex-wife, whom we shall call “X” moving forward, was incredibly unreliable. Today, my children – her children – see her once a year or less. They hear from her when she needs money or is in crisis. She has grandchildren she has never met.
The uncertainty and fear of abandonment and general control issues that Pitcher, Princess & Prankster all have stem, I believe, from the uncertainty in that relationship when they were young. Whether she said she would be there or not, it was never something they could rely on.
One night when Jack was working nights and I was alone with the kids and they were being general pains in the backside for several hours, I finally snapped. I told them I would be right back, grabbed my keys and drove to a parking lot around the corner from our house. I called Jack and ranted and cried for about five minutes. Then I went back home. I’d been gone for a total of about 10-15 minutes. When I walked in the house, Princess was sitting on the stairs crying. She was positive that I’d left for good. She believed, in her core, that they could chase me away forever, and had. I said, “I told you I’d be right back.” She said, “I know you said that, but I didn’t believe you.” And in that moment, I understood the fragility of my children and the power of even the smallest of choices I made.
So yeah. I had to go to every baseball game. It was always about more than a baseball game.
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