Yesterday I updated my facebook profile. I changed my relationship status from "it's complicated" to nothing. Whenever you change things on facebook it sends out a little message and on the message there is usually some type of icon. On the message saying "R is no longer in a complicated relationship", it posted a little symbol of a heart breaking. It was so inaccurate, it kind of made me laugh. I thought about what image I would have wanted to see. I don't know exactly, but maybe something more like a winning slot machine filled with my heart. For me, exiting this "complicated relationship" , is more like getting a heart refund. I get my heart back. It's like a starfish. If you cut off the arm, it's gonna hurt, but then it regenerates. He can keep the dead arm. I am new and whole and even though I have a cold and I can only breathe out of one nostril, I am actually having a great Valentine's day.
It was a rocky night of vapo-rub and coughing, but I had to get up early to go see my kids. Every morning I start my day by hanging out with some private school little littles before they go off to school and I go off to my "real" job. Today started like most days. The bus was late. It was cold. When I got to work there was a mysterious and very annoying beeping sound which turned out to be an automatic airfreshener in the boys bathroom. After disassembling it, I surprised my boss in the act of delivering V-day truffles for me and all the other extended day staff.
It's amazing how a $5 box of chocolate (we each got our own!) was enough to put my day back on track. My boss is so cool...not just because of the gift, but because he is always smiling, not in that fake political smiling way (like my other boss), but in the way that genuinely happy people exude a palpable contentment that infects all those around them. My boss loves his job. He loves the kids. And he shows love and respect to all the people who work with him on a daily basis. We chatted for a while. He hadn't had time to make labels for all the chocolates, so I got him some red construction paper and taught him to make paper hearts.
It was a rocky night of vapo-rub and coughing, but I had to get up early to go see my kids. Every morning I start my day by hanging out with some private school little littles before they go off to school and I go off to my "real" job. Today started like most days. The bus was late. It was cold. When I got to work there was a mysterious and very annoying beeping sound which turned out to be an automatic airfreshener in the boys bathroom. After disassembling it, I surprised my boss in the act of delivering V-day truffles for me and all the other extended day staff.
It's amazing how a $5 box of chocolate (we each got our own!) was enough to put my day back on track. My boss is so cool...not just because of the gift, but because he is always smiling, not in that fake political smiling way (like my other boss), but in the way that genuinely happy people exude a palpable contentment that infects all those around them. My boss loves his job. He loves the kids. And he shows love and respect to all the people who work with him on a daily basis. We chatted for a while. He hadn't had time to make labels for all the chocolates, so I got him some red construction paper and taught him to make paper hearts.
Cutting shapes out of paper is one of my secret super powers. It is a skill I discovered and honed during many afternoons of being stuck in the teachers room at my school in Japan. I can make dolls, hearts, pumpkins, Christmas trees, even miniture versions of myself-complete with afro, and words in cursive without needing to trace and in little to no time at all. So there we were, me, my boss (a man at least 20 years my senior), and my new co-worker, waiting for the kids to arrive and making paper hearts.
When the kids arrived we made more hearts and more dolls. Some of the kids wanted to go to the gym, so I got them ready to go and as I was walking out the door, on my least favorite girls...the one with the bratty attitude and a compulsive need to baby talk and manipulate, the one whose mom and I have had many a conversation...placed a tiny Valentine in my hand. It had a picture of a puppy on the outside. She had taped a heart shaped sucker on the back. And in the middle there was a dog and cat sitting next to each other above a caption that said "best buds". Finally, a break through. I may be manless and singlicious once more, but there is no shortage of love in my life. :)
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