Ex-man’s Birthday

2 Marbles
Here are some questions I am constantly noodling over: Do you splurge or do you hoard? Do you live every day as if it's your last, or do you save your money on the chance you'll live twenty more years? Is life too short, or is it going to be too long? Do you work as hard as you can, or do you slow down to smell the roses? And where do carbohydrates fit into all this? Are we really all going to spend our last years avoiding bread, especially now that bread in American is so unbelievable delicious? And what about chocolate?
Nora Ephron “I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman”

    I hear you, Nora, and I’ll add, “When you break up with the father of your children, do you spend time with him or do you go about your merry way as separately as possible?” Which is better for the kids?
    I gave birth to my youngest son at home with the help of a midwife. While I was in early labor, my ex-husband came by to pick up our son and my daughter to take care of them until their brother was born. When he left, my midwife asked, “Was that your ex?” I answered that it was. She said that it reminded her of her own benevolent relationship with her ex-husband. Her and her ex had always managed to keep the peace and make decisions that were in the kids’ best interest but when the kids grew up, they came to her and said, “It was really hard for us growing up with you and dad - all of our friends whose parents were divorced couldn’t even be in the same room with each other but we could see you and dad still loved each other and got along. We couldn’t understand why you weren’t together.” She chuckled as she recalled the story saying, “You can’t win.”
    Ah, but if only life were so simple. If only it were black and white, love and hate. But even science has found that love and hate are not completely exclusive. The nervous circuits in the brain responsible for love and hate are the same even though they appear to be opposite emotions (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-prove-it-really-is-a-thin-line-between-love-and-hate-976901.html). But as Elie Wiesel says, “The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.” When you can be indifferent to an ex, you know that there is no love left; until then, love exists even when it shows up as hate. Hate is an emotion of protection and guised strength. It’s so much easier to wear a hate trench coat when around an ex than to flash the vulnerable heart that still beats underneath. 
    But enough noodling over love, hate, and where an ex fits in. In two days, it's Ex-man’s birthday and, in keeping with “tradition” (as my kids like to call it),  tonight I took Ex-man and clan out to a Mexican restaurant.  When I looked up on the wall over our table, I saw a map of Mexico with nearby Louisiana and New Orleans. My marbles are nearly done, my bags are packed and I’m ready to leave the past in the past and head out into my future…

Do you wear a trench coat of hate around your ex?