I Didn’t See It

This past summer I was dropping off my children at summer camp at their school.   During the school year you drop them off in carpool line, which is nice, because your children are whisked out of your car and you have nothing to do other than wave, say goodbye and drive off when the doors are shut.  Summer camp is a different matter.   You park, walk the children in, wait for them to play on the playground until official camp start and then get stuck in round after round of goodbye hugs once your child realizes it’s a delay tactic from entering the classroom.  

It was during this time I noticed one of the mothers at school talking to one of the teachers.   The two ladies were talking in a friendly way, it was clear they had become friends.   For some reason I got the sense on more than one occasion they wanted to have a personal conversation about something maybe with the mother’s child or the classroom or the camp schedule or something else and I stepped away, not wanting to intrude.   

I didn’t think much more about these two ladies until I got a phone call from the mother a few months later telling me she needed to tell me something.   The something was she was dating someone at the school and they were being very careful who they told about it initially.    I was confused.   There was only one male on the school staff and not only was he married, even if he hadn’t been, I totally couldn’t picture them together.    I knew my friend on the phone had been working through a separation and divorce from her husband, but with all that going on, I still had no idea who it could be, especially at the school.   

Then, she tells me it’s a woman.    Oh.  Oh.  OH!  I’m dumb.   When she told me who it was, I was at first very happy for them both because they just seemed like a good match and heck, I really liked them both and who doesn’t want your friends to be happy?   Her now partner (and soon to be wife) had also been working through a divorce from her husband as well. 

So all that preamble and you’re probably thinking, “what does that have to do with the title to this blog post?”   Here’s what struck me.   In thinking back to how I saw my two friends interacting, If it had been a man and a woman, I would have easily recognized the signs of attraction.    Why didn’t I see it in this case?   Was it because they had both been married to men and I’d put them in heterosexual “boxes” in my mind?   I don’t have any issues with anyone choosing whom they want to love, but maybe I got trapped into seeing behaviors that followed that line of thinking, even so. 

Regardless of what my mind didn’t or should have seen.   I’m happy for my friend’s new found love and I’m hopeful I’ll see love for what it is and not only what I might expect it to be in the future. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had a play date with one of his classmates this afternoon.   Yesterday he came home, saying he wanted a playdate “tomorrow” so I sent a text and it just worked out it could easily happen.    Some playdates seem to take months to coordinate, I like the easy ones. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I though my daughter had made a mess on the floor yesterday.   This was one of those, “I can’t believe I thought that, now I feel like crying” moments I have from time to time with a blind child.    My daughter had gotten out a board game, had no one to play with, had put it all over the floor in the hopes of setting it up to find someone to play—and I thought she was just making a mess.   When I realized what she was doing (and that her brother didn’t want to play with her, even though she’d asked repeatedly) I sat down and happily played with her and then helped her get everything back in the box, thanking her for the game.