That we couldn't be found in tuxedos? Or that you wouldn't waste your time....
I seem to be still here- though you, Mr Q, don't always seemed wowed with my wit. And, sorry, a t-shirt with a black tie printed on it doesn't qualify as a tux.
Actually Ammo has one like that, and he wears it all the time when we go out to dinner. It drives me insane, but good mother that I am, I ignore his provocative actions. He's making it hard. His hair now resembles Shirley Temple's exactly. He refuses to cut it and Senior pictures are coming up.
It's not helping that women stop him in stores and say- oh I would DIE for your hair!
A neat thing happened.
Dan was walking down the hall of his office building and a man he didn't know, from a different area of the company, stopped him and said,
"You're Dan Westbrook, right?"
Dan agreed that yes, he was.
"There's a woman who writes for the Star-Telegram and last week she mentioned her husband's name was Dan. ARE YOU HER HUSBAND?" (That's the important part)
Dan said something clever, which I have forgotten because I was so thrilled with the above. The man then said,
"I look for her every week. I love her columns. I wish she'd write more."
I hope you told him to write the paper,I said, my usual response to compliments. It does no good to tell ME.
But my heart was elsewhere.
Because this was a really wondrous, amazing thing -I hope I can communicate this- but you've always been Freddy and no one else, and may not get the import.
I wasn't Dan Westbrook's wife,
or Ammo and CW's mom,
I was me!
This may sound silly to those of you who have been yourselves all your lives, but for a housewife and mom who doesn't work, you lose that single identity. It's very common to no longer see yourself without these little identifying tags-- penni, wife of, penni, mom of
No one ever says to them, oh- you are the son or spouse of...
UNTIL THIS WEEK.
Dan turned into THE SPOUSE OF !!!
I don't mean to imply that I don't enjoy being the wife of, mom of; I couldn't be prouder of those labels. BUt somewhere in those twenty years, they became almost totally who I was. This must happen a lot to stay-at-home women and probably is the source of empty nest agony.
BUt this week, I I I was the headliner with Dan as supporting cast.
It was a fine moment. |
