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View as: GRID LIST

Blended Families- Shapeshifting Like The T-1000

1
Yesterday I was walking behind an elderly couple. They had just set off from home with aftershave and perfume (him: Fahrenheit by Dior; her: Chanel No. 5) freshly mingling in their wake, wearing their sensible catalogue-bought anoraks.

It’s been very rainy here and there were puddles dotting the pavement. I watched as they walked side by side and then moved apart to accommodate a puddle that had thoughtlessly come between them. They then rejoined each other in side by side companionship.
It was an image I liked, of the ebb and flow of the two of

SelfishMother.com
2
them. Like raindrops joining each other down the window pane, they would always fall back into step alongside each other. You could tell a lot about their relationship from this tiny thing.

It got me thinking of when the tributaries no longer run into the river. When families are not of one accord. When life happens and relationships break down.

I’m not sure if breakdown is a good description, because unless you don’t ever talk to each other again, then it is merely only readjusted.

The blended family is a more acceptable description of what

SelfishMother.com
3
happens when families divide and converge. Alicia Keys wrote a nice song about it:
There ain’t nothing I won’t do for us
It may not be easy
This blended family, but baby
That’s what you do, what you do, what you do
What you do for love
It’s like a lovely kaleidoscope. New colours joining in with old. Reinvigorated and strengthened. Taking new turns, directions and unique patterns. Little jewelled bits of plastic cascading into new places. All of it symmetrical.

We are lucky to live in these times, where in our western culture most

SelfishMother.com
4
permeations are accepted. Being divorced, widowed, a single parent, childless, unmarried, mixed race, same sex, no sex, gender neutral. Whatever it is, there is more understanding and acceptance of our personal choices.

How many of us would have been in a tricky spot if born a hundred or two hundred years ago?
Our right to voice our opinion or act as we felt. Do the job best suited to us. Wear what we wanted. Or love who we wanted. Or protect ourselves. Very different times.

If we were unmarried by our late 20s, questions would cease and

SelfishMother.com
5
conclusions reached.

I’m always glad I live now. In a time where I’m free to be myself. Many cultures unfortunately, are still a few hundred years behind, and choices are limited.

I’ve been thinking about life after divorce when you have children. It can be messy if the divorce was acrimonious. It’s against the normal order of breaking up. There’s no closure or finality. You will be seeing that person again. They will always be part of your life. And, if you’re like me, you’re grateful and happy for that. Because they are the Father/Mother

SelfishMother.com
6
of your children and that’s precious. Together you made these wonderful little humans, and together you celebrate and help them grow.

So for me, life after divorce is a sequel. It’s The Godfather Part 2, or The Dark Knight. It’s Al Pacino saying ok, we’ve got the Godfather film in the bag. That was pretty good. And now, this sequel is going to be actually surprisingly good. This might turn out to be better than the first one.
It doesn’t have to follow the same formula. The central characters remain the same but shiny new ones are added too.

SelfishMother.com
7
Breathing new life into the story. Taking it to places it didn’t look like it would venture before. Like The Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. Helicopter blades whirring as you gaze down at the magnificence of the view. Feeling small against the stripy red rocks. Those plastic beads clicking and slotting into fresh positions.

A sequel can be unique in its own way. New rules. New power. Changed dynamics. It can be cranked-up Sarah & John Connor running from the T-1000. A new lease of life. New challenges. Although not much in the way of costume changes

SelfishMother.com
8
(tank top, gym pants. That’s it).

This is how I like to think of post-separation life. The assimilation that so much is still the same and needs to be cradled carefully to protect it. And, the introduction of the new. Slowly and carefully. There’s no rush.

The new stuff might be a different house. A new routine. But under it all, in essentials it’s the same.

What then happens when new characters are introduced? It always takes me a while to warm to a new cast member joining Coronation Street.
I’m initially a little wary. Are they good

SelfishMother.com
9
enough? Can they act? Do they respect the weight of history they are stepping into? I have to trust the producer, script writers and casting director know what they’re doing. And I do always end up accepting them. They are blobs of wax incorporating with the other blobs inside the lava lamp seamlessly.

Our children are at the mercy of us as the script writers and that’s quite scary. Better if there are two of you to bounce ideas against. The other parent preferably. Carefully forging a storyline. Giving it a dry run in rehearsals to see how it’s

SelfishMother.com
10
received. And then continuing confident in the strength of the characterisation. Knowing what you have created will be favourable to the loyal fans.

Characters age and there is the feeling that life carries on. There’s an underlying connection but the surface feels different. Over time the surface will harden and its undulations and pock marks will be the new normal. Whatever normal is.

I feel as long as the integrity of the original is upheld the subsequent stories and characters will find themselves on a firm footing. Like a well done cover

SelfishMother.com
11
version of your favourite song.

It’s a film set I haven’t wandered onto yet. I don’t know how it will feel in this future setting with new actors. I do know that me, and my former husband are in control of the production company. We commission the creative project together. We have team meetings to discuss amendments and possible new members we want to join our team. We vett and we confer and then re-write the scripts.

Children tumbling against brightly coloured jewelled children. Adults pirouetting and finding their rest. The shhh shhh shhh of

SelfishMother.com
12
the pieces finding their natural resting place.
Our adult selves showing we are human.
Giving our children the life lesson that you get dealt all kinds of cards, it’s what you decide to do with them that matters. It shows your strength as a person to adjust. Slot into your new position.

This is obviously the best case scenario. Where everyone gets on, and despite the changes, we all just carry on with it. There’s harmony and new support and friendship. New things to do with your larger family. You might need a bigger car.

I like to think we are

SelfishMother.com
13
all in control of the decisions in our lives. We want the best outcome for everyone. And crucially like the shape-shifting Terminator we adapt.

It’s not the fairy tale we grew up with. The prince wasn’t the one after all for Sleeping Beauty. It was another guy she met over 20 years ago on a beach somewhere, (long before the poison apple debacle) who she ended up with. And their happily ever after was no less happy. Maybe more so, because the cherry-lipped alabaster-skinned Beauty knew damn sure what she wanted second time around. She wasn’t going

SelfishMother.com
14
to put up with any crazy shit. Not after everything she’d already been through thank you very much. Time for a rewrite.

So, dear reader. How’s your storyboard looking? Is it being constantly updated? A new swatch of upholstery pinned onto it. Plane tickets threaded under its elastic criss-crossing. New photos rubbing shoulders with old. More birthdays to celebrate and more vibrant life to live.
Don’t get me wrong, the fairy tale is still the best outcome, but making this sequel really bloody good is a very close next best thing.

Yours, Carolina

SelfishMother.com

By

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- 17 Jan 17

Yesterday I was walking behind an elderly couple. They had just set off from home with aftershave and perfume (him: Fahrenheit by Dior; her: Chanel No. 5) freshly mingling in their wake, wearing their sensible catalogue-bought anoraks.

It’s been very rainy here and there were puddles dotting the pavement. I watched as they walked side by side and then moved apart to accommodate a puddle that had thoughtlessly come between them. They then rejoined each other in side by side companionship.
It was an image I liked, of the ebb and flow of the two of them. Like raindrops joining each other down the window pane, they would always fall back into step alongside each other. You could tell a lot about their relationship from this tiny thing.

It got me thinking of when the tributaries no longer run into the river. When families are not of one accord. When life happens and relationships break down.

I’m not sure if breakdown is a good description, because unless you don’t ever talk to each other again, then it is merely only readjusted.

The blended family is a more acceptable description of what happens when families divide and converge. Alicia Keys wrote a nice song about it:

There ain’t nothing I won’t do for us
It may not be easy
This blended family, but baby
That’s what you do, what you do, what you do
What you do for love

It’s like a lovely kaleidoscope. New colours joining in with old. Reinvigorated and strengthened. Taking new turns, directions and unique patterns. Little jewelled bits of plastic cascading into new places. All of it symmetrical.

We are lucky to live in these times, where in our western culture most permeations are accepted. Being divorced, widowed, a single parent, childless, unmarried, mixed race, same sex, no sex, gender neutral. Whatever it is, there is more understanding and acceptance of our personal choices.

How many of us would have been in a tricky spot if born a hundred or two hundred years ago?
Our right to voice our opinion or act as we felt. Do the job best suited to us. Wear what we wanted. Or love who we wanted. Or protect ourselves. Very different times.

If we were unmarried by our late 20s, questions would cease and conclusions reached.

I’m always glad I live now. In a time where I’m free to be myself. Many cultures unfortunately, are still a few hundred years behind, and choices are limited.

I’ve been thinking about life after divorce when you have children. It can be messy if the divorce was acrimonious. It’s against the normal order of breaking up. There’s no closure or finality. You will be seeing that person again. They will always be part of your life. And, if you’re like me, you’re grateful and happy for that. Because they are the Father/Mother of your children and that’s precious. Together you made these wonderful little humans, and together you celebrate and help them grow.

So for me, life after divorce is a sequel. It’s The Godfather Part 2, or The Dark Knight. It’s Al Pacino saying ok, we’ve got the Godfather film in the bag. That was pretty good. And now, this sequel is going to be actually surprisingly good. This might turn out to be better than the first one.
It doesn’t have to follow the same formula. The central characters remain the same but shiny new ones are added too. Breathing new life into the story. Taking it to places it didn’t look like it would venture before. Like The Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. Helicopter blades whirring as you gaze down at the magnificence of the view. Feeling small against the stripy red rocks. Those plastic beads clicking and slotting into fresh positions.

A sequel can be unique in its own way. New rules. New power. Changed dynamics. It can be cranked-up Sarah & John Connor running from the T-1000. A new lease of life. New challenges. Although not much in the way of costume changes (tank top, gym pants. That’s it).

This is how I like to think of post-separation life. The assimilation that so much is still the same and needs to be cradled carefully to protect it. And, the introduction of the new. Slowly and carefully. There’s no rush.

The new stuff might be a different house. A new routine. But under it all, in essentials it’s the same.

What then happens when new characters are introduced? It always takes me a while to warm to a new cast member joining Coronation Street.
I’m initially a little wary. Are they good enough? Can they act? Do they respect the weight of history they are stepping into? I have to trust the producer, script writers and casting director know what they’re doing. And I do always end up accepting them. They are blobs of wax incorporating with the other blobs inside the lava lamp seamlessly.

Our children are at the mercy of us as the script writers and that’s quite scary. Better if there are two of you to bounce ideas against. The other parent preferably. Carefully forging a storyline. Giving it a dry run in rehearsals to see how it’s received. And then continuing confident in the strength of the characterisation. Knowing what you have created will be favourable to the loyal fans.

Characters age and there is the feeling that life carries on. There’s an underlying connection but the surface feels different. Over time the surface will harden and its undulations and pock marks will be the new normal. Whatever normal is.

I feel as long as the integrity of the original is upheld the subsequent stories and characters will find themselves on a firm footing. Like a well done cover version of your favourite song.

It’s a film set I haven’t wandered onto yet. I don’t know how it will feel in this future setting with new actors. I do know that me, and my former husband are in control of the production company. We commission the creative project together. We have team meetings to discuss amendments and possible new members we want to join our team. We vett and we confer and then re-write the scripts.

Children tumbling against brightly coloured jewelled children. Adults pirouetting and finding their rest. The shhh shhh shhh of the pieces finding their natural resting place.
Our adult selves showing we are human.
Giving our children the life lesson that you get dealt all kinds of cards, it’s what you decide to do with them that matters. It shows your strength as a person to adjust. Slot into your new position.

This is obviously the best case scenario. Where everyone gets on, and despite the changes, we all just carry on with it. There’s harmony and new support and friendship. New things to do with your larger family. You might need a bigger car.

I like to think we are all in control of the decisions in our lives. We want the best outcome for everyone. And crucially like the shape-shifting Terminator we adapt.

It’s not the fairy tale we grew up with. The prince wasn’t the one after all for Sleeping Beauty. It was another guy she met over 20 years ago on a beach somewhere, (long before the poison apple debacle) who she ended up with. And their happily ever after was no less happy. Maybe more so, because the cherry-lipped alabaster-skinned Beauty knew damn sure what she wanted second time around. She wasn’t going to put up with any crazy shit. Not after everything she’d already been through thank you very much. Time for a rewrite.

So, dear reader. How’s your storyboard looking? Is it being constantly updated? A new swatch of upholstery pinned onto it. Plane tickets threaded under its elastic criss-crossing. New photos rubbing shoulders with old. More birthdays to celebrate and more vibrant life to live.
Don’t get me wrong, the fairy tale is still the best outcome, but making this sequel really bloody good is a very close next best thing.

Yours, Carolina

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Writer and aspiring novelist who loves Jaffa Cakes, Michael Buble, Colin Firth, Audrey Hepburn, dramatic eyeliner and laughing until it hurts. Has children, which is nice. Once drank a whole bottle of tabasco sauce for a bet. Childhood crushes included Poncherello from Chips, Monkey (from Monkey Magic), Mr Claypole from Rentaghost and both of the Dukes of Hazzard boys. Doesn't like noodles.

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