I’ve felt at loose ends most of this weekend. Aaron had his wisdom teeth out on Saturday (all FIVE of them), and I neither drove him nor sat by his side nor did any of the things “Moms” do. (I did, however, drive his siblings pretty much crazy all day Saturday by asking them to look in on him about every 20-30 minutes. “Is he breathing?” “No, should he be?”)

Memorial Day weekends have been traditionally family weekends for the past 20 years. Wedding anniversary, Greg’s birthday, picnics with in-laws.

So it has been weird.

I struggle with perceptions. People think it’s unnatural for a woman to voluntarily live apart from her kids. There is an flash of “those poor abandoned kids” sometimes in people’s eyes. Or at least I imagine so.

My reasons are good and right and my children know them. Importantly, they don’t feel abandoned. They know that I want them to thrive, to feel strong in their home, in their schools, with their friends and, yes, with their dad. They are getting to build a relationship with him that is important and necessary, for them and for him. They know all that. I know all that. Outsiders don’t know all that. It shouldn’t be important to me what other people think, but who am I kidding? I’m a human. Humans do care what people think.

So I went to see the new Star Wars movie. It was an action-packed night.

First, I met everyone at the house. Daniel and Christopher both grabbed seats in my car, which left Emily and Chris trying to figure out who would ride with us and who had to ride alone with Dad and Tina. (Tina is Dad’s girlfriend. She’s a very nice person. Long ago, we used to go on vacations with her and her boys.) But none of the kids want to be alone with them, which is pretty funny. Neither did anyone want to sit in the middle of my backseat. Nor did they want to ride together in the other car, which seemed like a logical solution, at least to Daniel and me. So there was a standoff in the driveway.

(Aaron was smart and took off with his carload early.)

Eventually Chris got exasperated and slammed out of my car to ride with Greg and Tina. We all decided that he would get shotgun on the way back.

Then we headed to the theater. Lines were already forming, but we had time to eat. Some people wanted to eat at one restaurant, some at another, which again made things easy. I took the Pot Bellies crowd, and I must say we were definitely the fun group.

After that, we stood in line, all thirteen of us. Me, my kids, their dad, his girlfriend, her kids, his brother, several assorted school friends. Some of us were placeholders while others went and got snacks. The line was not really a line; it was a clump of jostling people. Light sabers and vader heads bobbed everywhere. I paid Daniel in candy to go get my soda and Reese’s Pieces.

The movie was pretty good.

Gloria and I played a million variations of the same game. “Let’s be Pixie and Dixie.”

Dixie was a marginally better name. It sounded cute, which was part of the point, but it didn’t sound too shallow. You got the sense that Dixie was a bit more competent than Pixie.

Sometimes Pixie and Dixie were superheroines, with terrific animal sidekicks. It was implied that they were very glamorous, with various skimpy (yet tasteful) outfits. They had a lot of magic. They could speak and understand Animal. They could heal. I don’t remember them ever flying.

They were twins, of course.

Well, except for the times they were triplets with the invisible but powerful Trixie. Trixie was cool even before we read the Trixie Belden series. Then she was cool and could solve mysteries.

Trixie could do a lot of things that I couldn’t do. She could talk to strangers without stammering. She could beat up bullies. She was very fashionable. She was funny. She got Pixie and Dixie out of many a jam.

You would have really liked Trixie, I think.

I miss singing.

When I was a kid, my parents always sang in the car with us. Church songs, songs from Fiddler on the Roof, folk songs. Christmas carols. When my dad had rheumatic fever, he taught himself to play the guitar and then we would have family singalongs.

I didn’t do that with my kids so much. For one thing, their dad is a bit tone-deaf and that discouraged me. But I should have anyway.

It’s not like I gave up a career in music or anything. My singing voice is, well, adequate. I can carry a tune. I can harmonize. I am not a soloist, unless one counts shower-bellowing.

Music writes itself into our brains. I can hear the first notes of an old hymn that I haven’t heard in decades, and my brain calls up all the verses. I find myself whistling commercial ditties and camp meeting choruses. Maybe those songs helped form a framework in my mind. Maybe it is a positive thing that I can’t get the Gilligan’s Island theme song out of my head. Or the kajillion verses of “The Cat Came Back.” Or even the hymn numbers to those old hymns. That hymnbook isn’t even published any more. But somehow I’m pleased and comforted that I still know that Amazing Grace was number 212 in the red hymnbook.

Anybody want to know what divorce mediation is all about? This is the language from the draft mediation agreement, but it sums up my motivations for going into the process pretty well:

“We agree to treat each other with respect, to speak respectfully to and of each other in the presence of our children as well as in their absence, and to require all others, including friends and family, to do the same. We agree not to do or say anything that would undermine our children’s affection and respect for the other parent. We agree that each of our children needs each of us as much as the other and that neither of us is more important than the other in the life of our children. It is with our children in mind, that we enter into this Agreement.”

So today I sign this agreement. I don’t feel sad or upset. It is a necessary thing. It is not on some master checklist on my calendar: get oil changed, sign mediation papers, pick up margarine. It is bigger than that. Of course.