MEMOIR 2000: All right, so we all know it’s a hard road being alone and raising kids, but somehow I also knew I had been blessed by looking young and still able to turn a few heads, you know?

I was kind of used to drawing attention from all types and that day I pulled up to the grocery store and fixed myself up in the mirror ‘cause I didn’t know who might be inside and I needed to be cute and correct, right? I was ready to descend on the store; I’d fixed the strap on my sandal, my hand was positioned just so, my purse was over my shoulder and I was ready for the breeze from the store’s opening door, you know what I’m talking about, the one made by gushing air conditioning? I was all set for it to lift me up and sweep me inside where I would need to sexily fix my hair again. And all of that in my “I’m not so obvious that I care” mode, “It’s just that I’m still so cute.”

And there he was and he saw me too. He was acting all nonchalant like he was picking out grapes or something, but I caught him looking at me from the side. I well knew the image that I was presenting…windswept goddess invading his world, swept in by a cool breeze on a sultry summer’s day. I was silhouetted by the sun behind me, making the most of my image of youthful shapeliness draped in form-fitting pants and cute little shirt. Man, I was nothing less than a mirage of cool lemonade in a scorching desert. In unbelievably slow motion I glided over towards him, of course trying to act like I got more than a lousy $25.00 in my purse. Just for a moment I lost myself in his image of me; I smiled coyly, a smile that said I saw him watching me.

And right then, just when I knew he was getting ready to make his move and I was perfectly positioned next to the kiwi fruit, all of a sudden there’s a commotion and the next thing I knew, two boys, both taller than I, ran up behind me, calling me “Mommy” or something like that… I forget, the vision went quite blurry at that point, distorted by pre-adolescent crackling voices, half deep, half high-pitched, half man, half child, you get the picture?

There they were, passing themselves off as the babies to whom I had given birth more than 13 years ago and who, incidentally, I had believed would be picked up from music lessons in another half-hour. So why were they jabbering about having got a ride and ‘seeing your car outside so we came inside to find you’? No sooner did I feel a twinge of disappointment than I saw Mr. Cutie Pie’s face drop like he’d been hit by a truck. He looked at my boys in horror and get this, glared at me with disgust, as if I had just broken out all over in hives (I mean wasn’t I the goddess of just about one second ago?).

But just as I caught myself thinking how much my kids cramped my style, I realized, ”Hey, they are my style!” and I knew that when he and his cute picking-out-grapes-self went out looking for someone younger and cuter than me (probably in about ten more minutes) my boys would still be loving me like crazy. So he could go on with his tired self! Who wanted him anyway? In fact I decided to spend my whole $25.00 on what the kids wanted that day! I didn’t need a man that bad, because guess what, they were—and are—my men and if he didn’t want them, he couldn’t have me!