We Live in the Real World, People. Adjust Expectations Accordingly.

Marriages between those living in reality and those imagining perfection don’t always end happily ever after.

Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It’s all through our own individual prisms. Sterling K. Brown

When fantasy doesn’t align with reality, there is always someone around to say, “I told you so.” Usually that someone is me.

It isn’t pessimism. Not really. I don’t think everything is going to turn to crap. I do think there are many logical sequences of events that end in predictable ways. Sometimes I keep my mouth shut, sometimes I don’t.

Andrew Knott wrote about a family outing that was obviously going to end with someone being let down. Usually, it is the parent in his example. He was full of happy expectation for his family bike ride.

As soon as I read the ages of his children, I knew the experience would not live up to his mental picture.

I do think there are many logical sequences of events that end in predictable ways.

The problem, as I see it, is the idea that kids spread out in age from seven to three can all happily pedal together. In this scenario, the three-year-old is never going to keep up with the seven-year-old.

Even the most well-behaved children are going to spread out. The experience is going to be an exercise in herding bipedal cats. It is sweet that he even tried. I can give him that much.

I do have experience in the vast difference between the physical stamina of a three-year-old and an eight-year-old.

You might think that I acquired this knowledge from hard-won experience. Not really. Some of it, perhaps. I had two daughters, five years apart.

Well, I still do, but they are adults now. If they ever wanted to take a bike ride together (hint: this will never happen), they could keep pace with each other.

I do have experience in the vast difference between the physical stamina of a three-year-old and an eight-year-old. Seven and three can’t be much different.

The bike ride part, well, I even have a sort of story about that. The bike ride in my story isn’t actually my story, it is my first husband’s. My reaction to the bike ride story is all mine though.

My marriage broke up over the course of three months. Oh, I know my husband must have been unhappy for a while, but he didn’t share it with me until March. I saw it in the tea leaves but didn’t get confirmation until June that divorce was inevitable.

In the end, the break up was a good call on his part.

During the beginning of June, he still hadn’t said the magic words, “I want a divorce.” They were hanging there, unspoken. Then I received a manila envelope with my name and address in block letters on the outside.

I wrote about my divorce before. I’m not going to belabor the same old territory here, but if you are interested, check out:

The salient point, here, is that the envelope contained printouts of conversations. Conversations between my then-husband and a woman who lived on the East Coast.

That woman is now his wife and they seem very happy together. In the end, the break up was a good call on his part. The way it went down wasn’t optimal.

Onto the bike ride:

There were many, many pages in the envelope. As I read them, I discovered:

• An unknown woman was planning on moving here to be with my husband. In June. Now. Was she already here?
• The woman had two daughters, roughly the same age as ours.
• There was a detailed description of a fantasy bike ride. All four of the children would be riding in the park with them.

It is easier to focus on the surreal nature of life events sometimes. Yes, I was shocked to my core. I threw up and then returned to the packet of printouts. But then my eye stuck on the glowing description of this fictional bike ride.

Their perfect family would ride together in harmony, no one left behind.

Let me lay this out for you. Four little girls, traumatized by the breakups of their old families, riding bikes in the park with their new family. Two of the girls were eight years old at the time. Third graders are pretty good on bikes.

The other two girls were five and three. The five-year-old rode fairly well by this time. Could she keep up with two eight-year-olds? She could try.

I remember looking up from the packet and thinking about my three-year-old. She was three years and three months at this point.

She wasn’t off training wheels. The three-year-old was a little big to put in one of those toddler seats on the back of a parent’s bike.

I could see it in my head. One adult in front, the other behind. The kids lined up in age between them.

The front adult riding slowly so the back of the line could keep up. Eight-year-olds trying to hold themselves back but bickering a little. Five-year-old able to keep up the pace. Three-year-old riding for all she was worth. For a while.

Then the three-year-old slowing. Saying her legs hurt.

One of the eight-year-olds asking for ice cream. “You said there would be ice cream in the park. Where is the ice cream?”

The five-year-old getting excited about the ice cream. The other eight-year-old shushing everyone. This causes an argument. By now the three-year-old is over it and has stopped.

In this imaginary scenario, I have my ex-husband in line behind my three-year-old. Honestly, I have no idea why. If we had ever gone on such a bike ride, I know I would have been in the back. Do you know why?

Because, once the bike ride had gotten to the point where my youngest had stopped, I would have told the rest to go on. I would have taken her to the swings to rest her legs.

I couldn’t picture my ex doing that. He would have been too into the bike ride.

And at the end of the bike ride, he would have been very disappointed. I would have shrugged and wondered what in the world he had expected to happen.

In a way, that bike ride fantasy is what told me a divorce was inevitable.

I could see from the printouts, he expected everything to go smoothly. They both did. Their perfect family would ride together in harmony, no one left behind. No one sprinting ahead.

In a way, that bike ride fantasy is what told me a divorce was inevitable. He was always going to dream of what life could be while I was always dealing with how it is. I am okay with reality.

Some marriages can make that dynamic work. Obviously, we couldn’t. The good news: the second time around I found someone who lived in reality with me.

A few years ago, I thought about this fictional bike ride again. I asked one of my daughters if they had ever gone on whole family bike rides in the park. She looked at me like I was high.

“How would that work? Our ages were spread out so much, I don’t see how that could work when we were little.”

There you have it folks: my three-year-old all grown up.

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