Life has been going on here, as life is wont to do. The garden has been exploding in various colors of foliage, and my God, the roses. There are roses all over the fucking place, all exploding in colors that should have an FDA regulation on them.

We have hot pink ones.

Not so pink ones-

And red ones that are so violent in color that both of our cameras nearly explode at being so close to it.

Of course, my peonies are also taking off.

Combine it with my recent acquisition and it makes for the world's most comfortable setting.

Angus moaned about my purchase, but it turns out he's become a fan, too.

Just try asking him if he wouldn't mind getting out of the hammock and being productive.

For the past two weeks, Angus' daughter Melissa has been here on her own, as her little brother is at camp. It's been strange having her here, in that while she was here her 14th birthday came and went. This, for me, is three times the stakes.

Their visits are always a combination of fun and exhaustion, cheer and exasperation. I used to think that being a workaholic was the hardest thing ever. I thought relationships were the greatest amount of effort. I believed that trying to cope with myself in my own head was the true challenge. The truth is somewhere in between all of those, but the one thing that I take the most seriously is being a step-parent. I suppose I take it so seriously because my own memories of childhood are a tabula rasa, the canvas is long and blank and there's nothing to focus my eyes on. I just don't remember anything. I want their memories to be different, but maybe sometimes I give up pieces of myself to get that.

Perhaps that's what being a parent is about.

I wouldn't know.

Melissa is sometimes especially difficult because she's a Daddy's Girl, and always has been. They can both try my patience, no question about that, but I never blow up at either of them. When Jeff is here too he and I content ourselves with each other's company, we play games and watch films (he has been turned on to the Lemony Snicket film and is now even reading the books, which I think is brilliant.) But when it's Melissa, Angus and I, well, sometimes I really feel like an outsider. I never say anything, mostly because Angus is so mad about his daughter and she so mad about him. I don't want to detract from that just because I don't belong. I never had a doting father as a child. I don't know what it feels like, so I wrap myself up in a blanket of numbness and-it has to be said-a little bit of envy.

It must be nice to be a child and feel so loved and so safe.

I wouldn't know that one, either.

So Melissa comes for her 14th birthday. This is a first, we never get them for their birthdays. We grant her with an iPod nano, which becomes the extension of her head for the remainder of her stay. Friday Angus, Melissa and I took a short jaunt on the Chunnel to Calais to buy cheap wine and food for her birthday barbecue and our 4th of July bash (wine is so much cheaper in France the ticket to go there is worth it. We came back with 150 bottles of wine, having spent £600. It would've been at least 2-3 times that cost for alcohol in the UK.) On Sunday all of Angus' extended family is invited over for a barbecue. Melissa has many demands, among them The World's Most Difficult Cake Ever.

Now, in my family, on your birthday you got whatever foods you wanted. That's a rule I carry through today-you get what you want to eat on your birthday. So she wanted The World's Most Difficult Cake Ever and goddammit, she was going to get it. Angus' ex (Melissa's mother) is very talented in this arena and I didn't want to let Melissa down. I can bake a mean cake but decorating is not my kind of thing, Martha Stewart I am not.

Melissa wanted a chocolate cake with raspberry drizzle and chocolate leaves.

When I heard that, my ulcer exploded like Venus.

The World's Most Difficult Cake Ever was indeed a difficult cake to do, but in the end it turned out ok.

(That's raspberry drizzle on the cake and not, as questioned by one of Angus' sisters-in-law, hamburger meat.)

We strung candles up all over the garden as well. I bought some jars with small handles that went up on a wire across half of the back patio.

I had some little tea lights for the rose arbor as well.

And, by her accounts, her barbecue was a success. The roast beef and horseradish sandwiches are scoffed, the Mergeuz sausages disappear. England win the football game, and bottles of wine cracked open (for the grown-ups). We stay up ridiculously late and kids take turns swinging in the hammock. Angus and I had a blow-up earlier that I stamped down-I don't want any negative birthday memories. I want her to feel like she can come back for her next birthday if she wants (but for Christ's sake, I hope she wants a simpler cake.)

Melissa was happy with her birthday party, and that's all that matters.

She even made me a fleece laptop case for my work laptop, which I love.

She left last night, her flight delayed. We giggled over a People magazine we were lucky enough to buy in WH Smith. I got a hug goodbye.

Sometimes being a step-parent is something that makes me want to turn down the covers and go to bed over.

Sometimes it's something that brings a smile to my face.

Regardless, it is a job I take very, very seriously. I think it is the hardest thing that I can possibly do, but if I can be sure that it will cement a good memory in someone's mind, then I will do everything I can to help.

Here's to gardens full of roses, and to not all of us living life as blank canvases.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:34 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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