In the next coming posts I will be sharing with you the ideas I want to record before I forget all I learned when i was actively raising my husband’s children, whom I referred to as “My Angel Kids.”

the dance of meeting needs

Of course now that they’re 25 and 28, it’s been quite a while since I called them that, and they never liked that defining title anyway, much preferring to be called by my, “my kids” whenever I referred to them to others. But truth is, they ARE my Angel kids, because I called myself “Angel Mom.” Who in their right minds would choose to be called a Stepmom or Stepdad if they had another name to choose from? Besides, our kids have a living Biological Mom (don’t even ask me what I call her, in private that is) who was and always will be “Mom” to them. So from the start of our step-family, the kids have always called me by my first name, teZa, even though I told people I was their Angel Mom. And yes, I said this with a perfectly straight face. If anyone asked what “Angel Mom” meant, I would explain it was my substitute for the S word, Step-mother.

When I first met and fell in love with my husband Carter, I had just made a list of what I knew I needed in my life in order to feel complete and fulfilled. First on the list was “a sexy, spiritual soul-mate,” and second on the list, after just a moment’s hesitation before urgently writing it, least I not have the courage to ask the Universe for what I really wanted, I wrote: “two kids, whom we’ll probably adopt seeing as I’ve never even had a pregnancy in all my forty-one years.” Then I went on to list the more pedantic needs of every artist, number three being: “Discover a way of reaching the public with my work,” and other things like number seven: “Feel like I’m contributing to the betterment of society.”

Sure enough, within a very short time, Carter — whom I instantly recognized as my true life consort — came into my life.  With the first sound of his voice floating over the phone (mutual friends had requested he call me about something, not pertaining to romance one bit though) I felt a kick in my solar plexus. When I got off the phone that first time, a glorious Spring Equinox day in 1990, I wrote in my journal, “I don’t know what just happened, but I think I just met my match!”

Very soon, in that first phone conversation, I discovered that Carter was the single parent of two young kids, whom he’d been raising by himself after a bitter custody battle. The bio-mom had not been awarded even joint-custody by the family court after a series of in-depth, psychological evaluations provided the truth of her mental state. You can imagine my shock, then, when I realized that along with this sonorous, loving-tender male voice that tantalized me and intrigued me no end, Carter’s romantic possibilities came entwined with two little mother-less toddlers whom I hadn’t quite imaged would be tagging along the coattails of any ideal choice of a soul-mate of mine.

But this is exactly what the Universe was presenting me.