Several years ago when my children were little, we were having dinner with another family, whose teenage daughter got a call to go to a party/sleepover. We took her together, my littles in the back buckled safely in, moments from their bedtime, while  my friend’s daughter jumped out in excruciatingly tight jeans, sleeping bag in hand, at a house with an old couch on the front porch. Will the parents be home? I called after her. She said yes, the mother and her boyfriend.

I have never considered myself a snob- in fact anti snob is more me- but this scene with teenagers pouring in and out, the chipping paint, and broken window, mom with the boyfriend and an old couch on the porch was an announcement of single motherhood and a falling apart  for me.

Years later when I became a single mother, no matter how hard it was to do everything and pay for everything, I could not bear the thought of my house falling a part. Somehow it represents how we are.

A good couch stays inside. A bad couch gets put out to the curb. No in between.

And this with relationships  as well.