9.3.22

  Tomorrow, I should be able to return to work after a 2-week hiatus.  Hiatus, I wish.  We caught Covid and Amari was the last one to catch it.  As adults, we took Vitamins C, D, Zinc, and Melatonin and were able to get over it in a matter of days.  But that little one…WEEKS!!  And being the single mom that I am, I had to take off work to care for my children.  Covid got all of us and I thought I would get some help.  I was fortunate to get two days (out of two weeks) to get some me time.  Nope, went right to band practice.  This was the longest that I’d been away from my band at one time since my maternity leave and the mountain of a to-do list was not going anywhere!!

 

Many of you know that I am a high school band director.  The one that is in charge of all the bands, marching and concert and all the ensembles in between.  The job of a high school band director is a lot.  We have many rehearsals after school and football games almost every Friday during the fall.  It’s hard for my colleagues who are married fathers.  Many of them would comment after they had children that they didn’t know how I did it.  I really didn’t know what they meant, eventually, I understood.  A few of them have left teaching high school band in order to spend time with their children.  Stepping down as a high school director may have been easier for me, but it wasn’t an option that I really looked into.  I did what many single moms do each day and made it work.  So as a single mom…it is only by God’s grace that I am able to continue to do the work that I do.

I knew that I wanted to be a teacher in the 1st grade and a band director in the 6th grade when my band director put my first flute in my hand.  I thought, “I can teach this??” Sign me up!  I’ve always been involved in music my whole life through church as my mom was the choir director, and dad was the bass player.  My aunts, uncles, and cousins made up the rest of the choir and musicians.  Almost as soon as I got my instrument, my mom encouraged and volun”told” me to “play for the Lord.” I did it (reluctantly might I add) and discovered that I am NOT the solo player.  She wanted me to move and “feel it’ as I played and that just wasn’t me.  And I was ok with that.

I do enjoy being in front of the band conducting.  Rather on stage at a concert, or on the podium at a football game, I enjoy it.  Through my experiences as a band director, I’ve also discovered other things that I like to do.  I have been very fortunate to have the experience that I’ve had and that is all due to the village that surrounds me and supports my desire to continue in the field.  There have been birthday parties missed or major band performances missed in the quest of reaching a work-life balance.  I am still working on that part and making it my goal to give my family more or have enough of me to give to them when I leave school.

In each program, I’ve been blessed to have a band parent that was able to watch my children for me, especially once the seasons began to change from fall to winter.  It all began with my parents meeting me in South Carolina to take Myles with them for the summer so that I could have summer band camp.  Then comes, Ms. Shealy who watched Myles for me so that I could stay late for band practices and parent meetings.  I am still close with her family and had the honor of having her great niece in my band for four years.  Next, enter Ms. Tonya who watched Myles for me in her Aunt’s home daycare.  After practice and on game days, I would bring Darius home and pick up Myles.  Mrs. Candi watched Myles next and kept him for me late nights and during football games and sometimes even watched him so that I could have some Monica time.  I had the opportunity to teach both of her sons at Arabia Mountain and she served on the executive board of my band parent association.

Ms. Vanessa watched Myles at his in-home daycare along with her granddaughters.  I now have the pleasure of having her granddaughter and my college roommate’s daughter as band manager this year.  John and Myra would take Myles home with them when games were cold or allow him to come over and play with LJ during district music educators association (GMEA meetings) or large group performance evaluations. (There could and possibly will be a whole post to the friendship and family that John and Myra have become to my family.)  Mrs. Michele would take Myles home with her family on some Sundays after church to give me some alone time or invite us over for dinner.  They became extended family and I was fortunate to be able to be the band director for both of her sons.  Antonio would pick up Myles from daycare on Game Days and some practices, grab him some McDonalds and then come work with me on my band staff.  Once Myles hit grade school, a band parent would pick him up from aftercare on their way to pick up their child from band practice.

Myles would be with me everywhere I went and learned how to entertain himself while Mommy was working.  Concert band festivals, JanFest at UGA, battle of the bands, he was right there.  He didn’t have a choice sometimes and grew to not want to go once he got older.  I never forced him to want to learn to play an instrument (though I did strongly encourage him) and was so excited when he chose to play the saxophone.  Going to auditions and concerts as a parent is the best thing ever!! Being on the other side provided more insight into the parent’s perspective as a band director.  I especially learned the importance of letting the kids out of practice ON TIME!!  I will miss one of my events to make it to any of his major events and be there to support him.

I thought that the next time that I had a child that it would be with my husband.  The future plans I held of seeing him in the audience supporting me or writing music for my band and then coming to hear it live faded after the years of being off and on again led to being completely off.  I know this is Atlanta, but I’m not down with sharing men, especially married ones.  Once I found out that it was that type of party, I exited stage left.  This was extremely tough because now I was a single mom of two that was a high school band director.  How am I going to do this again??  It was supposed to be different this time around, that was the promise that was given to me over and over again.  And boy was it different! I grew a voice that was always deep down inside me and used it quite frequently to express how I felt in this situation, how it affected my children, and how it was not going to be the same ol same ol with my youngest.

Broken promises of visits that never happened.  Or when the visits did happen, they were in the company of other women, their children, and sometimes his wife.  His family would also step in when he asked, but he tried to handle it on his own.  After all, this light-skinned version of himself was not fully claimed as his son until about 4 years ago.  He’s 14.  I vividly remember a time that I depended on him, looking out onto the balcony of my hotel room in Chicago while attending the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in a conversation checking on my son.  I wanted to talk to him, but couldn’t.  Why?  Because he had a gig and asked one of his female friends that happened to be a nanny to watch my child.  Someone whom I did not know and did not even know that was the plan had my baby.  I was LIVID.  But was told, you have to trust me and trust that I wouldn’t do anything to hurt our child.  

How could he?  I did not understand and to this day still do not understand how and why he did the things that he did.  Making the child a priority was something that he said he would never do.  He would never choose the child over his life and he has made that clear more times than once.  (This is very difficult to put on paper.)  My son was used as his companion on playdates with the other kid’s Mom.  I found out that almost every person that was “watching Myles” he was romantically involved with.  The psychological effect on Myles runs deeper than I will ever know.  It materialized physically and I am so glad that we finally got that situation resolved almost 4 years ago.  However else this materializes in the future, we will face it when we get there.

Until things blew up when I had Amari, I never spoke badly about him as a dad.  Always left the door open for him to be involved when he wanted to be involved.  He knew what I did for a living and that my family lived in Virginia.  I needed him and his family to support me in raising Myles.  He had so many convoluted stories about why they couldn’t help like I needed them to that eventually boiled down to the fact that he was still married and not divorced like he told me. ( I’ll save that story for another day.  I know what you’re thinking.)  I demanded that this time things were different and made sure that everyone knew that he was the father.  I did not care how it made me look because this was a decision that he made.  My choice to stay involved with him was not made on the truth of the situation, but the many lies that were told to me.

Things are not perfect now, but they are working.  He picks up Amari from the sitter two days a week and arranges for his care on Fridays when I have football games.  He also picks up Myles the same two days he picks up Amari and attends some of Myles’ football games.  When he can’t keep them because of a gig, they are with family.  I made sure that he understood that if I found out that they were around other women that I had not met, then he would not be able to see them.  If he wasn’t consistently in their life, he needed to sign over his parental rights.  My kids were not going to wonder where Dad is and why he didn’t come and pick them up.  You might think wow, that is tough.  I don’t care how he felt about those demands because my children are a priority and come first. Parents sacrifice, that is what we do.  They did not ask to be brought into the world, especially in a messed up situation due to the decisions their parents made.  With the help of God and our amazing village, my kids will grow up happy, fulfilled and know that they are loved.

After going through what I went through almost 3 years ago, I said I was going to write a book titled “You’re lucky I know Jesus.”  Because of HIS grace and mercy, he is still involved in my kids life, I’m still in my right mind and didn’t snap and end up on Snapped.  God has compassion and expects us to forgive others 70 times 7 and forget about it.  There are times that I get triggered by something that comes up and have to pray about it to let go.  I had a therapist during the most difficult times and need to see another one to help me navigate through this next phase of my life.  I’m getting there every day as I have to die to myself daily and take on the mind of Christ so that I can receive all of the blessings that he has in store for me.  I don’t want them to be held up any longer.  It’s like I’ve been stuck on a roundabout that has kept me on the same cycle for years.  I’m ready for the new direction that life is going to take.  New careers.  New home.  New love.  New friends.  New, new, new, everything new, new, new, NEW!! (cue  Tye Tribbett – New)