If “Gooberfluff” Isn’t a Word, It Should Be
“When the Flames Go Up” got a lot of attention its first month, especially from people who really wanted us to stop.
When my ex-wife and I divorced in 2008, we couldn’t find a lot of online resources about co-parenting. So we co-started a blog called When the Flames Go Up. I’m re-publishing the posts that she and I wrote here, in case they can help anyone who’s about to go through what we somehow survived.
Today, the boys and I are still ensconced in the wilds, where the water is fresh, and all roads form a giant, evergreen labyrinth of complete noiselessness. The only sounds in the tent last night were the murmurs of a certain five-year-old, who sighs adorably right before sleepkicking me in the groin.
Today was three parents, four watercraft, and five boys aged 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8. All we needed was a four-year-old to complete the Straight Flush of Crazy.
So. How’s the blog doing so far? The press seems to have noticed, and we’ve been profiled in The New York Times and The Toronto Globe and Mail. Two countries in less than a week! We expect full global saturation by Labor Day, when elderly Azorean goatherds can shake their heads forbiddingly and mentally condemn our kids to lives of rehab and criminal recidivism.
Reading some of the comments to those two pieces has been an education for me, because after seven years of writing inoffensive gooberfluff, I’ve had precious little experience with detractors. I can sort of understand where they’re coming from, because if you think blogs in general are just a load of useless, narcissistic oversharing, you really won’t have any use for this one. Divorce is a volatile and polarizing subject, and sometimes the way to co-parent most effectively is to Let Stuff Go. If you asserted that blogging runs exactly counter to that, I can’t say I’d disagree. But I also think there’s a lot of potential upside here, and I’m very grateful that Magda and I have progressed far enough to even have the chance to fail. All we have is a mutual desire to keep repairing our relationship (a crucial fixer-upper opportunity!) and to protect our kids’ dignity at all costs.
So you know that story about the blogger who linked to her ex-husband’s online dating profile and encouraged her readers to mock it mercilessly? Yeah, we’re not gonna do that.
Thanks for reading, and for your forbearance. And now, since I’ll be back in the tent again tonight, I have to go practice sleeping on my stomach.
