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“Shannon Lell is a writer and editor living in Seattle with her two children.”

I have a lot of baggage. How much do I unload on a first date?
By Shannon Lell, March 23

Per her article:
I keep a little notebook full of men’s names. I started it two years ago, not long after my then-husband was court-ordered out of our house. At the moment there are 48 names. Next to their names are pithy reminders of who they are, what we did on our first date and my first impressions of them.

Patrick: Dinner @ Pearl, married 18 years, wife cheated, two kids, jaded, but still believes in love.

Rich: Raised Mormon, recovering alcoholic, bitter but working on it. Humble.

Mike: Sweet guy, walked the marina listening to Elton John from a party boat, sad over losing a job he loved, doesn’t know what to do next. Studying to teach English in China. I hope he does.

Seventy percent of these dates didn’t make it past the first meeting. A handful of them, a little more than that. A tiny fraction, more than that. Only one was a serious relationship that lasted several months. Their contacts in my phone are like a digital graveyard, proof that we connected once but now just a memory.

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“Blogging Through Divorce” by SHANNON LELL

Shannon Lell spent 10 years in corporate America before being thrown from the ladder. She is now a writer and editor living near Seattle, Washington, with her two small children. About her blog, Lell says, “Introspection and over-thinking everything is my special super power. I believe that when we are our authentic selves, we give others the unspoken permission to be the same. In truth, there is freedom and that’s how I write about everything — including divorce.”

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The 50/50 Life Of Divorce by SHANNON LELL

As I gave my ID to the guy guarding the gate to the beer garden, I thought how lucky I was to be entering into that kid-free sanctuary. ......

Truth was, I was grateful to be there sans kids. I donned a pretty, delicate dress and fixed my hair and makeup to the point that I felt pretty. I wanted to carefully analyze the menus and shuffle through the screen-print t-shirts without someone demanding something of me halfway through each process, and then having to cut everything short because someone was tired or had to pee. Sitting inside that tranquil beer garden, where no one was shouting and running around, I commented to two friends how this event was so much better without children. Because I’d attended plenty of street festivals with children, and because I’m a mom, I was thinking about my children.

They were with their dad at some beach house in Oregon where they’ve regularly been the past year-and-a-half. I’ve never been there, I don’t even know who owns it or who was staying with them or even that they were going until they were already gone. When they are with their father, their life is foreign to me because their father would rather I not exist and so he pretends that I do not.

Just recently, we transitioned to a 50/50 parenting schedule. It is one designed for “high conflict” families which limits the interaction between parents to protect the children from ongoing hostilities. A plan ordered by a judge who listened to 4 days worth of the dissection of our 8-and-a-half-year marriage. With this new plan, every other week I don’t see my kids for 5 days…5 whole days. I barely get to talk to them, either. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail just to get two short phone calls during those 5 days, and normally, he only allows one.