How a 3-Year-Old Spy Taught Me About Love Connections

Or...Window climbing not endorsed on recommended

I watched my new boyfriend climb out a living room window in the dark, carrying my 4-year-old daughter, but I knew everything would be okay.

At the time, my entire life felt fragile. Have you seen Harry Potter and the Cursed Child? There's this ultra-cool special effect where the kids turn the timer, and the entire set and stage shimmer like they're about to disappear. That's what my life felt like back then.

Mark was only my boyfriend then (although the term boyfriend always felt like a silly moniker for a 44-year-old). He lived a four-hour drive away in Virginia, and we lived in New Jersey. Most of our "courting" time together happened during child-free weekends or when he'd drive up to stay with us on weekends when Emily wasn't with her Dad. Emily and I were navigating what it meant to let another person into our carefully constructed world of two. I was walking that tightrope every single parent knows, wanting love and companionship for myself while protecting the person who mattered most.

The weekend before had been a big deal. Mark's brother and his wife were visiting from Scotland, and he had invited Emily and me to drive down and spend time with his family (a big deal!). We'd had a gorgeous time, hanging out in his old farmhouse and visiting restaurants (a treat for Emily). But the highlight had been a trip to tour the spy museum in DC. After crawling through tunnels, dodging lasers, and learning about coded messages, Emily had become completely enchanted with the idea of being a spy. It even changed her career plans. Now, she insisted, she would be a ballerina during the week (Her long-claimed, but ill-fitting job aspiration. She had the grace of an elephant), but on the weekends, she would be a spy. Mark's brother bought her a spy kit, complete with glasses with tiny mirrors so she could see behind her and be ready for "when the bad guys are coming." She wore those glasses everywhere.

On this particular weekend, Mark was helping me clear out the basement, which had flooded despite the French drains I had installed at great expense. We'd spotted a Goodwill donation bin in a parking lot about a 10-minute drive away, and Mark had an idea. He told Emily he needed her help on a "mission." The goal was to donate these old clothes without being detected by the "bad guys" or "the fuzz" who might try to stop them. Emily's eyes went wide. This was exactly the kind of adventure she'd been training for.

They'd planned all day. Marking out their route, memorizing their instructions. Mark's job was to drive and make "the drop." Emily's job was to be "the lookout" (If only she had known at the time how many times in her future she'd get dragged into this role!) When the time was right, Mark opened the living room window and announced they needed to climb out in secret, in the dark, to avoid detection. Emily had never been allowed out after dark, and she'd certainly never be allowed to climb through a window. Suddenly, this wasn't just playing pretend; it was a real adventure.

I watched from inside as they crept ninja-like across the front yard to the car Mark had parked in preparation at the foot of the driveway. Emily held her oversized spy glasses onto her face while whispering updates about potential threats around them ("Watch out for that neighbour, Mark. He was the one who didn't like my rabbit cage.") When the two of them returned, breathless and victorious from their mission, Emily was glowing. I made them hot chocolate while they debriefed their successful operation.

That's when I felt the relief flooding through me like warm water. Not because they'd completed some elaborate bonding exercise, but because they hadn't needed one. And even better, they hadn't needed me to interfere. In fact, as the hovering, over-protective mother, I would have ruined everything.

This is the magic of meeting someone exactly where they are. Mark didn't try to force himself into the role of father or role model. He didn't sit Emily down for serious talks about accepting him or lecture her about respect (although he probably did that when she was a teenager, by then he'd earned the right). He met her exactly where she was: a 4-year-old who wanted to be a spy. He became her playmate, not her parent.

And Emily didn't have to perform being "good" for a new adult or pretend to be anyone other than who she was. She got to be exactly herself, her imaginative, adventurous self, who was completely committed to her spy fantasy.

I didn't need to intervene or orchestrate because they both instinctively understood something I was still learning: love isn't about forcing people into your existing world, but about being willing to climb through windows into theirs. Love is about expanding the outlines of your existing story so that there's room for new characters and secondary storylines.

We carry so much guilt around blended families, don't we? This narrative that bringing someone new into our children's lives is inherently selfish, that we're asking them to make room for our happiness at their expense. But watching Mark and Emily that night, I breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, I was asking a lot of Emily and Mark, but I was also giving them the incredible gift of each other. A gift that still keeps on giving, even twenty-something years later.

Sometimes the most generous thing we can do is find people who don't need us to be different from who we are. People who see a 4-year-old's spy game and think, "Yes, I can work with this." People who meet us in our mess, our fantasy, our exactly-as-we-are-ness. We especially need this in midlife. We need old and new friends who can climb into our world without needing us to be anyone other than who we are.

How often do we try to assign roles to ourselves right from the beginning of meeting someone, instead of discovering what naturally emerges? How often do we ask, "What should I be to this person?" instead of "What are they actually offering? What are they actually needing?"

Mark could have been the responsible adult (Although knowing what I know now, that would have been highly unlikely). But he could have suggested a more practical way to get to Goodwill. Emily could have been shy or resistant to this new person in her and her Mummy's private space. But instead, they found each other in that space between expectation and possibility. They sowed the seeds for a future relationship on their own terms. A relationship where Mark slowly merged from a playmate, into a problem solver, into the only one she turned to when she needed someone to "fix it."

The deepest connections happen when we stop trying to be what we think someone needs and start being who we actually are. When we're willing to climb through windows into someone else's world, not to change it, but to see what magic might happen there.

And if you're lucky, you’ll find someone who sees you clearly... even without the rearview mirrors on their glasses.

JOURNAL PROMPT

Think of a time when someone met you exactly where you were. What did it feel like to be seen and joined rather than fixed or changed? Now flip it: When have you been willing to climb through someone else's window? What magic might happen when you choose their world over your comfort zone?

P.S. You’ve noticed the new branding, right? Let me know what you think.

If you like this post, please like, comment, or share it with others who might be stuck in a midlife rut.