Single-Single Moms

There are two different kinds of single mothers. There are single mothers who have 2 weekends a month to themselves, and then there are single mothers who are 24/7/365. I happen to fall into the latter group.

I don’t want to sound righteous, but I don’t find that I have a lot in common with the first group of single mothers. I actually haven’t found very many local single mothers that I have anything in common with at all (with the exception of the obvious quality of being unmarried, uncoupled, etc.) The single moms I meet at the park pretty much bitch about their exes and how they’re late to pick up the kids on Friday evenings. One mom asked me, “Does yours show up late all the time?” And I replied, pretty much without thinking, “I’ll say. He still hasn’t shown up to meet her at the hospital.” The look of shock and awe usually tells me that they’ve realized that they aren’t really a single-single mom. 

I am NOT knocking single mothers whose exes are involved. I realize they have their own set of issues in having to deal with the baby-daddies, and that I have (so far) been spared from that. I just get tired of hearing the single moms I am exposed to complain all the time. If they’re not complaining about their exes being late, it’s about child support, or their ex in-laws. Come on, people! You could have it much worse! So you have to deal with the ex? Well, guess what? At least he’s there to complain about!

Okay, enough of my rant. All I’m saying is, I can’t be friends with a lot of the single moms I meet. Part of it is that I don’t have time for friends, so I’m certainly not going to waste my time with someone who is already making me regret starting a conversation. I would love to find another single mom in my situation. I know they exist, but I still haven’t found one. I am the only single-single mother that I know. Maybe I should start a support group. Oh right, I don’t have time….Hmm…I’m starting to realize why I haven’t met any other single-single moms…

Taking in Stray Cats

The day after Bobby met me (which was almost five years ago now), he woke up and came downstairs smiling, and his mom asked him why he was in such a good mood. He explained that he'd met someone, and when his mom asked where I came from, he said "Heaven." It sounds cheesy, and it is, but over the next few months, he made me feel like I was IN heaven too. He was the kind of person I didn't have to explain anything to. Without speaking, we could look at each other and we both knew what the other was thinking. It was eerie, and fun, and I had the time of my life. We dated off and on for that year, but life kept getting in the way, and I wasn't okay with being sidelined while he attended to his job, son, family, friends, etc. I was selfish, and in the end, I walked away.

Life went on for the next year and a half, and then out of nowhere, we reconnected. At first, he seemed like the same person. But slowly, little details started coming out, like "oh, I'm not sober anymore. I decided I can be a 'social drinker' now." If only that were the worst of what was going on. I came to find out that in the year and a half since we dated, he'd relapsed, been arrested, wasn't talking to his family, and many of his friends would no longer associate with him. I confronted him, and he SWORE to me that he was ready to get clean, and that I was his inspiration. He was going to do it for me. I was going to save him.

--- Let me pause. I think every woman, somewhere in her, has that need to save someone. Mine just happens to be stronger than others. I've been told that I tend to "take in stray cats" ---

Okay, back to the story. He did, in fact, get clean. I also managed to reconnect him with his family and friends. I can't tell you how many people told me that the only reason they were convinced he would stay clean was because of me. One of his friends even told me that the only reason he was even talking to Bobby again was because I was back in his life. Life was good....for a while...then came the dark days. I won't go down this road again, because, let's face it: we've already gone down it, so I'll just skip to the moral of the story.

I allowed myself to think that I could be wholly responsible for saving someone. It was exciting, and I felt special. But have you ever heard the saying "you can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved?" As much as I thought (and wished, and hoped, and prayed) that I could save him, he sabotaged every effort that I put forward. I saved him, and saved him, and saved him, until I didn't have any energy left. I finally realized that the only way I could possibly save him was to walk away. I obviously wasn't doing any good to either of us by my "rescuing" efforts, and, in fact, I was doing great damage to myself. He needed to make the decision to save himself, and I figured he would learn that much quicker without me there saving him all the time. Now he's getting better, and he's doing it because HE wants to. I'm a much healthier person, because I learned that putting my self worth in my ability to "save" someone else is like thinking I can control the weather. For all the terrible things that happened, two really good things happened : 1: Emma (obviously), and 2: I feel like I am a much healthier and happier person because I've realized that, in the end, what I really needed to learn was how to save MYSELF.

Moving Up, Moving Out, Moving On...

All my life, I've been moving. My friends used to joke that I was a gypsy because I moved apartments at least once a year. My parents used to joke that I would end up an interior designer because I was constantly moving the furniture in my room. Even in relationships, I was constantly moving from one person to another. In the past year or so, I have done more moving than even I'm used to. I moved UP to a new position in life: a mommy. I stress the word "up", because it is a step up in life. Anyone who has kids knows exactly what I mean. I moved OUT of the state I'd called home for 16 years; the state I'd come to love after leaving my hometown; the state where my life had taken so many turns and starts and stops. I've moved up, I've moved out, so why is it that I can't seem to move ON?

It's not that I haven't moved on a little...because I definitely have. Moving on seems to be a back and forth process: some days I think I've done it, and other days I realize that I haven't. And there are days like today where emotions are running high for no apparent reason, and I feel like I will never be able to move on. It's nothing I can pinpoint, just a feeling that I get sometimes.

What keeps popping into my head is that I WANT AN APOLOGY. I know it seems petty, and that I should be able to move on without one, but now that he's been sober for almost half a year, I feel like I deserve one. You see, the person that abandoned me and our child is not the same person that proposed to me. They are two different people, and I want an apology from the man who proposed to me. An apology from the BOY who abandoned us would mean nothing. So what do I do? Sit around a wait for one? This is not one of those blogs where I have an answer. It's unanswerable. I may never get an apology, but I don't think I'll ever stop waiting for one. I'll just have to figure out how to move on without one.

Mimics

When you've lived your entire adult life as a single woman (I mean that in terms of never being married, not never being in a relationship), you have adapted to a certain way of life. Once you have a baby, single or not, you have to adapt again. And again. And again. And again. The thing that I've noticed, especially lately, is that she is ALWAYS watching me. Even if I'm doing something mundane like picking up her blocks for the nine thousandth time that day, she finds it incredibly interesting.

A few days ago, I let her sit on the counter while I was getting ready for work, and she studied my every movement like she was going to be tested on it. Amazingly, I watched as she picked up the toothbrush, held it to her mouth, made little "shh shh shh" sounds, and then put it down. Next, she picked up the hairbrush, lifted it over her head, and proceeded to brush her hair. Finally, she has decided that she's finished, turns on the water in the sink, and starts washing her hands. She kindly (I say that sarcastically) grunts that she would like to get down, so I let her down, and she walks into the bedroom. She picks up the deodorant sitting on the chair, and looks at it. She finally decides that it definitely gets put on your butt and swipes it (top still on) across her butt.

It's at this moment I realize that she has just followed my morning routine to a tee (aside from the deodorant butt swipe). Suddenly, there are flashes in my head of inappropriate things I've said, or possibly unkind gestures I've made in front of her. I think about all the unruly, cursing kids I see at the park, and fear sets in - has she already memorized all those not-so-nice things I've done in front of her? As I'm worrying that I've turned her into Satan himself, she walks over, picks up her baby doll, and hugs it, complete with side-to-side motion and gives it a kiss. It's then I realize that she's just fine. She's a sweet, loving kid with a great personality. She's always going to mimic me, so I'm just going to have to keep adjusting to make sure that I provide her clear examples of how to be a good person. After all, isn't that in the job description?