Before I splatter my heart and soul all over this page, we need a gentle reminder.
This is MY space. I choose to be vulnerable and share it with your eyes and your judgments and your preconceived notions. I encourage genuine feedback, but please be overly confident if you choose to negate anything in my space. I may love you, but my tolerance level for pearl clutching and toxic positivism is in the negatives. The gloves are off.
For starters, I chose to read All the Ugly and Wonderful Things the week the kids’ dad got released from prison. It was a horrible, unconscious choice that wrecked me every single time I read a little more in the book. (Side note: It is INCREDIBLY written but not for the faint of heart… Probably one of my top books for 2025 so far…). Highly recommend. My timing was just off, which is literally an accurate description of my entire 44 years on this planet.
Anyway, the kids’ dad was released on March 28th. He’s served his time and is sober, so more power to him. He moved to Oklahoma with his girlfriend and is hoping for a new lease on life. He says the only responsibility he has is cleaning their pool. His life as a pool boy with no expenses seems to be thriving. He’s got four kids out here that have been raised by single moms who get nothing from him, but different strokes for different deadbeat folks, I suppose.
This leaves me with big feelings that took me by surprise. I honestly didn’t expect any feelings, but the fiery anger (and maybe resentment/disappointment/grief?) takes my breath away and spikes my blood pressure every time it crosses my mind. I’ve never expected life to be fair or just, but this takes the unjust nature of our time on this planet to a new, soul-crushing level. I’ve never had the opportunity to grieve the life I thought I’d have at 34 or 44, and that sucks. It leaves me feeling empty and alone. I went from losing a husband/ best friend/life partner to to being the single mom of a 1 and 2 year old quite literally in the same exasperated breath. I was in a relationship after my marriage that I hoped would last (if only because it was so vanilla and predictable), but in retrospect, only left Kannon with a “distant uncle” type relationship and me with a lot of wasted years on absolutely nothing. I am at the same place I was a decade ago, only now I have teenagers who expect perfection from their one present parent, and don’t miss a beat.
What is so wrong with me that I am alone, hamster-wheeling through life and raising these two? Logically, I know that is a ridiculous statement, but that’s what is screaming at the top of my distorted brain at 3 am when I can’t sleep. How does an ex-con who has shit on everything good he’s ever been handed walk out of prison to a life of ease and luxury, while I’m over here not paying the internet so I can pay the electric? I will process more as time goes on… or maybe I won’t… because I am so tired and irritated that I’ve already given so much of myself and my peace to this idiocy.
In addition to that, it has dawned on me 15 years too late that nothing I had with the kids’ dad was real. He is a shapeshifter and will contort to fit whatever his current meal ticket finds suiting. He did it for me until he couldn’t. He hit a ceiling and just wore himself out pretending to be someone he wasn’t. His current situation may last, just because he’s too tired, sick and felonious to start again. Another personally startling realization is this: I’ve never been in love and I have never been emotionally safe in any romantic relationship I’ve cultivated. It’s interesting that I saw potential where there was none and jumped in with both feet every. single. time. Therapy has shed light on that, but understanding the why of things doesn’t alleviate or change anything. Maybe Mr. Right will enter the scene someday. Maybe I’m just tired and don’t have the energy or faith to find out. We shall see, I guess. I’ve poured so much of my magical self into the shittiest humans on Earth, and that’s nauseating to reconcile…
Well, I better get off of here. I have to grab Kannon from school and take him to the dentist, then pick up my car from the body shop in Victoria, then come back to work and finish up some expense reports and time sheets, then grab the kids from school, get Anaiah to her lash appointment, then figure out dinner, then pay the mortgage (which is two months behind), the electric bill, the internet, the disposal invoice (possibly three months behind), pack our stuff for Anaiah’s district track meet tomorrow, wash her jersey, make breakfast for the kids for tomorrow, and text Kannon’s coach to make sure he has a ride home from school tomorrow… since I will be at Anaiah’s district track meet. I get that I am blessed because I get ALL of my kids ALL the time. I would not like splitting time with anyone else and trusting anyone else to care for them. This is not a celebratory post for single parenthood. It is okay to honestly lament the painful, heavy, life-altering seasons of life. It is normal and human to feel awful and sad and all the things we hide in closets and sweep under bulging rugs. It is important to sit with those feelings and give them the space they demand, then trudge directly through them to the other side. Writing helps me do that, and I am promising myself that I will make it more of a priority as I continue through this startling era of existence.
Pretty Colors Unabridged 