A Day in the Life of a Single Mother

• There will always be Cheerios hidden on the kitchen floor, dirty laundry in the hamper, and toys on the floor.  Always.  No matter how hard I try otherwise.
• I am always late.  No matter how early I wake up.  God has already given St. Peter at the gate notice that when I am called Home, he has time for a coffee break, because I will show up late.
• Silence and quiet are two things never in my house, at least not until both boys leave for college.  I have 17 more years to go, at which time I will probably have forgotten what silence and quiet are like and will go out of my mind attempting to make enough noise on my own to liven the house up a bit.
• A dinner is not always from a recipe, and sometimes not even from the oven.  In fact, suppers from a box or a McDonald’s happy meal does quantify dinner.  Gourmet suppers that take hours to prepare are a thing of the past.
• I never have enough time to get myself ready.  I just count my blessings that I manage to make it out of the house and remember to change from my slippers to actual shoes.  (As a side note, I actually got in the car one time still in my slippers.  Luckily, as I went to shift into reverse, I noticed and sped back in the house to change.)  My son is petrified I will show up at school unknowingly still in my pajamas.  I don’t promise him otherwise, as one day it might just happen.
• My house will never be clean.  Not completely.  Most days I have to dust the dust off of the Pledge before I can begin to clean.
• The days will always run together.  One evening I searched incessantly for a favorite television program.  Only after cursing the network for removing it did I realize that the TV show I was looking for is televised Monday nights.  Today was Friday, not Monday.  Somewhere I lost an entire weekend.
• On any given day, something is always missing, broken, or needing to be purchased. 
• I will always wake up exhausted, no matter how many hours of sleep I get.
• I will always second guess myself insofar as the decisions I make on my own that affect my boys and our future.
• ‘No’ is the most often used word in the English vocabulary, followed by stop and then sit.  At least in my vocabulary.
• Is single motherhood an Olympic sport?  It’s not?  It should be.
• I have resigned myself to never being able to go to the bathroom again in peace, and that I will not get a shower that is over five minutes for many years to come.
• Most men look at my life, smile, and keep going.  That’s okay.  It takes a strong person to wrap their arms around all the blessings I have.  I’m okay with waiting; my boys are too important to simply settle.
• Social life?  I’m sorry, what is that again?
• On any given day, my calendar and to do list have more items on them than the New York Stock exchange. 
• No matter how hard you try to explain it, people just can not visualize the life you lead and why walking around with dried baby milk on your shoulder just really isn’t a big deal, in the grand scheme of things.
• No matter how busy your day is, there is always room to dry tears, help with that really unbearable math problem, and tuck each little angel in at night.
• You will always forget something every time you leave the house.  As long as it’s not the children, it will be okay.
• ‘E’ doesn’t always mean empty on the gas tank.  Sometimes it stands for just ‘Enough’ gas to get the kids to school, drive through the bank to make a transfer, slide into the grocery to get more formula, before gently coasting to rest at the pump – with just enough room to get the nozzle in the tank.
• Although single motherhood was not my choice, I’ve come to embrace all that it offers.  What other life experience can cause you to grow in ways you never imagined and obtain strength when you thought yours was completely depleted?

The Uncommon Bond of Electricity, Coffee, and a Deep Freeze

This is what happens when you are a single mother and your daily things to do far outweigh the hours in the day…..

For several days now I have noticed a strange…..odor, shall we say…..throughout the house.  Having two cats, I made a mental note that I really needed to get upstairs to change their litter and completely clean out the boxes.  When I noticed the smell lingering in my bedroom last night, I began to think it may not be from the cats, but maybe a leftover from our old 18 year old pug who passed a month ago.  In the last weeks of his life he had uncontrollable issues with the eating and bathroom processes so natural to most of us.  Again, I made a mental note to clean my bedroom carpet, as I probably just did not thoroughly clean a prior area due to the overwhelming grief of losing our beloved dog.  I quickly put that painful memory aside and did not think again of the strange smell that seemed to randomly drift through the house.

This morning I was putting wash in the drier, and bent down to pick something off of the floor.  Noticing this ‘odor’ was slightly stronger in the laundry room, it made me pause.  The cat boxes are no where near my laundry room.  My bedroom is on the opposite side of the house.  Neither of my previous deductions would be the solution to the laundry room smell.  Being that the laundry room is more of a rectangle, and the washer and drier are right inside the door, I very rarely veer off to the left to the other side of the room. 

Early this morning making the veer to the left, I noticed the smell was more concentrated near the area by the deep freeze which sits behind the laundry room door.  It took me a moment to process.  I had not even finished one cup of coffee this morning, and was still not fully functioning.  I looked to the outlet – the plug on the deep freeze was dangling.  It took me a moment, but I did put two and two together, and sure enough it equaled four.  For at least a week if not longer, the food in the deep freeze has been left to its own devices.  Not thinking in my half comatose early morning state, I lifted the lid.  (Please let this be a warning to those of you with a deep freeze – should this ever happen to you – do NOT open the lid until you are ready with a mask and gloves to fully empty and clean out the remains.  And yes, I call them remains, because that is exactly what it smells like.)  Now my entire house smells like the inner most area of the rancid freezer. 

At this point I know you are probably calling me an idiot, and other not so nice terms, but may I please digress so you understand the cause of the useless opening of the dead freezer door.  I awakened earlier than normal this morning to find the electricity off for no apparent reason.  Even first thing in the early morning the full impact of this hit me – no coffee.  That is emergency status in my house.  If there was a code red for coffee issues, this would be a flaming hot red code.  Standing in the center of the kitchen I calmly assess the dire situation.  We have several routes to take.  The no coffee route.  I quickly move on, as this is certainly not an option, and I would rather eat coffee grounds than to even remotely wander down this path.  This thought leads me to thought number two; if I use the filter basket and run what’s left of the hot water from the tap through it I wonder if I would at least get muddy water that has any slight resemblance to coffee.  Not plausible, but better than eating grounds.  Thought three is a wonderment of what may be in the back of my pantry, and by chance is there instant coffee or cappuccino mix buried from years past that I could use with my dwindling hot water supply.  This is the option I am deciding upon, but I realize that the baby may have to forego a warm bottle in order to squeak mom out one cup of old, stale coffee from a mix.  In the grand scheme of things, I am okay with this.  The baby will still have his milk, albeit not warm, and I’ll still have semi-coffee.  It’s all about sacrifice, you know.

It is at this point that God knows what is coming next, and He must have decided not to torment me any further, as the electricity resumes its powered state.  Praise God!  The first thing I head to is the coffee pot – I am not going to take the chance that the powers that be in the electrical world will turn off the power again, leaving me in the dark.  I then immediately turn to the washer, as I have a full load to get in and decide to do so while the electricity is still cracking.  And, with this load of laundry, we come full circle back to where I digressed, and you may now begin to understand why I opened the lid in the first place.  I awakened early only to stand in the dark, and was threatened with the prospect of no coffee.  In my early morning haze, I decide to try and beat the clock while the electrical is back on – because really, who knows when it will decide to cease its magical power – and in my pre-coffee, early morning haze, I follow my reaction to open the freezer door to see if indeed this is where the smell is coming from.  Had I been more in my right mind, I would have never even cracked that lid.

I still can’t figure out how that plug got pulled, but in reality it does not matter now.  I pulled up my to do list on the computer, and added fix freezer and buy bleach to the list.  This is going to be a very, very long day….

Heart Rays

Life is a funny, bizarre journey.  The days can seemingly run into one another with the mundane, yet each moment is a spectacle all of its own.  If one is not careful, one will miss the complex intricacies of everyday living.  There are moments where we know we never want to look back; we never want to experience anything remotely similar ever again.  There are also the moments you want to freeze; to never forget.  You stop and gather in every sense, just to try and keep hold of something that you know is fleeting.  Yet no matter how hard one tries, life moves on – through the good, through the bad, through the spectacular, through the ordinary.  A life well lived contains a litany of emotions from the surreal to the painful.  Life is not life unless you experience the emotions; the undercurrents that sweep you away before you even realize you’ve left.  Embrace the current of life, my dear friend, and keep hold for the years move fast even when we are moving slow.  As time passes you will come to realize that the days gone by just may be the best days of your life.  Do not miss those little shining crystals of brilliance hidden among your path and concealed in your own heart and soul.  We each can shine like the sun if only given the chance.  Let your soul shimmer; the rays of the heart are a beautiful and unique spectacle meant to be shared.  Nurture the crystals you call your own, polish them until they glimmer in even the faintest of light.  For even in the darkest of moments your own brilliance can carry you through in order to find the lighted path ahead.  That is the delight of heart rays; they are present in our life to guide us through even when we may not be available for ourselves.  Capture your own heart and hold tight – it will guide your journey of life and will take you places you never envisioned you would go.  And, if you let it, it will shine like the sun never letting your path dim.

The Bubble

I have created a perfect, happy little bubble in which I call my own. 

I exist inside this atmosphere content yet all alone. 

If and when I wander outside its mighty walls, 

I tread carefully to and fro so as to not induce a fall.

I seem to wander aimlessly when sent out on my way,

For to leave the bubble is to face the crowd and all they have to say.

At times this crowd hollers angrily, and their words do surely pound

And others walk right past me - as if I am invisible - without even a sound.

To feel the judgment on my face, or the quiet words unspoken

Cause silent tears to fall upon my heart and more memories to become broken.

So I run back to my bubble,

At peace amidst my own rubble.

For here I know at least I am protected,

Even though I am completely unconnected.

Many may wonder why I use the bubble as an excuse –

Try the years and years of prior abuse.

Having broken free from the pain,

I am tired of always having to explain.

Let me learn to be my own foundation

And to come away from the stagnation.

This bubble is what I call my own;

I am so happy to be home.

Heart Particles

Sometimes our biggest fear is the fear of fear itself.  As a survivor, I can recall countless times that I did not do something because of the fear of the unknown.  Even though the past is completed and behind me, I still hold remnants of trigger points that can send me spiraling back to a previous moment in time.  To continue my journey in life is to continue on into the unknown, which can ultimately be the scariest thing – survivor or not.  I am a broken individual, but to some extent, aren’t we all?  Each of us holds pieces of our hearts that at one point or another have been smashed into nothing more than mere dust particles that could be swept away with even the gentlest of breezes.  We hold onto these heart particles tightly, envelope them deep within our souls, and do not want to let go in trepidation of what may happen if we do release our grip.  For to release our grip is in essence to let go of the control we all so desperately want. 

I am no different.  I grip and I grasp those buried, minute pieces of my heart until the breath is ostensibly sucked right away from me and I am left gasping for air.  The after affects can be monumental as I look around bright eyed at the authenticity of what is before me, which is nothing like the reality I once knew so well.  The truth of the current day is a stark and drastic difference to the life I left behind.  I struggle to identify myself as I am now, compared to the “I” I once was.  To be able to recognize and classify myself now, I must learn to let go of the particles of the heart that have been crushed beyond devastation.

Those tiny particles will always be a part of me, but the remarkable thing about dust is that it only builds up if you let it.  So, at least for today, I take a deep breath, and I blow.  I propel the heart particles that have accumulated throughout the years out as far as my breath can take them.  I watch as they drift and soar and disperse.  I exhale, and feel the gentlest breeze begin to float through my heart.  And I know the “I” that I have been looking for so long to return is finally beginning to reappear.

Hurricanes and Ocean Waves

It has been way too long since I have set aside time just for me - time to nourish my own soul so that I am able to support those around me.  Working from home, I have been so busy growing my business, keeping sales up, and figuring out why sales just dropped while still raising the kids, playing with the animals, and trying to maintain the house that it had all consumed me from dawn till dusk.  It had enveloped me to the point that I didn’t realize how much it had encompassed me, until I broke down a few days ago in a scrambling mess of insanity.  I woke up from this bad dream called life to realize my house though still standing was a mess – there was stuff – everywhere.  Even in the bathroom.  How did random stuff get in the bathroom? 

I came back to reality and it hit me just how exhausted I was, both physically and emotionally.  The past few months I had not even taken a reprieve in the shower; I would rush in only to emerge a quick few moments later.  The goal was to get clean in as short of a time as possible, so I could get back to whatever it was I was doing before I had gotten wet.  And the time I had spent in the shower (outside of using soap) was used to think about how I could grow my business, how I could get my oldest son more stability in the midst of the chaos he experiences at his father’s house, or a good solution to get the baby to stop screaming immediately every time he needed or wanted something.  Although I constantly tell my children to have patience, that I am only one person, I forgot to repeat that mantra to myself.  I was trying to be all things to all people in all situations, except the only problem was that I forgot about myself in all of it. 

The forgetting of self led to one late night where I literally stopped in the mass chaos of movement, looked at it all, thought about it all, dropped to my knees, and broke into tears.  The enormity of the situation and all I had to do completely overrode all I am and all I have to offer.  As the tears flowed freely, one of my cats carefully approached.  I grabbed that cat and hugged tight as tears dropped on to his back.  The poor thing was just dangling there – too afraid to move even though his back was drenched by this point.  Good for him, at least I taught him enough by this point for him to realize not to move in the midst of a crises.  After a few moments I let the cat go, not because I wanted to, but because I was getting tons of cat hair sticking to my tear stained face.  Even in a breakdown I did have some self respect.  Things probably looked bad enough without cat hair on the face.

As I began picking off the hair one by one, I knew something had to lighten up.  I just did not have the time to remove cat hair like that just because I had a breakdown.  Goodness, I had enough stuff to do that was actually important!  After the cat realized I had reached a plateau of being a bit more stabilized, he quickly (albeit calmly and quietly so as to not attract attention) slid into the other room.

Days later, I can now realize and point to the times during the past months when I should have stopped and taken a deep breath.  Even hurricanes have their down times in the ocean where they relax in order to pick up more speed to head back to land.  I am no different.  Just like a hurricane, I need time to step back and gain speed so I can conquer the land mass ahead of me.  Today is just as busy as last week, and there are still the same demands, but through my crises I did come to realize just how little time I was taking to recharge my own batteries.  The night I was crying on the poor cat I found my batteries to be dead.  No one – not even supermom – can function on a dying energy field.  So, just like a hurricane, the past few days I have found myself veering back out into the ocean to take some time to stop and gather energy from the waves around me.  Turning, I have headed back to land.  There are more land masses to conquer, and I need all the energy I can get!   

Secrets

"If we knew each other’s secrets, what comforts we would find."

An amazing quote from John Churton Collins, and utterly true. What we may think as private feelings or individual stories relative only to our own heart, are more than likely felt by someone else in close proximity to us, and they as well may also be keeping that same secret.