Let’s chat, shall we?

So let’s talk about being a single parent. It’s not easy and often you feel like the backup in your life is lacking.

I see a lot of blogs about being a single mom, and I totally appreciate their style. BUT, I find for me, they aren’t suited for my particular trials. I see a lot of working women blogs and for me, I feel that those are aimed at more professional women which I am not. Don’t get me wrong, I work 40 hours a week at my job and I love it, but it’s not a career to me right now. I’m just trying to get out of the financial mess I’m in. I love my job, but it’s not what I ultimately want to do.

So let’s talk about what it is I would love to see. I want to see a blog about someone going through the struggle, not someone who has already made it through the other side. I really love to read those stories and they do give me hope, but sometimes I need to see someone going through the exact thing I’m going through when I’m going through it. I want to be able to connect with those emotions and be able to agree that what they’re feeling, is exactly what I am going through. So, because I couldn’t find a blog like that, I decided to make one.

So let me introduce myself. My name is Amanda and I’m a pretty newly single mama. I am only about five months divorced and making my way through the second year of being a single mama. My first year of being a single mom, was riddled with chaos and one disaster and emergency after another. I had no clue as to what I was doing, and I needed emotional support like no other. I was so stressed, I hardly cried which is really unusual for me, not like I’m a huge crier, but being stressed usually brings it out. And there I was, hardly shedding a tear because I couldn’t even register what I was going through at any moment. I just felt like I was on one of those horribly funny (though believe me, it wasn’t funny at the time) Japanese game shows where I kept getting hit just as I was getting back up.

I honestly, don’t know how I made it through, except by God’s grace and a few people taking me under their wing when they could and offering me a hand when I needed it most.

I am so thankful for what I have learned, now. At first I wasn’t thankful, I was angry, I was hurt, I was devastated. But I made it through the first year, and now I want to share my journey and have you follow along as I make it through this huge learning curve of being a single mom. I hope together we can find the strength to climb those mountains that are bound to be in our path.

It’s going to be a very unexpected journey, to quote Tolkien, but aren’t those the best in the end?

In addition to single mom life, I will be talking about weight loss ( I need to lose it), crafts, food, cooking for two (when one of you is the pickiest eater ever), creative projects and many more things!

Thank you for joining me in my journey, I’m glad you could come along.

The Past is a Present

I don’t really want to dwell on the past much longer, but part of my healing process is to look back, assess what happened and try to learn from it. It’s really not easy because I don’t know many people who like to admit their faults, or take responsibility for their actions and responses to other’s actions. But here I am, looking back, without emotion at what the last few years have taught me.

The other day, I really was able to do some serious self-reflection and it was painful. It reminded me that my biggest fear is not making a difference in the world, along with a few other more private fears.

You see, for me, my whole self-worth has been wrapped up in those ideals. They still are. I don’t know how to break free, but acknowledging that those are my biggest fears allowed me to ascertain my mistakes in the past in order to hopefully never repeat them.

I know I will move past these insecurities and fears some day, and every day I work harder to make myself better and someone who I want to be proud of.

In the meantime, I’m working on making mine and my son’s life better. I wake up every day trying to make sure I’m not falling into a comfort zone, and trying to do more than I did the previous day. I fail about 50% of the time, but those are my goals.

I’m still not 100% healed from the recent past, but I can look back on it with less emotion, except in a few cases. There are some things that still feel like a knife in my heart. I’m getting there though. But there are more and more days where the sunshine peek through and I realize I’m close to fully healing.

What truths are you afraid to confront? Are there things that you’ve wrapped your self-worth up in that aren’t serving you? It’s easy to do as a human. Practice being honest with yourself. Allow yourself to feel the hurt. The healing process isn’t painless by any means.

 

 

Getting it out of our system.

The last two weeks of December have been a trial, on top of what was already an Everest of a year. I was so bummed that I missed so much work due to my health problems and my son catching a bad virus. I was so excited to end the year strong. No more worries for the rest of the year, because there’s only a few more weeks, right? Wrong. God is always reminding me that life isn’t a series of obstacles and then things get better, but rather it’s taking one step at a time on an uphill climb. Sometimes things even out for a while, but there’s always an obstacle ahead. Getting to heaven is akin to reaching the summit. My heavenly Father and my earthly father both have taught me a lot about hiking and I think hiking is just so much like life.

I think it’s so hard though as humans to expect obstacles, especially in this society. We have it almost ingrained in our heads that things will be better after we pay off our bills, or after we lose weight, etc… And to an extent I believe that’s true. But we also need to remember that obstacles are part of life and if we can expect them, prepare for them, we can train ourselves to be happy in the present rather than always looking at the future.

So my son and I got it out of our systems for the end of the year, of course, next year is only hours away and there’s a whole host of things to encounter. Will next year be better? Most certainly yes. Because I am preparing myself. Not scaring myself, but being better aware of things that could go wrong. I purchased myself a planner, I’ve made a list of 3 big goals to conquer this year. I am determined to not be a victim of my circumstances as much as I was last year.

I’m getting it out of my system.

This goes out to all those single parents.

It’s been almost exactly nine months since my husband left me.

I have become so sick of seeing feel better posts about being a single mother, and so tired of hearing about how it’s going to get better. Right now I feel sometimes that I can’t see the forest for the trees.

It’s been nine months of fumbling a play. Nine months of not knowing where my head was at. Nine months of having to excuse my spaciness on my situation. There are almost no blogs, no writers and no one who wants to talk about how dirty it is being separated and becoming a single mom(or parent) . How messy it can be in the beginning when you have the rug ripped out from under you. But I think it’s super important to address those moments.

The moments when you have no clue what your next step is. The moments where you get so desperate for breathing room to just think for second that you almost contemplate begging him to come back. But you’re too proud. No one’s helping you and you don’t want anyone to know you’re weak, so you bite your tongue, hold your breath, wipe the sweat off your palms and hang on for dear life. You pray to keep hope alive, but you’re slowly losing your faith. You try to stay strong for your child but find yourself over compensating in so many ways. You just want lose it but keep it together all at the same time.

Most people might have taken some time off immediately, I didn’t. Not because I didn’t want to but because I was left dangling over a financial EOD. I had no money, he quit his job and we already had collectors knocking on our proverbial door. I couldn’t catch a break, and I was more mad over being left to take care of it, like usual, than being left.

Add to all of that my poor sons emotional damage and having no comprehension of what was happening and I was on the verge of losing it any minute.

Pure grit is how I survived those first few months. I barely remember them. I remember the feeling of struggle. But it all blurred together so much, I couldn’t tell you much about what was happening.

I don’t know how it feels now to be honest. I’m more numb. I know a little bit more about how I need to get it together to actually move forward instead of just survive now. But I’m still so numb, and worn down, I don’t know how to accomplish what I need to. I’m trying to figure it out. I really am. But I need to rest a bit first. Recover some of the strength and emotional stability I need for my next move.

If you’re going through a recent separation and need to talk, please talk to me. I know what it’s like to search online for someone, anyone who has an inkling of what you’re going through and isn’t trying to shove some sappy inspirational quote down your throat. Sometimes you need to hear that yes, it does suck, it sucks so bad to be put in that situation. I’m here for you.

Starting over

Sometimes life throws us curve-balls and we struggle to catch them, fumble and end up losing the game. This has been my life since January. It’s been a bumpy ride, with many things coming out of left field. I felt for a while like I was just getting tossed around in the waves of everything in life happening that I for sure never planned. This isn’t how my life was supposed to turn out. Nothing is going right.

But that’s okay. I’m learning about myself and learning more about other people.

My husband left me in January and it felt like it came out of left field. I really thought we were doing alright, and although things weren’t perfect by any means, it didn’t mean that I was ready to call it quits. But lately, like I said, nothing is working like it was supposed to.

I’m learning to be okay with everything, well as much as one can be. I’m learning that I am a stronger person than I thought, but not nearly as strong as I want or need to be. I’m learning to toughen up, stand up for myself when I need to or when know I haven’t done anything wrong and also trying to keep the sensitive side of me alive too. I refuse to be so hardened by the world that I become de-sensitized to others.

So today, I start over on here.  I am going to just use this forum as a brain dump mostly. I want to try to share my struggles as well as my triumphs. Being a fairly new single mama is tough, but it’s not impossible. I welcome any and all feedback as well, suggestions and comments.