Single Mom | Single Mom Blog | Ms. Single Mama » Mia’s Story

My Comfort Zone

mssinglemama — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:54:50 +0000

Here’s the latest from Mia. If you missed the beginning of her story catch up here.

But first, Mia needs a huge favor from you.

Mia and Leigh (remember my friend from a few posts ago) both have a panel up for vote at SXSW Interactive – the most respected interactive conference in the Universe. Winning this panel vote would have a huge hand in propelling Mia’s career into the stratosphere of greatness she so deserves.

Help her get there. It will just take a few minutes. Go here. And vote. Please. Let’s show all of the Interactive geeks what an army of single moms can do.

Now back to Mia…

outside of being a busy mama and career maven, she’s been dating. And having a lot of fun but now that the adrenaline is wearing off she’s doing a lot introspection about her pattern – her comfort zone.

My Comfort Zone (may be a speed zone)

By Mia

“Your first step is figuring out what you want, what will make you happy a year from now. Your second step… just worry about that later.” — Wise words from my best friend.

If the worst problem I have is that everything in my life seems to be changing — is that really a problem? This is the question I asked myself the other night while complaining to one of my closest friends. The advice she gave is above. And it’s brilliant.

I’ll be honest, I am confused. I am slightly overwhelmed, but only at times. Otherwise, I’m happy. Aspects of my life are changing everywhere I look. Some friends who are having, just had, or thinking about children are the ones I could selfishly call before at any time for a quick glass of wine; maybe my job; most likely my schedule with Sydney – or so her dad has been saying for months now. All of these changes, even the good ones, are scary. The only thing not changing is my “pattern”. You know, the relationship “pattern” that all of your friends know you have but you love to deny? Yeah. Well I have one. I don’t fully understand it, but I know its there.

My name is Mia, and I have a pattern. I call it (lovingly) “my comfort zone”. But it has recently been pointed out to me it is more like a speed zone.

I go from 0-60 in about three dates. Although, not in the traditional way. I have never been the type to fall head over heels and ditch her girlfriends, or wait on the edge of my seat for a phone call, or (god forbid) cyber stalk or do drive by’s. It happens totally different for me. It starts with one, honest, good conversation. I have a knack in that department. I can make someone feel as if they are the only person in the world. I’m a good listener, a bad small talker, and I love deep conversation. Getting to the root of someone (AKA 60 mph) very quickly is my passion. I love this about me for a lot of reasons but when it comes to new relationships, the verdict of whether it is a good quality or not is still out. Note: I have not dated a tremendous amount since becoming a single mom, but I am noticing this pattern resurfacing from even before my ex and I got together and I have a sneaking suspicion it is something I should acknowledge. Even change.

What’s the problem you ask? The outcome? A relationship that should be at a school zone pace is highway cruising before I have even decided if the car is is right for me! I like relationships of all kinds. I am an includer. And I tend to put the real me out there pretty fearlessly (wearing messy buns in my hair, revealing inside jokes, and laughing about quirky shortcomings pretty soon out the gate.) Apparently, a lot of guys like this. (Or at least the ones I initially go for…)

So, what happened to being courted? I’m not even sure I know what that means. Shouldn’t I be comfortable with the guy that doesn’t divulge himself to me completely right off the bat? Maybe he doesn’t drop his plans to be with me whenever my schedule allows. Is that alright? Maybe the first few weeks we don’t have long, late night conversations on the phone, or even childish flirtatious texting all day. Is that bad?? I have no idea. It is possible I could be dismissing the school zone guy, even if I am pretty sure I would be barreling along, hair blowing in the wind, in the wrong direction with the highway man – Far away from where I want to be in a year.

I spent a long time, most of my 20′s in fact, with a man who wasn’t deep. At all. In fact, deep conversation was rare. But I remember our connection was something else back then. It was speed zone pace as well, in it’s own way. It was my pattern. And in this case I think it was there, leading me to loving him, so we could make our daughter. So it was worth it. I haven’t felt much of a connection to anyone since I started dating again. Until recently I wasn’t sure if I could or wanted to. Now I am afraid it is all for the wrong reasons. As comfortable as those reasons are to me.

So, the advise I received from my friend– “Your first step is figuring out what you want, what will make you happy a year from now. Your second step… just worry about that later.” — is becoming my mantra. I plan on finding out what and where I want to be and letting the rest fit in how it may.

Wish me luck!

——-

And P.S.

(It’s Alaina again) if you feel that her post screams a need for reading Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough you’d be correct. I lent her my copy months ago but she won’t read it. It’s the title, it’s a misleading controversial title but it’s such an amazing book.

Don’t forget to vote for Mia’s panel, too.

A note from the war zone:

Mia’s Story Part III

mssinglemama — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:15:00 +0000

Mia just got back from a weekend trip with her friends to New Mexico.

She booked the tickets on a whim just weeks after finding out her boyfriend of six years and the father of her daughter would be leaving them for another woman.

“I just bought the tickets, just because… I have no idea why. I just have to get out of here,” she told me on the phone. It made complete sense. When a crisis like this hits sometimes you have to break out the credit card and jump on a plane.

At that point she was still in her manic state, on the brink of a break down – it seemed – at any moment. Lately she sounds more and more like herself… not completely healed by any stretch, not at all but Mia is finding her balance again and it’s an incredible thing to witness.

And here’s another piece of her story…

Facebook, girlfriends, and The Other Woman
(just when I thought she was gone)

By Mia

Now that I have some time on my hands I was finally convinced to join Facebook.

“A way to reconnect”…” to get to know people you had forgotten about”… none of this sounded appealing to me at all. But I joined anyway (side note: I kind of like it now, shhhh.) On my quest to find pictures for my Facebook account I started digging through old pictures on my work computer.

And there it was. Full screen and staring at me. A photo of The Other Woman and my ex’s mother.

The picture had been taken at his mother’s surprise 50th birthday party that I threw for her at my ex’s bar. The Other Woman (though not at the time) was our waitress that night. My ex’s mom had sent a bunch of pictures from the evening last April but I had forgotten about this one.

This kind of reminder is the worst – it is the kind that seems to grow arms, clench its fists, and punch you right in the face. Leaving me breathless and small, I had hoped no one was in my office to witness the assault. After a not so brief anxiety attack and a flare of anger I stared at it longer. It felt like hours that I looked at it- studying her smile, her eyes, trying to see her the way he does, and trying to find the good in this young girl who has no idea the part she has played in the transformation of my life. But all I saw was a picture, not a person.

And then I thought of me at 24 (her age now, I think). I thought about the decisions I was forced with – to have a baby or an abortion, to commit to him or to run away. And then I thought about my girlfriends and the role they played in supporting me in those decisions.

My girlfriends.

Through it all they have been there for me.

They have been my atlas, holding me up when I needed their strength and distracting me with wine and humor when I needed a temporary escape. I have made a conscious decision to surround myself with women I admire and trust as often as humanly possible.

Last weekend we all took off for a last minute three day trip to Santa Fe. Six girls total, from three different states. We spent the weekend getting spa treatments and shopping the galleries – a trip I needed so much but truly couldn’t afford. But every moment was worth it.

My favorite moments of the weekend were the couple of hours spent after the days activities and before the nights out would begin. All of us in our “comfy” clothes piled in one bed drinking wine, talking, and laughing. Every one of us offering something unique – logic, advice, humor or sarcasm. It spills out of us and settles like a cloud over the group making it feel like we are one complete and complex entity of womanhood. Of friendship.

I came back to my office this week and I opened up that picture again.But this time I looked at her and thought myself to be so lucky. I knew I was not looking at a girl who had the strength of quality friends behind her like I do. I knew this because no matter how weak I have felt I have had my girlfriends to remind me of who I am at my core. And I am not a woman capable of doing what she has done.

I pity her for being with a man that doesn’t have a strong, loyal group of friends either and I worry for him because now that I am gone he may miss the strength of my friends that I shared with him… even if he never noticed or appreciated it.

Now that I am back, it is time for some more cleaning… starting with my computer of course.

If you missed the beginning of Mia’s Story (catch up here):

Joining the Club - In which I find out that my best friend is about to become a single mother.
A Letter to the Other Woman – Mia’s awesome letter to her ex’s other woman which has made ripples through the blogosphere.
Mia’s Story Part 1
Mia’s Story Part 2

Mia’s Story, Part II

mssinglemama — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:49:54 +0000

I’m making all of the last minute preparations for my weekend trip! Mia is watching Benjamin (wish her luck). I know they’ll have a ball though. Benjamin absolutely adores Mia and Sydney. And who wouldn’t? As you’ll read in a second, Mia is fast discovering that fact.

I’ll have an update when I get back… in the meantime, please go vote for Matt Logelin in the 2009 Bloggies. He’s up for Best Topical Blog.

For my new readers:

My best friend Mia recently found out that her boyfriend of 6 years and the father of her daughter is leaving, the catalyst is an affair with another woman. Here’s Part II of her story.

Discovering Me

By Mia

So now that I am feeling better about what has happened to my relationship I seem to be strangely aware.

I am realizing that things are changing, along with the rise of my spirit.

Like roaches, I will notice things in the house that belong to him – shaving cream still in the shower, or his ugly computer chair. And before I know it his things seems to be scattered everywhere I look. A random sock in the dryer, his whiskers in the bottom of the drawer on “his” side of the bathroom. It’s like they come out at night and dirty up my clean floors and clutter my counter tops.

I think I have become an exterminator.

Everyday I pitch something or add it to the pile that will be packed, unnoticed by Sydney, into her “daddy bag” when she goes for her two days there (because even though he claims he shouldn’t have to pay me child support because he “buys her clothes too” I always send several outfits with her.)

I am not just spraying for his germs around the house though.

I am hoping to kill off the leftovers on me as well. I repeat, like a mantra in my head, my goal to be his friend so that we can parent to the best of our ability. Although, I have lessened the pressure to do so now – I realize it may take both of us time to heal and pushing it was only making it harder. Especially since he seems to have figured out, over the last four weeks since he moved, exactly how to articulate why it was he couldn’t stay with me – I am controlling he says (something I have never heard him say in over 6 years).

I think he is right.

I think I learned/was forced into a parental role with him. A controlling role. One I resented daily. I became his sounding board for everything in his life. He needed constant approval and reassurance. Always selling his ideas to me with conviction but no confidence. It is a full time job to be a parent to a child. Parenting an adult? Slave labor. So much energy put into him. And the left over? He put into his downtime.

I had lunch with an old friend today (a male, so I know this is not a gender thing) and I realized that the 10 or 15 minutes I talked to him about my job was more than I had discussed my work with my ex in probably two years! In fact, I think this person may understand what I do for a living better than my partner of 6 years did. Because he listened. And I felt listened to – a foreign feeling to me.

How could this be? How could I have not given myself enough credit to know I am more interesting than that?? Instead, I would ask him to ask me about my day. Or even remind him several times where I was when I went out of town for work to avoid the hurt I had felt in the past when he had forgotten. I also forced myself to forget that when we first met I had traveled the world for 6 months and when I asked him to look at my pictures he told me they were from my trip so they didn’t have anything to do with him. (Eventually he looked at some of them, expressing little to no interest about my life prior to him.)

So, he is right.

I made the classic mistake. The one I warn my girlfriends about. I hoped he would change- although I called it “growing up”. But he didn’t – and how could he with me in control? I handled all the tedious things in life, like insurance and dental appointments. I even made all of the travel arrangements for trips I wasn’t invited to go on with him.

So I get it. He wants to take control back. And by leaving me for her that is the ultimate control. My hope is that this decision, however painful for me, helps him to grow up. To take control and turn into a great man. I want Sydney to look at her daddy with admiration.

As for now, it’s spring cleaning time.

Pretty soon when I turn on the lights there will be nothing left to scatter. I will take a deep breath and know that I am in control of exactly who I should be — ME.

»Read Part 1 of Mia’s Story Here

Mia’s Story, Part I

mssinglemama — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:38:19 +0000

My blog is her blog.

And until she starts her own (which I think she may) Mia will be posting her story here.

As most of you know my best friend Mia just found out four weeks ago that her boyfriend of 6 years and the father of her daughter is leaving. Two weeks later she discovered that the catalyst is an affair with another woman.

Your comments – this picture is of her reading them intently – have helped her more than you know.

Night 1:

He is gone.

My house is empty.

Literally.

No Couch, no clothes in his closet, just gone.

There was no big talk, no special ceremony, nothing to mark his leaving. Just an awkward hug and a goodbye. And then he left. And I stayed. With an empty heart I rocked Sydney in my arms in the middle of an empty room. I rocked her and she cried, and I cried, and she watched me cry and it made her cry harder.

Until recently she thought grown-ups only acted like they were crying when they played pretend with her. She said she was crying because she wanted her daddy to make magnets with her before he went – a gift she got from Santa.

But I knew she just wanted him, and I felt for the first time that I may not be enough.

I have already called him twice, ashamed of my need to hear his voice, hoping there would be sadness in it. But I’ll go to bed and the lack of response from him will make me feel left over and over again – twice tonight and a million times to come.

I know it is partly (mostly) my ego that causes me to obsess about her and wonder if he is with her. I don’t feel he deserves to have someone to help shoulder the pain of this and it makes me jealous, and that makes me feel weak.

But I am not weak, I am here and he’s not and I will rock myself and my daughter to sleep and be thankful we have each other. And she will come to know the weak man that I have lived with for years and made excuses for to everyone in my life– maybe not tonight but someday.

Morning 1:

First night accomplished but not without it’s hardships. Sydney woke up screaming a couple of hours ago having a nightmare that I was “leaving her”. I brought her in to my bed and we snuggled.

I can do this… I am finding my backbone.

—–

In honor or Mia’s backbone…

A Contest for Fresh Starts.

Apparently more people want me to give away their stuff… and you know how much I love giving stuff away. Coincidentally the prizes are all about new beginnings for single moms.

So after you leave a comment for Mia check out my Fresh Start Contest (it’s a good one).

A Letter To the “Other Woman”:

mssinglemama — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:41:35 +0000

Because it just has to be said.

Last week I broke the news that my best friend Mia’s boyfriend and the father of her child is moving out. Catch up here if you missed it.

Your responses were overwhelming and she read every one of them. Your thoughts, encouragement and advice meant the world to her and your insights were invaluable – so Thank You from Mia and myself.

Three days later she gave me this letter, “Can you publish this? Please – it’s therapeutic for me.”

Editor’s Note: On the non-capitalizing of The Other Woman’s name – “It’s not a typo,” she told me, “I refuse to give her the respect of capitalizing her first name.” Just one day before she wrote the letter Mia found text messages in her ex’s phone to the extent of, “I can’t wait to have you all to myself.” But the worst one for Mia to read, “So soon… so soon.”

Here’s Mia’s letter to the “other” woman..

To molly, The Other Woman,

I remember meeting you last year with my entire family. I am sure you remember meeting me, along with my then 3 year old daughter Sydney. I made small talk with you about college and your plans for the future like one might do with someone younger, more naive about the world. You reminded me of myself at 23. That is how old I was when I met him. And at 24 I was pregnant. Unplanned and scared, I was making decisions that would affect the rest of my life and the life of the baby inside me. So, I know we are not faceless. I wonder if you have blocked us from your memory out of convenience.

One of the things I loved about him was his eagerness to spend the rest of his life with me. He loved the idea of us having children young so that we could have time just the two of us again before we were “old”. I also loved how until recently, he was so affectionate. He always held my hand, or rubbed my back slightly while we walked together. He never let a fight go on more than 10 minutes, I used to get angry because he would want to cuddle and make up before I had even gotten started. I know what it is like to have him look at you the way he probably does. I know what it can make you feel like. But what you don’t understand is that in between all those looks I got was our life. Life was sometimes broke, tired, full of ultrasounds, high fevers, first days of school, new jobs and bad dinners. It was also laughing, loving, and signing around the house. But it was our life. Our family.

He has made a terrible decision to give up on our lives together, the life that I know is worth the effort. I blame him for allowing his emotions to get the best of him. And what he may not understand yet is that life does not deliver you love wrapped up in a nice neat package. Love isn’t a state of being, it changes, and it is sometimes situational at best – but it is marked by commitment and choice. It is a decision that may have to be made again and again, even with the same person.

I blame you as well, molly. I have always said that the other woman shouldn’t matter in situations like this – you are like a tool to get the job done, so to speak. But you see, now that I am living this, feeling this, and having to imagine life after this, you do matter. You have made a choice as well. Your choice was to put your feelings above the good of a family. You have chosen to disregard my life, and even worse – my 4 year old daughter’s. You have chosen a man that is capable of leaving his family without a fight, which I beleive is the most unfathomable of all of your choices. If I weren’t hurting so badly for my baby girl right now I would wish this same fate on you when/if you have a family of your own. But I can’t wish this hurt on anyone- not when I think about all the times my daughter will ask me if daddy is coming home and all the times I will have to say no. Unfortunately for you molly, it is not wishes that make these happen, I believe in karma and I think you should too. We may make choices for ourselves but the universe has a reason for everything, I am a firm believer in that.

Since I have found out about you I have been a shell of myself. Crying and sick. the only other time in my life I have felt this way was was when I first learned I was pregnant. But out of that shell came the one true reason for my life. My Sydney. The reason I breathe. So I can hate you because you mean nothing to me, but I will be forced to keep loving him, at least in some way, because we have Sydney. We made her and without her my life would be incomplete. He and I have a bond that you could not understand. And while I will be reasonable, like I always am, about everything else that he and I have to work out concerning Sydney for the rest of our lives, the one thing I can and will control is you. We may not have been a concern of yours before but I guarantee we will become one. You may never see my child. You may not have a relationship with her of any kind, and you will never have the chance to know her and love her like her father and I do. this is the consequence of you choices. This may not mean anything to you now but believe me, without her- you only have half a man. And the worthy half stays with me.

—UPDATE on Mia—

Mia has good days and bad days, the good will hopefully be outnumbering the bad soon enough. Right now she’s making plans for her future – without him. It won’t be easy. She may have to move and she’s still finding the words and the right moment to tell their daughter.

I just want to say one thing to every woman who has ever been cheated on, especially if you have children — a man who would do such a thing is not a man at all, he is a naive boy. And if he says you threw it all away first and drove him to cheat – he’s making excuses for his inability to communicate, to keep the relationship from crumbling. In short – he is a spineless coward and you are better off without him.

And to the women who touch married men – karma is a bitch, and once a cheater always a cheater.

—-

I’m sorry things have been a bit morose or bitter on my blog over the past few weeks but reality it seems has taken over the holidays. I’m sick, so is Benjamin – still, and it’s Christmas Eve Eve – and all of this is raining down on Mia.

I promise to have a nice chipper Christmas Eve post in the morning.

To catch up on Mia’s Story:

Joining the Club - In which I find out that my best friend is about to become a single mother.
Mia’s Story Part 1
Mia’s Story Part 2

And if you like letters you may also like:

A Letter to My Future Husband, evidence that I am a romantic at heart

Joining the club.

mssinglemama — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:49:43 +0000

She’s been my best friend my entire life.

And now, she’ll be a single mom.

Her boyfriend of six years and the father of their four-year-old daughter is moving out – the catalyst – an affair he’s been having with a young co-worker. On Saturday night she called me, her voice hushed and fringing on frantic.

His moving out had been unfolding for over one week now, the details were intermittent and things were still so unclear. And up until a few hours earlier, she had hope that maybe he would come to his senses and stay.

“I need to drop off a piece of furniture, can you open your garage?”

“Of course, I’ll be out in a minute.”

After we unloaded the dresser, we walked toward my apartment. The kids were already inside playing, her daughter completely unaware of the pain ripping through her mother’s heart. Before we made it to the door she just started sobbing, “there’s someone else. He’s seeing someone else.”

Her voice broke into sobs and I grabbed her in a tight hug, the only thing I could do. I’d never seen her like this – ever. She had been working on their relationship for months and months, seeing a therapist on her own because he refused to go, doing sweet things for him, constantly optimistic that he would “feel better” soon.

I wanted to kill him, to march right over to their house and cause him some kind of pain or hurt him for breaking my best friend’s heart. Not just for breaking it but breaking her – a woman who is absolutely gorgeous inside and out, the kind of woman every woman wants as a best friend, a sister or a mother.

“You’ll be better off, you will.”

“I know. I know I will. But it hurts. It hurts so badly, I’ve never felt this way before, this angry.”

I gave her every piece of advice I could muster from reading so many of your blogs and in writing my own. But this was her… my best friend, the girl I used to play with every single day in elementary school, the teenager who gave me my first beer, the young woman who taught me how to put on my make up and the young mother who has been here for me since day one of my pregnancy and of my divorce.

And now here we were. Both of us single moms. One stronger than the other in this moment, but both just little girls grown up with our fairy tale endings completely shattered. We popped open a bottle of red wine and commiserated, just staring into each other’s eyes and shaking our heads – at a complete loss for words, a rarity.

“How am I going to tell her?”

“She’s four. She’ll bounce back,” I run off some other positive advice. All of it sounding like crap.

“She is always asking me, ‘will daddy move out like Benjamin’s daddy did?’ And I always tell her, ‘no’. What is she going to think? She’ll think I’m a liar.”

“You know what. We can not protect our kids from everything – we just can’t. And she can see that Benjamin is okay, even though his dad moved out.”

So… she’s been reading divorce guides and the how to tell your kids books. They’re all telling her what not to say, but none are telling her what she should say.

What are the words?

How do you explain to a four-year-old that mommy and daddy are breaking up, divorcing or separating?

There will be more on this later… she, obviously, has always read this blog. I just never thought she’d have to use it. Damn him. And what kind of a man – by the way – actually cheats on his family. Ugh. The worst of the worst. And what kind of women cheat with them? What is wrong with people?

——

To catch up with Mia’s Story:

A Letter to the Other Woman - Mia’s awesome letter to her ex’s other woman which has made ripples through the blogosphere.
Mia’s Story Part 1
Mia’s Story Part 2