by mssinglemama on January 6, 2010
I am not sure working like this is entirely healthy for anyone, let alone a single mom. My back and shoulders are a tight, tangled mess of nerves and poor posture induced kinks. My face keeps breaking out and my bedroom is constantly messy, always a sign of being too busy to breathe.
I need to buy one of those jacuzzi tubs or enslave a personal massage therapist. Between work, the house and Benjamin I rarely find a moment to myself – in the peace and quiet of the nothing to do.
How can us professional parents keep up with the childless who can devote 100% of their energy to their work? And isn’t there something wrong with this picture? Overworked workers, unemployment lines growing, parents who are left with no time to raise their children and young people who know having a child would spell disaster for their career.
Are we all just being taken for a ride? A ride that ends at the last and final stop when we wake up (too late) to realize we have worked our lives away. Shouldn’t we all slow down a bit? Seems like we’re all getting a bit carried away. Or maybe it has always been like this and I am just the mother of a three year old lost in the Land of the Toddler standing her gaping at the Land of Employment During a Recession. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on December 3, 2009
It’s been nearly one year – to the day – that Mia found out her boyfriend and the father of their, then four year old daughter, was leaving. She found out a few weeks later that the catalyst of his leaving was an affair with another woman.
When it happened, she was in complete and utter shock. Physically, emotionally – she was absolutely wrecked.
During that time she wrote a series of blog posts, which I published here for her. If you missed them, catch up here.
Her good days now outnumber the bad but this morning she sent me another post after waking up to an all-too-familiar feeling. One that all of us seasoned single moms know all too well. Read on and I’m sure you’ll relate. Somehow, like she always does, Mia was able to capture that raw emotion into words.
Nightmares
By Mia
Mia - in March of last year, shortly after
I woke myself up from a deep sleep at 7am weeping. Like the kind of crying that you can only do alone. Curled up in a ball not sure if I was still in the dream or not. The crying felt good though. It felt like home. As I cried I longed to be back in that state again – the state I was in last year this time. A year ago tomorrow. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on November 19, 2009
Really. I’m not.
Why? Because E.T. says so. See? He’s clearly communicating with me here – sending me a telepathic message that the cute kid holding him needs to be the center of my life and that everything else must come secondary. But to keep the cute kid educated, happy and fed, I must sacrifice myself to do so… well, kind of – at least temporarily – or until I adapt to my new workload.
I am sorry I have been so scant.
Work is work and there is a lot of work at work. Did you follow that? If not — translation = I am even busier than before. Isn’t that lovely?
Adaption is coming though, I can feel it. I will have time to breath again soon. Either that, or I will be dead and they’ll have to scrape me up from the floor. I tell that to my co-workers often and they laugh – but what they don’t know is that I am serious. Single Mama Collapsion Syndrome. It happens. And that’s my name for it, so bug off.
Must adapt. Must adapt. Phone home. Phone home.
Someone please.
Beam me up. I need the weekend.
And when I get there I’ll announce the winners to my eBook Work It contest. Have not forgotten, just too busy to gather the winners and post.
by mssinglemama on November 7, 2009
This is Holly.
We met one month ago when I decided to have my first manicure and pedicure in over three years… maybe four. On one of my afternoon escapades with Benjamin and just after I’d found out about my new job, I noticed a sign outside for her salon for a $20.00 manicure and a $35.00 pedicure. The sign and her low price (manicures are ridiculously expensive in Ohio for some reason) got me I made an appointment for some long overdue Me Time.
So there we were, two single moms, one in the midst of year three and beginning the best relationship she’s ever had and the other just beginning, only a single for five months with two daughters-ages 11 and 5. We spent a good amount of our time that day talking about everything from ex-management to bad boy complexes and facing your fears as a single mom.
Today during my pedicure (oh, so awesome) I pointed to a headline on one of those magazines with a quote from Kate Gosselin, “I never knew how strong I could be,” something to that effect. I read the line to Holly and then she said, “Yeah, but there are a lot of emotions along the way before you get to that point.” [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on November 5, 2009
The plane lands with a jerk as I reach under the seat to rescue my purse from its lonely spot on the floor.
I stretch my fingers into the darkness hoping my purse is the only thing I find. This is the last leg on a whirlwind of business trips. The first one to Baltimore and the second to Boulder. My team and I were in and out of each city in less than 36 hours. In Boulder, the whirlwind included scenery that takes your breath, steals it and then gives it back again.
How about a mountain with your coffee?
But now all I want is my purse, my keys, my car, John Bear and my bed. In that order. Benjamin will have to wait until the morning because he is already asleep.
I turn my face toward a piece of chewing gum the passenger before me had wedged into the pleather fold of the seat pocket. If I am facing it, there’s no way the gum can capture my hair. After accepting the gum’s existence at the start of our two hour flight I then tried to envision the type of person who would actually do such a thing. [click to continue…]
