Hello All,
My mother died forty years ago, on Nov 1. So the day before this date, Halloween, and the day after, All Soul's Day, truly resonate with me. I was twenty-two months old when my mother died so it's that lil baby in me who deals with the annual recurrence of devastating memories. The weeks leading up to Halloween are extremely tricky. There is always a familiar sense of impending doom, extreme sadness and anger, compounded with the desire to shut everything down and hibernate. Even forty years later. But Halloween has always been a helpful holiday for me because everyone is dressed up and visiting their dark sides which allows any odd behavior on my part to slip by undetected. The day after is always a relief, like whew, I made it through and amazingly enough it is All Soul's Day, so I can honor her publicly. I am "lucky" to have these particular holidays surrounding the anniversary of her death. Plus, November 1 is my brother's birthday.
But parenting my own child is the most difficult task in the world when I am battling such enormous memories of loss. I am pretty shut down and getting through these days kind of on auto pilot; doing things from memory- tea in the morning, followed by breakfast, get dressed, make bed, etc. I am very preoccupied which can translate to: my threshold for tolerance and patience has been tossed in the garbage. I do plenty of reading about parenting (since I don't have a mother to ask) and I have been trying to implement the "Mommy time out" to get a breather in when I need to separate myself from my son. But as he won't actually let me take a moment to myself, this has not yet been successful.
This week I have found myself yelling and by that I mean SCREAMING like an animal at my child when he does something like hit me, or say no to me, or test me in another way. For example saying he is hungry after we are well into the bed time routine elicited an avalanche response that will not be forgotten and will most likely be retold by my son to his future therapist. Lesson learned, never again will I read my son a book that mentions food during bedtime stories. And he went to bed without the apple. And he slept through the night, so I know he wasn't starving. But my voice hurt from yelling so loud. And I felt terrible for acting like a crazy person and scaring my son. Yes, I definitely overreacted. And then I forgave myself and went to sleep, hibernating for a few hours.
Single parenting my child right now is just too much for me while I am experiencing such deep rooted feelings of loss, abandonment, and even betrayal. I have thought about what would happen if I didn't go pick him up from his Dad's on Tuesday morning. Or more responsibly, what if I asked his Dad to watch him all week? I know that is not really a possibility, but I can plan ahead to ask this next year. It also brings up that I don't have a babysitter for my son. He is in school three days a week, but I could use a babysitter this week to watch him on the other two days so I can get my "Mommy time out". Taking care of myself should be my first priority right now and always. Put the mask on me first if the plane is going down so I can then take care of my son.
Asking for help should be on the top of every Single Momista's list, but is not often on mine, not even to be found scribbled at the bottom. But I am certainly rethinking this as I move through my Learning Curve of how this single parenting thing will work the best for everyone.
I'm going to make some breakfast.
Take care,
XO
Single Momista
My mother died forty years ago, on Nov 1. So the day before this date, Halloween, and the day after, All Soul's Day, truly resonate with me. I was twenty-two months old when my mother died so it's that lil baby in me who deals with the annual recurrence of devastating memories. The weeks leading up to Halloween are extremely tricky. There is always a familiar sense of impending doom, extreme sadness and anger, compounded with the desire to shut everything down and hibernate. Even forty years later. But Halloween has always been a helpful holiday for me because everyone is dressed up and visiting their dark sides which allows any odd behavior on my part to slip by undetected. The day after is always a relief, like whew, I made it through and amazingly enough it is All Soul's Day, so I can honor her publicly. I am "lucky" to have these particular holidays surrounding the anniversary of her death. Plus, November 1 is my brother's birthday.
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| rainbow reflection on my wall |
But parenting my own child is the most difficult task in the world when I am battling such enormous memories of loss. I am pretty shut down and getting through these days kind of on auto pilot; doing things from memory- tea in the morning, followed by breakfast, get dressed, make bed, etc. I am very preoccupied which can translate to: my threshold for tolerance and patience has been tossed in the garbage. I do plenty of reading about parenting (since I don't have a mother to ask) and I have been trying to implement the "Mommy time out" to get a breather in when I need to separate myself from my son. But as he won't actually let me take a moment to myself, this has not yet been successful.
This week I have found myself yelling and by that I mean SCREAMING like an animal at my child when he does something like hit me, or say no to me, or test me in another way. For example saying he is hungry after we are well into the bed time routine elicited an avalanche response that will not be forgotten and will most likely be retold by my son to his future therapist. Lesson learned, never again will I read my son a book that mentions food during bedtime stories. And he went to bed without the apple. And he slept through the night, so I know he wasn't starving. But my voice hurt from yelling so loud. And I felt terrible for acting like a crazy person and scaring my son. Yes, I definitely overreacted. And then I forgave myself and went to sleep, hibernating for a few hours.
Single parenting my child right now is just too much for me while I am experiencing such deep rooted feelings of loss, abandonment, and even betrayal. I have thought about what would happen if I didn't go pick him up from his Dad's on Tuesday morning. Or more responsibly, what if I asked his Dad to watch him all week? I know that is not really a possibility, but I can plan ahead to ask this next year. It also brings up that I don't have a babysitter for my son. He is in school three days a week, but I could use a babysitter this week to watch him on the other two days so I can get my "Mommy time out". Taking care of myself should be my first priority right now and always. Put the mask on me first if the plane is going down so I can then take care of my son.
Asking for help should be on the top of every Single Momista's list, but is not often on mine, not even to be found scribbled at the bottom. But I am certainly rethinking this as I move through my Learning Curve of how this single parenting thing will work the best for everyone.
I'm going to make some breakfast.
Take care,
XO
Single Momista
Thank you for sharing. Thinking of you this week and on 11/1. Your light is strong. I passed your blog along to my friend, Alyssa. xo
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