Alone Time

Hello people,

So my son is with his Dad for ten days! Yes, that's right, I have Ten Days Alone. I have not been this relaxed in four years! And as I write this, I am taking the train to visit an old friend for a couple days at the Jersey Shore. Never mind that thunderstorms are forecasted, I am going on an adventure with a book and a camera. Change of scenery and adult conversations, here I come!  WOW.

I am five days into my time alone. All you parents can live vicariously through me for a moment: My mornings have been very gentle. I wake up on my own and drink my tea like I used to back in the day- quietly, with the sunrise, not thinking about anything in particular, perhaps recalling my dreams from the night before....There is no little person trying to pull my leg (in all ways possible) for a six a.m. popsicle or lollipop...

Brooklyn sunrise

Morning tea at home

And now I'm at the Jersey Shore!

More to come tomorrow, when I will start a couple posts about how to share a bedroom with your young child, without being taken over by stuffed animals and plastic toys..
XO
Single Momista

Growing Pains

Hello friends and readers,

OK, here is the inside scoop on my life and emotions.  My son is going to his Dad's girlfriend's house this month for a few days. (She lives in another state). And what that really means is that my son is going to have his Dad's girlfriend (always known to me as his affair) in his life. AHHHHH. And I gave the trip the OK. Because really, what else could I do? The lady is here to stay and the reality is that the trip probably would have happened whether I approved it or not. For the first time my ex asked my permission about something that involved his girlfriend and our son. And I want more of that behavior over the next eighteen years. So the best approach is to act dignified and get on board, even if it feels to me like I am only pretending to take the high road. My advice to myself: act the way you wish to appear.

My therapist suggested that my ex and I sit down together and talk with our son about the trip so that he knows I give the go ahead. According to her, this will show my son that he doesn't have to take care of my feelings or choose sides out of loyalty to me when he is there. He might do this on his own, but my job is to show him that he can have his own feelings about the trip and about Daddy's "friend" and her two kids. And, she said, if he does have a tantrum while there (rather than saving it up for me when he returns) his Dad will have to deal with it and have a chance to see how his choices affect our son. All this was said to me in the matter of fact manner of a professional. The child in me was internally screaming No way, Mother F-er to my ex while the adult me sat on my therapist's couch and absorbed the odd reality that I really did not have any right to veto the trip. 1. There are no real safety issues, only the imaginary ones in my mind. Like what if the bus to Boston falls on it's side and my son dies. And 2. If I ask them to postpone the trip until next summer, so my son can get to know the "friend" on his home turf more, I am only trying to control my ex's relationship. And that is not mine to control. Which leads to 3. My son will have his feelings about his Dad and about our divorce and I can not protect him from those feelings. I can only give him the room to express them.

Forgive me if my newly expanded brain has popped out of your computer and smacked into your face! It is being forced to absorb and process at an alarming rate!

My son has a life with his Dad that does not include me. It is a pretty cool life to a three year old. He eats candy over there, he chews gum, he has a LOT of toys at his Dad's house, his Dad has an I-pad. How do I fit in? I really don't and usually I am content with this. But some old feelings are getting stirred up with this impending trip to his girlfriend's. I did have dreams with my ex, we were building a life together. He also pushed me really hard to have a baby and to get married and when I delivered (ha ha, pun) he left. And now he wants to take my baby to "his affair's" house. Argh, I feel a victim rant coming on-- what was I, just a baby mama?

It is painful when I go down the road of compare and despair. That is really a ridiculously silly, dead end, road to travel, especially when I know that by having left this man, I said YES to a more stable, loving life for both myself and my son. But clearly the internal psyche is not so black and white. There is the grey zone. One of the many reasons for our divorce, my ex's relationship with another woman, is becoming a part of my son's life. It is very challenging for me to have my ex in my life and to stay healthy by constantly redefining my boundaries with him. I can not cut and run and simply play the victim role. To really move on and be strong, not just intellectually but also emotionally, I need to focus on my life in the present. And over time the sad memories of the past will lose their importance. So, I have made some plans to do some fun things for myself while they are away, like playing around in my friend's ceramic studio and going to another friend's house at the beach. I also need to get my hair cut.

Thank you for listening while I process here. I sure wish I had something way more fattening than strawberries in the house right now! Oh, here is a fruit leather... Not Good Enough---I've got to seriously rethink the food shopping!! 

An old drawing of mine. It's an internally directed effort.

Take care,
XO
Single Momista

Control (or Not to be Controlled)

Hello Readers,

Recently my computer was wiped clean- I don't know what happened, but I lost Every Thing on it and had to bring it to the Apple store to even get it started up again. At that time the news for my astrological sign was talking about letting go of the past... Very Interesting I said as I lost photos of my life before my son was born, photos of my wedding (as you know, my marriage is over anyway) and photos of the first three years of my son's life that I hadn't yet printed (red flag!)... Along with other also stuff that I could find again in emails, like my resumes and cover letters.

Continuing in this vein over the course of this last week, an arm on my glasses broke. They are wearable, but delicate, and yesterday my cell phone broke. There is a pattern here and I'm not sure I want it to continue! I mean, I certainly can not afford the pattern of everything breaking to continue. Oh, and my toaster died too. When clean sweeps like this take place in my life, I'm the type of person who wonders if I am missing an elephant in the room. Stuff like this makes me curious if there something begging to be looked at from another perspective.

My astrology for the past two, almost three years, has been telling me to get rid of toxic stuff in my life or else (please, just go with me on this) and this week I wondered how big the "or else" has to get before I start to let go of the Really Deep Rooted Toxic Stuff, like the negative thinking within my own mind that keeps me down. Or the contact with negative people, or with people who don't understand me and want me to live life their way. Or all the "tough love" characters in my life. Do you see what I'm saying? It might be more simple than all this, but to my pondering mind, the fact that my computer, my glasses, my cell phone and my toaster all broke within a very short time of one another points toward there being a bigger picture to look at.

It also brings up is the question of how much of my life is really in my actual control and how important is that? Is keeping a tight reign on All Things a guarantee that will life continue on, undisturbed forever? What if I let go a bit, will everything completely fall apart? How much can I let go of before it does fall apart? By the way, do I still think falling apart is such a bad thing? My life certainly fell apart from what it was, and while that was horrifying at the time, here I am writing about it in a blog! I'm a survivor (insert singing of Survivor by Destiny's Child) and I certainly have learned a lot about letting go recently.

I ask these questions as I look ahead to the Fall (namely, October) when my year of unemployment will be coming to an end. Ah, panic, panic, panic! This first year that I have been separated and divorced I have been so lucky to have unemployment! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been able to work part time and therefore only have my son in daycare part time. I have been able to get my emotional life sorted out, or felt out, as it were. And now here I am in July with a few months ahead of me before I let go of my unemployment and start earning at least as much as it has provided me. Nerve wracking and nervous making because that means another change is coming! I could easily be full of anxiety every second; I feel the panic as I write this! But when I was trying to get a divorce I took small actions every day toward the larger goal and I can do that now. I can stay in touch with myself, rather than trade myself in for the spinning wheels of anxiety. I heard this said in a yoga class this week:
Everything unfolds as it should when you loosen your grip and allow yourself to be open.
Ah, loosening the grip rather than tightening it! Small actions every day rather than holding on in fear.

This week I made my son a calendar of the days of the week he is with me and alternately with his Dad. I figured if I wonder about what I can control in my life, he must feel much more confusion around that in his life. (Whew, I am so glad my camera was not affected by the "clean sweep")!

Up top is the time line of "things we do in the day" &
then Mommy/Daddy days along bottom. He refers to it now!
And is wrapping his head around the idea that we don't have to
eat exactly what is in the pictures!

Take care and thanks for reading!

XO 

Single Momista

The In-Between State

Hello,

It's so hot that I can not even think (& I don't know what's going on with this font today). Anyway, just to stay in touch (in 100 degree weather) I'm posting this quote I found by Pema Chodron that is very apropos for my blog :

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are  always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don’t get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It’s a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs. She survived two divorces, and when her two children were teenagers she became the first American woman to be ordained as Buddhist nun. She found looking at her pain/suffering more useful than escaping it. A very bold move! Also, in lieu of the heat, here is a pic of the refreshing fruit pops I am making this summer:   recipe is in Everyday Food, Martha Stewart Stay cool & true to yourself! XO Single Momista

One Year Anniversary of Leaving My Husband

Hello,
First I want to say that I got some phone calls & emails from friends informing me that they could not leave comments on my blog. Very Sorry about that. I looked into it and I changed some settings, so hopefully the problemo is solved. I was reading some other blogs recently, one about the shoes a pregnant mom was wearing that day, one about the outfits in someone's closet, and one about pillow cases, and all those blogs had several comments. ... So hopefully if you want to leave one here you now are able to. Please let me know if you still have trouble doing so, I would love to hear from you.


Anyway, for all you photo and interior design lovers, I'm adding a photo from my son's room because I went to IKEA *alone* today and bought a couple things to continue my project of distinguishing his room from my room within our shared bedroom. The blue frame & the hanging stuffed animal netting are my awesome buys from today. Actually, looking closely, I see there is a lot in this picture from IKEA- the bedding, the heart pillow & the rug too. I do love that place.

Cute & cozy! Now insert me strangling myself with the heart pillow
as my son insists I lay on the floor by his bed until he is asleep every night

The blue framed "poster" is gift wrapping paper by ecojot.com

Going alone to IKEA is a true step towards independence with a Single Momista attitude. That is one place you will not find people leisurely shopping alone. It's all couples, families or roommates nesting up their cozy digs. But I did it today in two hours! I set the alarm on my phone to ring after one hour. When it rang I read my message- Leave IKEA Now - and I got back on track and left an hour later. I will divulge another secret tip- stock up on some wine and spend several months surfing their website, revising your shopping list(s), doing comparison shopping, and measuring items and spaces in your own home many, many times before even considering to step foot into the store.


Ok, now that the idle chit chat has been chatted, I shall segue into something Larger. 


The One Year Anniversary Of Me Leaving My Husband. 


Yes, that is right. My intense Single Momista life is having an anniversary. WOW.


It has been a weird and sad week and that in itself completely took me by surprise. My chest has been Hurting, really Hurting, Aching like a heartache. Wow, I have come so far this year and it surprises me that I am in Pain this week. It is very disconcerting. My head says the future is now and my heart says Ow, the past. In all my actions of moving ahead towards a better life, I think I often push aside the actual memories of the terrible, gut wrenching experience of divorce. Of the betrayals, the lies, the confusion, the blame taking and the horrible experience of living together, and ignoring each other or openly deploring one another, while trying to figure out my next move. And then court. And now seeing my son go off without me for the weekend. The memories are painful.


I can consciously do restorative yoga, knowing that I need to take things down several notches, or I can go on a date & recognize I am not ready to trust someone in that way just yet, so I do have awareness. But I sometimes conjure up some magical thinking to persuade myself that there is nothing to even grieve about or even to feel pain about. I want it all to be so far, far behind me. But the body knows what the mind forgets, hence the Pain. This week was like an anniversary of a death. I was able to function. I still lived my life. I was just a little off. I forgot my keys in my front door. I had a hard time articulating in front of my class. I wasn't sad per se, but a part of me was very, terribly sad.


My mind went into that crazy place of what have I accomplished this year? I am not a CEO of anything other than my kitchen sink! But it has been a year of living on my own with my son. This is amazing to me. A year involving a six month sublet, and now I am six months into a one year lease. A year of paying the rent and bills. Providing food and clothing for us. Having my son in daycare this past year and now preparing to move him to a Montessori program in the Fall. A year of Feeling Emotions, from the numbness into the pain and then the relief. And now even a few moments of joy and freedom and a sense that it will really be ok, that I could really have a good life. A couple dates recently. New friendships forming with single moms. A blog. Stirrings of creativity. Appreciation and acceptance of my career. A finalized divorce. And an awareness that I need some new clothes this year! I can't be wearing these old things from the last ten years-- I'm a Single Momista! (Maybe I will be posting outfits from my closet in the future).


XO
Single Momista

Independence

Hello All,

My ex and I got engaged on the 4th of July....So it's a Loaded Holiday for me, no? YES! A friend wished me Happy Independence and I liked that. Sometimes when I'm worried about money or our future, I forget what is so great about my life now- that I have my independence.

My ex came to pick up my child (our child) yesterday for visitation and my son wanted to show him everything in his room, even how he sleeps in his bed. And then after they went through everything in the bedroom, he wanted his Dad to watch a Scooby Doo video with him on the couch. So my ex was in my house for over an hour, just hanging out! ARGGHHH. And then when he was leaving he told me he was sad, that it is a sad holiday for him.

spider web found this morning in my herb box

Boundaries. Need Boundaries. No more hanging out in my house, even if my child loves it. Yuck, the emotional confusion melts over everything in my life. If I had ice cream in the house I would have eaten it all. Instead I ate cereal for dinner. And then cookies. And watched an unimaginable number of Glee episodes on Netflicks. Wow, how come I hadn't discovered Glee before?? Amazing...

I wonder what other single parents eat when their child is off on visitation (your cue to comment if you like)...I notice I'm either eating eggs or cereal. Easy, quick food. Nothing gourmet. Nothing new. When my son is with his Dad it's as if I'm a college student taking a break from the intensity of life, except I'm also doing the laundry, scrubbing the bathroom, mopping the floors and cleaning out the fridge.

My life feels Intense! Parenting is so full on. And then so full off. It's as if there is a Parenting Switch on my back-On/Off. Right now, I'm off & I feel like a half parent. It was very strange to hear myself and my ex both talking with and parenting our child in my house yesterday. We usually only discuss parenting issues over the phone or email. He never gets to see or to be a part of my life with our child and I never get to see or to be a part of his. And my child doesn't get to see or hear his parents working through stuff together. It's a very odd and bittersweet way to have a family.

Grey shape of the Statue of Liberty as seen today, Brooklyn Promenade 

Love,
Single Momista

4th of July

Brighton Beach, Brooklyn

Yes, that's us in the photo, yesterday at the beach! Having a great time, but when I'm taking the photo I often forget to smile! It was the first time we stayed at the beach for 4 hours! And we got sunburned. But after 2 hours my son was warming up to the ocean, dancing around on the beach and pretending to be the man selling hot corn on the cob, so I couldn't leave. It was great. I love living near a beach. 

When I was in the midst of my divorce, I wanted to escape and move to the beach. I was thinking somewhere further away, more remote, with grey waters (it was winter) and no cars or other people. Just me, the sad sound of the sea gulls, some deer and pine trees growing in sand. But you know what, I live near the beach, so I guess I am already living my fantasy, just with lots of cars, people and glass on the beach! There are even fireworks every Friday night, not just on the 4th of July! 

Happy Weekend everyone!
XO Single Momista