Time has flown but it has also trickled by. May marks the month where my entire world was turned upside down and tossed around and I was then placed back on my feet and told that I had to keep going despite being shaken, hurt, destroyed and broken. Mother’s Day of 2019 was when my (now ex) husband came home after an evening of drinking and basically told me he was done with our marriage. I went through so much that I can’t even begin to describe it all. I thought I had been through the worst in the first year of it all but it turns out that even 2 years in, the light at the end of the tunnel is still pretty far away.
We have found a good place with co-parenting our son. We have found that when we get along, our son is happier. It is hugely helpful that he is no longer with his toxic girlfriend so I don’t have her being the devil on his shoulder while he is trying to co-parent with me. It’s still hard though. Seeing his face regularly and having conversations just reminds me of when things were good with us. We are doing better at parenting our son now than we did when married as he is more involved and is stepping up repeatedly which he did not do for most of the 3.5 years of our son’s life while still married. So of course seeing him being the father I thought he would be when we decided to try to have a baby stirs up a lot of emotions in me. Questions in my head come up as well, like wondering why he couldn’t be that father when he was still with me.
How I’m handling life as a single mother comes in waves. One minute I’m killing it. I’m enjoying the time with my son as well as the breaks that come from the 50/50 custody split that we have. But then there are days where the world feels heavy. Where I drop my son off to his Dad after a weekend of fun and as I drive off I’m fighting back tears as I watch in my rearview mirror, my son and his dad holding hands and walking into their home. People say that time heals, but I’m still waiting for the time to help heal the days where my body feels like it just doesn’t want to go on. Where staying in bed and hiding away from all responsibilities and wallowing in my sadness sounds more appealing than anything.
But, still, I get up every day and I push things down because I have no choice but to get up and fight for my own happiness. It’s hard right now though. I still have no friends in the town I live in thanks to the pandemic and social opportunities being non-existent for over a year now. So when I don’t have my son, I spend my evenings and weekends totally alone. Some weekends the only in person contact I have with anyone is when I go to the grocery store or coffee shop. Sure, I facetime family here and there, but even that is wearing thin as I crave real human contact. Which is ironic given that I’m actually quite introverted when it comes to socializing. But none of that is going to happen so long as B.C keeps going the route it’s going with this Covid-19 shit storm.
Which brings me to dating. Back in September last year I met someone online who I really connected with and after some epically long phone calls, we met and hit it off. We had some fun hanging out here and there when we could, but in my heart I knew that he’s not my forever person, despite our connection. He also lives an hour and twenty minute drive from my home and in the final months of us hanging out, it was always me traveling to him and never the other way around. It grew tiring. So we mutually decided one day that there was no future there and to wrap up whatever it was that we were doing. We still talk on the phone on occasion and have hung out twice in a platonic way since the ending. But he has told me he’s back on the dating apps and I am as well. So it’s only a matter of time before he meets someone else and his focus goes to her. And why don’t I say that it’s a matter of time before I meet someone else? Because his world of options in the city he lives in are much broader than mine are in my small town. I briefly went on some dates with a really kind guy from my town but the spark wasn’t there. While he was great and fun to talk to, physically it wasn’t quite there. He also has a world of issues coming his way relating to his split with his wife and I didn’t think I was mentally ok with being his support in all of that when I’m still going through my own ups and downs. So the pool of options in my own small town are very minimal, and I’m not looking to just settle for anyone who comes my way. I won’t even accept a date request from someone if they haven’t piqued my interest enough in messaging through the apps. I’m 38 years old and I’m not here to have my time wasted. I don’t want to put someone in my life simply because I am so incredibly lonely. There is almost a guaranteed ending where I will realize what I have done and that I forced a connection to be there when there wasn’t, because I was desperate to have someone in my life. And that just is hurtful to the guy. I have a right to remain picky. Maybe this will mean that I will be alone for a long time. Who knows. I don’t want to be. But I keep having a reoccurring dream where I am involved with a tall, dark haired man but I never see a face. I am a believer that dreams usually mean something, so I don’t know who this faceless man is that appears so often. Is it insight into what may come for me? Does it mean something entirely different? I don’t know.
I don’t want loneliness to win out on me. But it’s really hard when there isn’t a lot to focus on nowadays. I find the dating apps are a pretty big joke and that there’s not actually anyone on there who are what they say they are or are looking for an actual relationship. Dating in this day in age is hard enough, but add in being a single mom, it immediately reduces the options significantly. I’m also not entirely certain how much I want to date someone who has kids of his own. Which is a bit unfair of me to say given that I’m sitting here hoping to find someone who wants to take on my own kid eventually. But given that I have been a one and done mom, the idea of one day taking on someone else’s kids just seems really overwhelming to me. But, for the right person, you never know how my tune may change. I won’t say no to meeting someone who seems great because they have a kid or kids.
So, for now, I will continue to try to do things for myself like taking my dog out for hikes on my own or going to a pub on a sunny day and having a beer and food on the patio on my own. Because it’s up to me to try to put some happiness into my life even when I feel as though everything is a struggle. It’s about continuing to move forward even when I feel I can’t most days.
Mama of a Sweet Little Monster 