You’d think, being a 28 year old single mother, largely unemployed and unemployable, a drop-out several times over, living alone and with no future plans of wedded bliss, I’d be bummed. I should be sitting here thinking ‘dammit, this is not how my life was supposed to turn out. I expected so much more.’
But I didn’t. So I’m not disappointed.
How fucked up is that? How should it have turned out?
If you’d asked me 20 years ago, I’d probably have said something morbid about being dead. Truth be told, I’ve come close more times than someone should’ve at my age, both self-inflicted and not. The miscarriage in the spring was the final nail in the way-too-soon-seeking coffin and it woke me up. I lost, in a two week period, all of my blood. I had four transfusions. Because I was growing a baby that really shouldn’t have been, with someone I really shouldn’t have been with.
If you’d asked me ten years ago, I’dve been married to the rock star ex. We’dve had two kids, a couple of dogs and plenty of tattoos (we both still have plenty of tattoos). Our home would have been custom built in a forested area, created from ideas we’d kicked around about building an entire log cabin with two floors and an open concept, around a floor to ceiling self-contained fireplace. There would be deer outside that we’d be able to see through the 20 foot high windows. And the basement would have been a soundproofed recording studio. And I would have been what? A chick waiting at home for her husband to come off of tour after tour. Lonely. A single parent in an isolated environment. But I would’ve had a sewing room.
If you’d asked me five years ago… okay six. I was working on my first baby incubation with JDawg (babyFAIL) and we would have gotten married soon. We would have bought a small, but good enough condo. Owned a shabby, but good enough car. Had a bazillion gaming consoles and books and movies and little furniture or dishes. Our life would have been entirely composed of doing just well enough to not feel like we sucked, too much.
If you asked me a year and a half ago, I’d have a few more goals than today because I was still stuck in a mind-frame that I’ve since let melt away. Until I got a degree, it meant I was always going to be a drop out. Until I had a successful romantic relationship, I would always be a crazy girlfriend. Until my daughter was far ahead of the curve, I was never going to be a good mother. Now, I believe that if I take it a day at a time, if I’m putting out there my thoughts and feelings, if I’m honest and true, then even the mis-timed, shitty, heart-wounding things will make me better.
So, if you asked me today what it is about my life that I would change, there’d be a few things. If you asked me how far away from where I’m supposed to be I am, there’d be some distance. But you won’t catch me ruing that space between where I am and where I could be.
Because, really, I’m still on my way there.
“You don’t settle. No one should have to, and you deserve so much more than this.”
Words I would throw out easily to any friend that I cared about. Anyone facing a spouse or other who was backing them into a low-self-esteem corner. Yet I haven’t done it for myself.
Why? Why have I sat here for years waiting for him to get it? To take responsibility for his actions, regardless of other people’s, the elements, fate? To just wake up one day and say, “Holy shit. I’m missing out on so much and I owe myself more than this.”
So much time, sleep, hate, energy, advice, time, money, trust – all lost. And for what? To ultimately scare me further away from people that I could trust? Hell to the no.
I’ve given money and advice, an ear and a resting place, sex and more sex, and eventually, my heart. I’ve lost babies upon babies – blood, sweat, tears – and I’ve mostly done it alone, as well as raising the baby I didn’t lose. And he still doesn’t get it.
I’ve kept waiting around for his vision to crystallize, thinking that since I realized it was love I felt, not just angst, hate and bitterness (with a pinch of resentment), that it would turn his head away from, well, his continual blindness. But no.
And I would never let a friend do this wordlessly. Watch her get disappointed over and over, regardless of the lines she threw out in his direction – the ‘you fucking loser’s, the ‘all you ever do is fuck up’s, the ‘do you really want your daughter to see you as this kind of person? To think that drinking was more important to you than her? Cuz that’s the myth you’re propegating’s. Regardless of her (what might be viewable as abusive) words, I would still tell her that she deserved more. Everything. Anything. That she should find it and get it and hold it close and light a fire of happiness with it.
But I haven’t been a friend to myself. I’ve thought I deserved it, because of those words I’ve thrown out. Because of the coldness and calculation I exacted with him. And it has burned me deeper than possibly the daddy issues have. Which is some 56th degree burns, let me tell you.
Here’s the deal. I’ve been asked out…I guess, what? Five times in the past four months. Which is not too bad for a single mom who tends to sheath herself in whatever’s clean, wear four day old makeup, a week old ponytail and pretty much hangs (with her kid) at Starbucks, the bookstore and the grocery store. I think. I have virtually no social life outside of the Internet, it’s true, and limited daycare in my grasp at the moment. So, what was my reaction? I said no, thank you.
Why? Cuz it’s like I was tethered to this person, to JDawg. To the possibilities. Potential.
Cuz after years of being his whore, and the years before of being other people’s, I found it hard to think that any man (or boy) might pay me attention that wasn’t to do with wanting to bend me over a chair and then put out when I came onto them again. (Because you do know that sex=self esteem, right?)
Also, I didn’t have a babysitter, even if I wanted to put some effort into myself and meeting someone and actually going on a date (I’ve been on two. In 16 years. Heh.) and being outside without a laptop or errand to be run. So, I said no. Because I knew that if I said yes, it would hurt him and that would hurt Us. Which would hurt Me.
Thing is. There really isn’t an Us, anymore, is there? There’s some on again, off again feelings. He will occasionally tell me he loves me (generally not sober) and I will always show him some form of my own love, but there’s no Us without his Me. And my Me isn’t settling anymore.
So. Resolution #3 – Give myself advice in the ways and wiles and winks of men, like I would any friend.
Tell myself to go for it, if I think I should. Tell myself to step away, when the hurting is to be had. Mostly, tell myself that I am worth more than waiting to find out what I’m worth to someone else. Write it on a mirror, white-board, underneath the little pink bow on my underwear, if I need to. I am deserving of something more than nothing.
