Single Parenting: Surviving Sadness to Finding Silver Linings

 It’s funny how things work themselves out in life. It’s been about two years now since I’ve been truly living the single parent life. How I would love to talk to myself back then…I would have some words of wisdom. I believe that I struggled with a common obstacle many parents do at that point in the journey. Two years ago, I was stuck. I was stuck in a never-ending cycle of sadness when my three kids, Kayden, Rose, and Nari, were with their mom. Truly, I believed that is what you’re supposed to feel. Sadness that your kids are not with you. Over the past two years, a new clarity has come and I’d like to share it with all of my faithful and loyal readers…all 8 of you (that may be erroring on the high side).

Dearest Gentle Reader… no that’s not right.

Four score and seven years ago…hum.

It was a dark and stormy night…nope.

Okay, I’ll just be original. I left off with the statement that 2 years ago, I was stuck. Like stuck stuck. In the mud stuck. Frozen in ice, feet in concrete, drowning in quicksand, you get the idea.I was so fixated on the life I had planned for. The life I felt like I had completely lost. I couldn’t comprehend the why so I fixated on the details, the sadness, the loss. I could not move forward in my life. It was a vicious spiral. People would say how well I was doing, but in reality I was barely keeping my head above water. If you’ve ever seen someone truly struggle to swim, it was a lot like that. At times the water was over my head, while other times I was spitting and sputtering water as I struggled to breath.

Failure. I swear it was stamped on my forehead. If you didn’t know, this wasn’t my first divorce. I was married for about 4 years coming out of college. No children. It was a bit easier to move on beyond that as all ties could be cut cleanly. 

I read something on social media that brought this clarity to mind. It stated that things only got easier when I recognized two key things:

    1. My life hadn’t turned out how I’d imagined it would.

    2. There was nothing I could do to change it.

I have learned in my personal counseling, thanks to Richard, that humans…especially me love the feeling of control. When there is so much added inconsistently and unpredictability in this “new life” it is just asking for chaos. I was mad and hated the how I felt like I had worked my entire life to be a father, adopt children, buy a house, have a career…all just to have to be back at the start line again. This is where the new perspective comes in.

      

How often do you have the opportunity to build something new? As more and more time passes, I find that little by little, the kids and I have established new routines, new inside jokes, new games, and have been on new adventures. It hasn’t be easy. I have had and continue to have some amazing friends that have done nothing but support me. They have lifted me up on those low days. They have encouraged and pushed me to change in different ways. 

So I asked myself, what would I tell myself if I could go back and talk to myself… I think I would say a few things:

1. It does get better.
2. Focus on what you can control and forget about all the other things.
3. Money comes and goes. Worry less about the materialistic things and more on the people that matter the most.

Would I listen to myself? Let’s be honest…probably not. I know the emotion was so real and heavy just two years ago. It was this heavy cloud that was unbearable. But there are wonderful breaks in the clouds. There is light. Am I still sad at times? Yep. Do I still mourn the life that I thought I would have had? Yep. Time doesn’t make that less, but merely easier in the fact that I learn better ways to cope with that loss.

So if you are someone stuck in that dark place, keep pushing; it does get better. I promise. Ask my kids how often I “promise” things. Rose would say, “ugh, never…” I try not to promise things that I can’t follow through with. But it does get better; you have to keep pushing.

I read about an old wise tale regarding the difference between buffalos and cows. When a storm approaches, buffalo are brave and tuck their heads and charge straight into the storm in effort to get to the other side. Cows, on the other hand, do the exact opposite. At the sight of a storm, they panic and typically run away from the storm. They spend more time in the storm as their feeble attempts to outrun it are dashed.