It's human to be 'pissed'...

I recently had a conversation with my eldest daughter, in which she said, "You know what Mom? When we were kids, you always seemed kind of angry..."

The comment caught me off guard, firstly because I never really thought about how I "seemed" when my kids were little, and secondly, because I was angry, but thought that I was much better at hiding it than I apparently was. 

I took a moment before I responded to her. 

"You know what Boo?" (She's 27, and we still call her 'Boo') 

"You're old enough now that I can tell you this; I wasn't 'angry', and I wasn't mad at you and your brother and sister. What I was, was pissed. Though I love you guys, I was pissed because raising kids on your own is a massive job. I was pissed because when it came to everything about our lives; the house, the car, what you ate, your schooling, your friends, your social lives, your lessons, etc. the responsibility for every aspect of your lives fell on MY shoulders, and I felt it every single second, of every single day. I was always in motion. If I wasn't actually doing something for you guys, I was thinking about it. I wasn't 'Me' when you guys were little. I couldn't be. And if I made you feel as though my 'mood' was because of you, I'm so very sorry..."

To which she replied, "It's okay Mom. I get it. It's cool."

Thinking back on my own childhood, I remember thinking the same of my own mother. She always had this 'edge'...like she was pissed off all the time. I wouldn't say that she was necessarily mean, but I always got the feeling that she was...well...pissed. With the exception of the fact that my father died when I was a teen, I had a good childhood. My parents were cool, my siblings and I never wanted for anything. But I always felt like my mom was 'pissed' about her life. Not in a regretful way, but in the same way that I felt when I had three 'little people' who relied on me for every single fucking thing in life. The feeling of 'overwhelm' is...well...overwhelming!

It's okay to be 'pissed'. It's human to be 'pissed'. As long as being pissed isn't something that makes you do something completely irrational, being pissed is a relatively normal human emotion.

Why the Blog?

I'm sitting here in my own place, my own space, three years after having written the original "How to Be a Single Mom", thinking about how much I've been through in the last few years. The past 5 years or so have been the shittiest 5 years of my life, but I totally feel as though I'm coming out of that period now. In the middle of it, I'd probably moved 3 times, selling the family home the first time so that my mother could move in with us (long story). The second time we moved back to the 'old neighborhood' (longer story), and the third time we moved into a house that the landlord moved his own family out of, so that he could promptly begin his little 'enterprise' growing weed in the basement of the house, underneath my children and I. 

What a fuck-tard. 

I've raised 3 children for the most part on my own. I was divorced at 32, and at that time they were very young. The oldest was only ten years old, but I tell everyone that "she was 30 when she was 3" because she's always been incredibly mature. We never spoke to her as though she was a baby, even when she was a baby. Our second child was 7 years old, and I always felt as though she was completely oblivious to the whole 'divorce' thing. She was more social, and so I always got the impression that she concerned herself more with her friends and their 'issues' than anything that was going on at home. 

My son is the baby. He's the quiet one. He never really spoke until he was about three years old, because until that time, his sisters would do all of his talking for him. He would point at a cupboard in the kitchen, make some sound or another, and one of his sisters would say, "Mom...Carter wants a cookie..." To which I'd always reply, "Will you PLEASE let the boy tell me himself?!"

When I wrote "How to be a Single Mom" in 2013, I was right in the middle of that horrible 5 year period, thinking back on my life with kids. In hindsight (and currently), I have no idea what I'd have done without them, but at the same time, if it wasn't for them, I probably wouldn't have been in most of the positions that I found myself in. I'm not sure which is worse, or better. 

To be clear, I do know that I have no regrets. My kids are my life. They're my best friends, and without their dad, they wouldn't exist, so I guess I'm thankful for him too. My children are the people that I speak to first in the morning. They're the people that I call first when something good happens. They're also the ones that I call first when life deals me shit. They're always there for me, and vice versa. I'd jump in front of a speeding train or a stray bullet for the sake of saving any one of them...without question or hesitation. When I think about it, doing so would also be kind of a selfish act on my part; I couldn't bear it if something happened to one of them, so I'd prefer that it happen to me. 


Anywho...I've managed to get off topic. 

I created this blog version of the book, because someone who read the book actually enjoyed it enough to comment about the fact that it's so short (I know...I have the attention span of a flea), so...I decided that rather than re-write the book, I'd turn it into a blog. 

Talk about 'long enough'...this thing won't end. LOL.

Be careful what you wish for, dear reader ;)

Peace.

D.