Most of the time you will catch me laughing, playing with cats and dancing with kids. That’s my life. It’s wonderful, fun and I consider myself beyond blessed. I have come a long way over the past year and am thankful for the changes that have occurred in our lives. With all that being said I can’t help but to feel a pinch of something kinda awful that I feel like a lot of parents feel at some point in their journey …..isolation. If you are a single parent like me, a parent with a partner who travels a lot, a young person in the world trying to find their way or just a person who hasn’t found many connections in life, isolation is something that might be affecting you.
Many of you will read this and think that I’m talking about geographic isolation considering we live in the middle of nowhere… but I dont. I mean running errands all day, working with a ton of people, having a regular social schedule, maybe being apart of a church and being a well liked person and still feel isolated.
Since my split I have lost the small ‘ new family ‘ I had gained and have adapted to having lots of Mommy and kiddo time alone. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids but not having the appropriate amount of adult interaction can really get to you. Especially when these days a lot of my adult interaction is with people who I can’t identify with. I guess all of it hit me pretty hard yesterday on my daughter’s birthday.
Since becoming separated from my children’s fathers obviously our time with the kids have changed. Yesterday wasn’t ” my day” with the birthday girl and it broke my heart. She literally cried and I had to pretend I wasn’t dying on the inside and had to convince her she was going to have the best day ever. Of course she had an amazing day but it pained me to not be there. Luckily I got to take her to breakfast but it didn’t make the rest of the day any easier. My friends know me well and I got several invites to hang out for the rest of the day so I wouldn’t be alone.
I ended up going to my best friends house for her sons birthday party. I got to laugh, play with other kids and got to be “crazy Aunt Renee” for the day. I automatically felt better until today. Today is Sunday, a family day and here I am again feeling the isolation blues. I have 2 of the 3 of my kids and we came over to my girlfriends house again. I’ve probably eaten more pizza and Halloween candy today than I have in years. While I’m super thankful for such supportive friends it’s still a very hard pill to swallow that I’m in a situation that (thankfully ) most of my social circle is not in. Even though they may not know how to relate, they know I like sour patch kids, pepperoni pizza and ginger ale and they have kept it in stock just for me for days like this. Here’s to better days and moving forward in a positive light !
Xoxox
MHS
