I didn’t realize how tired I am until I didn’t have a job to go to and nothing but time on my hands.
I’ve been saying it to a few friends for a while, most of whom are the only parent like me and get the sheer exhaustion of doing every part of adulting alone. I am tired to my bones.
Most people assume it’s my old job that wore me out, and I’m sure it has a little to do with it, but work was my happy place. I loved it because I’m good at it and rarely questioned my purpose there. But this single parenting thing? Woo. Have mercy. It gets harder as the kids get older, which no one prepared me for.
Next year will be my oldest kid’s senior year. I remember the excitement I felt waaayyy back in the day during my senior year. We didn’t know what life was really like but knew we couldn’t wait to find out. Some of us had big plans. Some of us had modest plans. Some of us had no plans. We simply wanted to get out into the world.
What to Do Next?
Not long ago, I was talking to a younger single mom friend. We were talking about how quickly her kiddos are growing up. While we were talking, my oldest was playing with her youngest, and watching them filled me with a sense of melancholy. I mean, I remember bringing her home from the hospital, setting her car seat down and just staring at her, wondering what I was supposed to do next.
My one piece of advice to my young friend was to step away from the hustle and be fully present with her kids. My one regret is that I was always parenting with one foot in the now and my mind in the tomorrow. I wish I would have taken more time to simply “be” with my kids, but I was hypervigilant about being prepared for the next emergency, usually surrounding money, to slow down often enough. Time has always been my biggest deficit as a single mom.
The other night my kid became heated when I asked her to do something that I could, and I quote, “stand up and do for (my)self.” I gave her my patented raised eyebrow and she stomped out of the room. Later, when she came in and asked me to play Snapchat games with her, we talked about it. I told her that I don’t always explain things and know I can do a better job at it. I explained that I ask her to do some things so I can make sure she knows how because she’ll be leaving for college in a year and I need to know she’s prepared in as many ways as I can. I also pointed out that she was capable of doing whatever needs to be done but it was still my job to teach her and prepare her.
I don’t know if she fully believed me, but we did spend the rest of the night laughing and goofing, so maybe.
Stinkin’ Thinkin’
One of my biggest “things I’m doing differently with my kids” is to stop the cycle of maneuvering life from the mindset of desperation and struggle. I think one of the things I lacked the most growing up was someone reminding me that today is what tomorrow uses as a foundation. One of the pieces of the poverty puzzle is a belief in fate and destiny. There’s a lot of stinkin’ thinkin’ when you’re poor that tricks you into believing that “this” is as good as it gets.
It took me well over 40 years to believe that I was born for more than scarcity. Hell, I’m still struggling with it now as I approach my 50th. There are times when I catch myself going down the rabbit hole of “things I never learned because I was poor.” Usually, those thoughts are brought on by talk of foods or name-brand shopping, which, I know, sounds ridiculous but is true. There are so many things that I’ve never experienced because I wasn’t doing life with anyone who had, and there’s a lot of frequent conversation here about the fact that socioeconomic status often determines how people navigate and respond to life.
On the other hand, my lived experience has provided me some extraordinary opportunities that I wouldn’t trade for the world. Not only that, but I’ve learned how to be okay regardless of the circumstance, and that’s what I use to calm myself when I think about my chick leaving the nest.
Thank God dreams are free because we have some big ones. Sometimes knowing what you don’t want is more important than knowing what you do.
Onward,
Amy Jo
