not what I signed up for :: this single parenting gig

Today I am going to make an exception to the general 'positive' theme of this blog.  Today I am just going to wear my heart on my sleeve and have a vent.  Today is the first day of the week with our Sarah gone home.  In reality it was still a really hard gig when I had her here.  Of course it wasn't going to be any easier at this point.

Getting out the door to do anything is a major mission with the smalls.

I hate that in summer Felix insists on wearing jeans and long sleeved multiple layers of shirts and then come winter.....he wants only shorts, thongs and no jumper.  We argue every single time we have to leave the house as I tear off the foul grey shirt and threadbare black jeans he wears 24/7.  It's literally a physical struggle every damn day!  Then there is Annabelle who is constantly squeezing more toothpaste onto everybody's brush which means we go through about two tubes a week.  No joke.

We struggle with her to brush her hair, make sure all 25 (again no joke) of her 'children' have a band aid on, a blanket wrapped around them etc each morning. They all need to follow her wherever she goes or it's like the sound of someone being murdered erupts from her mouth!!!!

What really gets me is the fact that all these things are probably quite cute to anybody else but for me, it's just one more hard thing in the endless days and months of hard.  It's fucking hard actually.


Hard that I didn't get a choice in this.  Hard that I have to figure out how to feed and cloth the kids each week while the male gene pool that happily contributed to bringing the children into the world, walk away from all responsibility and then complain about the unfairness for them.  Like your actions don't have consequences or something?

It's hard that they don't see how fucking selfish and self focused they truly are.  Hard to know they are complaining and focused on 'how this affects me'.   It's hard that I can't easily choose to go and work full time in a satisfying career as my children only have one parent.  I literally cannot be in five places at once.  Childcare is expensive, children get exhausted from being dragged from daycare to home when it's dark and they are hungry and tired.

Hard that they have the option to work hard in a full time job yet for whatever reason choose not to and not provide at least financially for their children.  This would be only the bare minimum after everything else they had taken from them.  As if they hadn't made it hard enough for them already, they sit in comfortable ignorant bliss having learned no lessons.

The sheer motivation required seems more that I have right now and I am so frustrated at the limitations of  the situation I find myself in.  I hate that I have criticism from 'some christians' as to the selfishness of choosing to work, yet on the other hand, the insensitive comments like 'welfare' makes it too easy for you single parents.  Really?  Ignorance is bliss never rang truer.  Really.....what should I do exactly.  I am truly open to suggestions.

I could work 40 hours a week washing, cooking, cleaning, running to sport, trying to create a beautiful home, trying to create opportunities for my kids to be connected to the community through regular church and sports involvement.  I just feel like I am stretched to the limit and could easily break right now.

That's before I even attempt to work in paid employment which is my preference after all.

This was the plan when deciding to have more children.  I would work as I had always wanted to combine career with child/home duties and the other parent would work to compliment this and we could both have the balance and work in together to eliminate childcare costs etc.  I had more children close together as a gift to my husband.  I had done the single parenting gig before and knew it would be fine with two parents on board.

Now I don't have that option, I don't get every second weekend to myself like other separations.  I am it!

I will always be it.  I can't have a future relationship as who could I trust to enter my children's lives?  I would be too damn tired anyhow and have nothing of value to offer and then would enter that selfish place of what it would give me.  The absolutely worst thing a person can be.

Maybe I need to change before I break in the way I think about it all.

I am a positive person (i promise)........this is just the reality....it's a shitty deal and I need to find a way to make it work for us.

I'm angry today as one persons choice steals another's youth and joy.  I am going grey, my face is wrinkled and I have a soul more the age of a seventy year old war veteran.  I am not vain, this is just the reality of the toll it takes on one when trauma hits unexpectedly and undeservedly.  I'm restless, frustrated and tired.

I am now officially divorced which is the only happy and positive part of this post.  I feel so liberated and relieved and glad to be free of the past in that way.  No further obligation and I believe, God's freedom to move on.

If ever there was a good time to go away and get some perspective it was now.  Only seven more sleeps and counting.