Little Love

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. And in my case I almost always do... so I must ask carefully. Growing up I always wanted my mom and dad back together. It wasn't until I was 29 and on our first family vacation EVER that I realized exactly what kind of emotional torture I was spared by my parents separating when they did. Even though, I spent my whole young life wanting it to be different in my ignorance of the truth, and vowed not to ever subject my child to the sense of loss that I knew only too well. I would stay with my child's father, no matter what.

But when that choice came in my early twenties and I decided to marry the one man who had ever been nice to me in my short life, I realized how small my thinking had been and how long the rest of my life was going to be, unhappy as it was, loveless as it was. With my beautiful little daughter in my arms I cried so many, many nights and wondered what would be better? An unhappy mother in a loveless marriage, or a happy single mother who deals with all the stress life would undoubtly throw her, on her own, as always, even as alone as I felt in marriage.

Much like chewing off my leg to save my own life from the trap I was in, I left him in a foreign land with no relatives and no money. Anything had to be better than the way I felt with him. He said he would tell her that I left him when she was old enough and I told him I would tell her myself.

Now that she is eight and five years have passed since it was completely over, she cries regularly for us to be back to the way we were when she was a baby. To have a "normal" family.

It is like a knife through the heart every single time.

I cry, she cries and I tell her that there is no such thing as "normal". That I was unhappy and would not be the same mommy if I were with daddy.

My own childhood nightmare plays out over and over.

I tell her one day she will understand.

And it all sounds so callous.

For a moment I imagine how it could be again. But that imagination is exactly what got me married to someone who wasn't what I wanted in the first place. He was a version of a man I knew he COULD be. But the two are very different as I am learning even today in my present relationships. Expectation is the enemy. Reality is the fact and rarely do the two ever meet.

I tell her there are many kinds of families. Some have two daddies and no mommies. Some have a mommy, a grandma and a baby. All that really matters is that we love and respect each other and we see how we feel when we are together.

It is SO not fair for her.

I think about going back and giving up the struggles of single motherhood. But it is my dreams that I am not willing to surrender and the hope that keeps me strong when she and I are both weak and tired of being alone. I wonder if I will ever find a man that is worthy and wants to stand with me. But I always remember that I am happier than ever, in touch with my own needs more than ever... and in nine years she will be out of the nest and I will still be young. It sounds so selfish but if I do not save myself, who will? Do I want to go back for nine years plus the rest of my life? It sounded like a sentence then and it still does, life imprisonment. But to her the next nine years are an eternity.

I don't know what to tell her but the truth, as always. I try to sugar coat it and hope it goes down easy. There is little else I can do but hold her and show her what a strong woman who is self preserving looks like.

I hope she understands....