Saturday 25 January 2014

And so it begins...

2014 is supposed to be a fresh start - a year when I can sort out the mess of my past and begin building a new life for my girls and me. I have all of these grandiose plans to establish a new routine, earn an income again, resume cooking proper meals for myself, exercise for the first time since who knows when, and deal with all of the formalities and legalities of a separation. Most importantly, I want to do anything and everything that will minimize the impact that this horrible life event is having (and will continue to have) on my sweet, innocent, beautiful, perfect little girls.

Well I can't say that I'm off to a great start so far. Since mid-December, it has been one thing after another. First, the stomach bug (all three of us). Next, a terrible case of the flu (again, all three of us). Then I experienced a strange week of back pain, the chills, and a horrible headache that wouldn't go away with sleep or medication. I am normally very healthy, so these health issues threw me for a loop. It was especially challenging as my girls were experiencing separation anxiety and showing other signs of stress as a result of all the changes that were happening. On top of that, relations with my ex, Darren, weren't going well and emotions were running high. All in all, Christmas was rough. Something I'd rather forget. January is proving to be the same.

A few days ago I was starting to see the light. I thought we were nearly out of this tumultuous period as my health had improved, the girls were seemingly happy again, and we finally established a predictable schedule with "daddy time." And then, I find out we all have lice. LICE! Nasty, horrible lice. And I have no idea where it was picked up - or when, for that matter. So here I am, on my third weekend alone (my girls are with Darren, and I'm praying he'll be diligent with their lice treatment plan), and instead of being all productive as I had hoped, I'm spending hours online researching these nasty little buggers and praying that we won't become yet another story of a family dealing with recurring lice for weeks, even years. I've been cleaning clothes and linen, vacuuming couches and car seats, sterilizing hair brushes, and trying to comb out my own hair with a lice comb because I no longer have someone here to help me with it and the lice clinic isn't open until Monday. Arrrgh! This is not what I had imagined my life as a single mom would look like.

It has been nearly five months since I ended my relationship with Darren. We never married so I won't really talk about us as divorced. But we have been together for eight years and share two children, so the emotions and the legal processes aren't much different. In so many ways, I feel like I haven't moved an inch since September, but in others, I've certainly run a marathon. I've got a divorce coach, I'm attending counselling (with and without Darren), I talk to my parents regularly over Skype, and I have a few close friends who are also providing me with much-needed support. I'm doing everything I can to grow and become a better person from this situation, but it isn't easy. I feel that there is still so much pent up inside me and I need to get it out somehow. So that's why I have decided to start this blog. It's therapy for me, to write this all out. And if it somehow helps you too, then great. I have found that reading blogs and stories of others' experiences with separation and being single parents have really helped me to better understand my own experience.

Here's to a big year of change. It's going to be interesting!