Confessions of a Single Mom Over 40

To Be Continued

By: Marci

They say that we all have a second childhood when we get old.  We again need help tying our shoes….  Need help getting dressed and need help brushing our teeth…eating…

What they don’t tell you about is your second teenage years.  Let me get back to this…

You know teenagers get a bad rep.  I know it sounds strange coming from me because if you know me, you know how much I dislike teenagers.  After helping to raise a few, I can honestly say, teenagers have it hard.  

They are told over and over again to be responsible and to go to school, get good grades, do their chores, stay out of trouble.  Then we tell them No you can’t do this or that, you are just a kid.  We expect our teenagers to be responsible adults, but then we don’t let them.  I know this varies from person to person, family to family.

Something else that teenagers go through that we tend to forget about is how hard it is for them to know who they are.  What they want in life, in friends, in a partner, in a career.  Everything is thrown at them so fast.  They go from being told: “you are just a kid” to “you are an adult, act like it.”   On top of it, their body is changing and they have feelings they have never had before.  Emotions, hormones, all those things screaming inside of them so loudly and yet they have to focus on a future that they really don’t understand.

If you are like me, you go with the flow.  You think you know what you want.  Hold onto the wrong things and live a life you tell yourself you always wanted to live.  Then you get pregnant at 41 years old, and that guy who you fought so hard to keep loving, who didn’t love you the way you thought and didn’t want another child… he decides he doesn’t want you.  

Now I am 44 years old, living at home with my parents with a 20 month old baby boy who, by the way, is truly what I always wanted in this life.  Only now I have to figure this out on my own.  

This brings me back to my statement about your second teenage years.  

I feel very much like I am that same girl who didn’t know what life had in store.  Only this time the crazy new batch of hormones and body changes that are messing with my emotions and my head also include aches and pains and keeping from peeing myself when I sneeze.  On top of those things, I have gained a considerable amount of Depression and Anxiety.  I have had heartache for a lifetime. Yet, I am here again with people asking me what am I gonna do with my life?  Where am I going to go?  Again, like I am supposed to have it all figured out or something…? 

I have to work a full time job and make enough money to support me, my son and whoever can babysit him while I am at work.  I have to do all the mom things, which I love.  I have to keep up at work, which I love too.  Which also means I miss out on a lot with my son. I have to also make enough money to move out, buy a home and raise my son, on my own. 

BIG SIGH  

This is the path I chose.  Everything I thought I had, was a lie and now the reality of this next chapter in my life, is a very hard pill to swallow.  

In trying to figure all this out, I am also trying to rediscover who I am.  I haven’t liked who I have been for a long time. In doing so I had to break it all down.  I have learned a few things about me as Marci, in general.  I love God.  I love my family.  I want to be a good person.  I want to be someone people look at and see God shining through. I still want to be that person that sees the best in people.  I have learned that there is a difference between seeing the best in people, and imagining the best in people. So on that, I have grown.  

I still have a long way to go.  I mean, I don’t know what I like anymore.  I tried to make myself into someone else and in doing so, lost…well, me.  I don’t know if I like that movie, or that show, or the way I do my nails.  Small things to most people, but to me, it is right back there to feeling those teenager feelings all over again, who am I, what do I like outside of my “clique”.

Other than those things I still have body issues.  I still feel not good enough.  Now I can add the actual child into this statement: I still feel like I am going to screw up my kid and one day he will hate me. 

SIGH

Even though I have no idea what I am doing, or how or if I can do it.  All I know is, I love my son.  I will do all that I can to make a life that he can be content with.  That he will know real love, real hope and real acceptance.  That he will grow up and say “you know what my mom did…. Everything….for me.  And all she asked for in return, is my love.”

I wish that this was the part of whatever this is I am writing - typing- where I found the answers and life is great and I know where I am going and how I will make it…..  But all I can say is…

…to be continued...