Sometimes, I wake up and I think, “How did I get here?” It still amazes me that this is how my life has unfolded. If you had asked me as a new college graduate, almost 25 years ago, “Lisa, what are your life goals?” my response would have been, “To raise a successful family.”
So, I guess my overall goal hasn’t changed, but my mental picture of how it would all unfold was not at all what reality presented. I suppose the young idealistic me saw the family, the loving couple, the home, the smart, happy, beautiful children, the ability to do volunteer work, and spend my time making the world a better place, and being the best wife and mother I could possibly ever be.
When I actually write it all down, the only thing that has truly changed is the loving couple part. I was asked a couple of times in the last week for some advise or encouraging words about being on the other side of divorce. I guess this is my response. Am I happy? YES! Am I glad that I am a single mother? NO! Is it (ever) easy? HELL NO! Is it different from being married? YES!
How is my life now different? Well, it is much less stressful in a lot of ways. My ex-husband still manages to do things that make me react with stress, but on the whole, it is les stressful than it was the last couple of years of our marriage. A lot of my married life was good, but I have realized that the things that are really important to me haven’t changed.
What else has changed? Well, I am currently working two jobs. The third job mercifully ended because I am dealing with at least two major chronic illnesses, and three jobs was not smart, except from a financial standpoint. My health suffered, and my family suffered. I am working, however, on developing a writing career, so I am working another job, but it is different.
The other thing that causes stress that was not a source of stress before is time management. Since I am doing the two jobs, the career development, the health management job (huge task) and I am not driving at all any more (health again) the logistics of how to fit it all in, and have the time and energy for my most important job of being a good mother, I find that I am always juggling, and stamping out fires.
It is quite a visual. I can practically see a New Yorker cartoon of me… A petite middle-aged woman, Juggling two teenagers, two younger children, talking on the phone booking a client, with papers strewn about working on a lesson plan, and “fires” like house repairs, court appearances, scholarship applications, planning a bar mitzvah, etc. are flaring around my feet. The tiny petite figure has a flurry of activity where her legs should be, trying to deal with the fires. I’m actually laughing as I write my cartoon with words. It is comical, but it is real. And, then there is the whole health thing…
A friend recently told me I was the graceful duck, gliding across the water, but underneath the surface, my feet were going a million miles a minute to keep me afloat. YES.
I am afraid that this is coming across as pathetic, but that is not at all how I see my life. I am happy. I love my life. I have learned that I am one of the strongest people I know. I have learned to ask for help. Some. I have learned that most of what I envisioned as a new college graduate is still the same. I am still raising a family, four happy, smart, beautiful children. I am a good mother, even though I wish I could dedicate more of my time to just being supermom. I still live in a beautiful home. I still do volunteer work. I still have the same goal of making the world a better place.
The happy loving couple part will have to wait. I can’t see how to draw that into my cartoon. Yet.
