Cinderella's folly

March 2011

March 2012

When Riley was first born I felt this frenzied need to get married, to find him a daddy. These feelings were mainly subconscious; in many ways I didn't even realize this until after his first birthday. (Ironically I didn't date at all for much of this time. Who has time for that with a newborn? I had bigger things to worry about.)

My church sponsors an Institute of Religion that offers free religious classes for young adults. In an attempt to get out of the house and make friends I started going to one of these when Riley was about three months old. Driven by my subconscious (and sometimes not so subconscious) need to find someone (anyone! right away!) to spend the rest of my life with, I chose a class on marriage.

I went exactly two times. I honestly don't remember if it happened in the first or second class (or why I even went back if it was the first one), but for one of the class periods the instructor had compiled statistics, quotes from psychologists, and other "evidence" on how single parenting destroys children and crumbles society.

Yeah.

I was three months postpartum. Three months. It wasn't even a matter of being offended; my hormonal self just simply couldn't take being told that I was ruining my child's life...and the world. So I simply stopped going.

Looking back with the luxury of having two-and-a-half years of emotional distance, I suspect he was simply trying to illustrate the importance of marriage. But I felt like a giant failure.

The frenzy continued. I dated guys who maybe weren't the best choices to begin with, but after a long stretch of zero male attention, I was of a beggars-can't-be-choosers mindset. I held on way too tightly (some may have viewed it as desperation) and quickly sent them running in the other direction.

One of them (to his credit, I suppose) stopped running long enough to tell me that he hoped I wouldn't rush too quickly into a marriage, that I would use my brain and think a little. That being alone wasn't the end of the world. After all, that was the life I was already living.

And then at some point, something changed. I changed. I went from clingy-needy vibes to no!-go-away!-stop-trying-to-help-I-can-do-this-ALL-by-myself vibes. (And I wonder why my child is fiercely, dramatically, uncompromisingly independent.)

I'm not sure which is worse, although my instincts say the first one. My first folly was thinking I had to have a man to complete me, to complete us. My second was thinking that, in fact, I do have to do it all on my own to make it worthwhile.

I like to think that I'm a superhero, but maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm not Wonder Woman or a Powerpuff Girl. Maybe I *can't* save the world before bedtime.

It could be that I'm simply a human woman. One who now is perhaps a little too proud of the fact that she has done so much alone.

In the lonely days of my second trimester I discovered that I wasn't too proud to beg. I wanted Ri's dad back more than anything. I told him that I didn't know how to face all of this alone. Pregnancy. Childbirth. Raising a son. He told me that he knew I could do it, knew I'd be fine, because his mom had done it, and so could I. Well...his words proved to be true, but I can't say that I'd call them right. Because it isn't right. It isn't right that Riley thinks I'm both his mommy and his daddy. (Does that mean I'm also going to get a Father's Day present?) It isn't right that I went to every. single. doctor's appointment alone, including the 20-week ultrasound, to the shock of the ultrasound technician. It isn't right that we've spent the last three years living with my parents because I didn't have any better way to put a roof over our heads.

But I did those things. Alone. Because I had to.

But sometimes, being human, having no Y chromosome, I am tired of being alone. Sometimes the loneliness breaks me down...a little. Just a little. And in those moments I crave what so many people take for granted. In those moments I think I'd be willing to let go of some of my pride in exchange for someone to hold me and tell me it's going to all be okay. Someday.

And then ideally he'd bring me ice cream.

PS: I didn't realize until I looked at the picture info that both of them were taken in the month of March. I just wanted one older picture of us and one newer picture. Apparently March is a good month for taking webcam pictures.