Mssinglemama.com contest entry- What do I want to change this year?

Check out the contest at http://mssinglemama.com/
This year I want to...
Stop settling. I want to only have the best. I want to let go of taking whatever scraps and hand me downs are passed my way, taking whatever job I can get because it's good money and a short commute, wearing clothes that don’t fit me and that I feel disheveled, ugly and fat in…a house, any house in a decent neighborhood to replace the scarlet letter of single-mama on my forehead with another stamp…the American dream..the stamp of homeowner.
I have worked very hard and come such a long way, but the endless compromises I have made are perhaps somewhat unnecessary? I think perhaps I do too many things because I think they are what I should be doing. As hard as it is to admit, I bought a house partly to combat the feelings of inadequacy I felt at being behind my friends in accomplishments. For a little while being able to say, “my house”, these two flats are mine, this driveway, these floors, these walls are mine. I am a landlady. I renovated the first floor flat (with the gracious help of family and friends.) It worked for awhile. It raised eyebrows for my young entrepeneurship instead of my young (perhaps miscalculated) single motherhood. They balanced eachother out in some weird way.
But in exchange I gave up a lot of time, sweat, blood and energy that if I had focused on what I truly want out of life…I might spend that energy differently. It’s not too late. It can always be sold, rented out, demolished by an act of god. The pride of homeownership is in me, but maybe there was nothing to be ashamed of in the first place, in my beautiful perfectly imperfect family. Maybe there was no need to balance it out in the first place. I know I can do this, be a homeowner & landlady. I have proven that, so now I have to choose, do I want to do this?
I have a lot of shame from being a single mother and I am trying to let that go and move on. I have felt that my son’s missing part of his brain is somehow my fault. It is not. That guilt is not helping anyone. I have spent five years hunting down the reason for his disability and I have finally found it, and it had nothing to do with my choices. I thought it would be some massive release, that the shame and gult of having a disabled child would just disappear overnight, once I could medically prove it was not my fault. The green tea, the couple of diet cokes, the beer or two before I knew, the 10 cigarettes I had while pregnant, after I should have known better didn’t cause his disability. The out of wedlock birth, my young age, my lack of a college degree did not cause his disability.
Neither did the 5 servings of vegetables I religiously ate, or the state of the art prenatal care I sought out and worked two jobs to pay for, or the fact that I chose life, or that I turned my life completely around at the news of my son’s impending arrival, none of those heroic things done through sheer strength, willpower , work and staying power, protected him from disability. Somehow my son and his disability and now mine, are meant to shape us into just who we are supposed to be. It is time to let go of this guilt and shame. If there even was a crime, I have paid tenfold. I am done.
I have so many good things that I have done, accomplished and am.
-I have supported my son by myself for 4.5 out of 5 years.
- I held my head as high as I could as I delivered newspapers to my former friends parents houses in the suburbs, because it allowed me enough money to be home with my beamish boy all day. (I never should have been ashamed in the first place for providing for my little family the best way I knew how.)
- I finished my bachelor’s degree paying my own way through for the last 2.5 years. Magna cum Laude. 3.68 GPA. Hard won. Skipped class to do work to pay the bills and skipped work to do schoolwork to pass the classes I worked so hard to pay for. Straight A’s till I realized that an “A” in class would never absolve my sins. (Perhaps I never really sinned to begin with? Just made choices a naive child would make and then did the best I could with what I had.)
-I bought a house in a neighborhood on the edge. On the verge of greatness I still hope. But on the edge nonetheless. I learned to hold my head up high even as tenants’ friends laughed, “you’re landlord is like…12.” Yup. And don’t you ever doubt that I have the strength of ten men. I learned to evict.
I picked better tenants the next time around, nah, great tenants. I learned to lay kitchen floor, wire bathroom light fixtures, regrade around the foundation to eliminate mold, paint, sand, make it someplace I could be proud living, proud to rent out. And even when the neighbors shot all my hopes to hell and drank forties on the porch and smoked a blunt at 4pm, and heckled me while I sweated in the sun. I planted bulbs and weeded and created beds in the front yard while watching my son, my gorgeous son make his way in the world with a sense of home. And a youthful naivety that allowed him to run his chubby legs and never notice the despair around him. This is our home. And when the neighbors fought loudly and cursed the very children they brought into this world, I held my ground. I planted new grass seed in my stubbornly shady yard, and sanded, and painted. I had the house renovated to energy efficient standards. I plant flowers in the porch planters. And I will buy a rocking chair and put it out front. Because this is my home for now…and when it’s a rental, it will not scream “Slumlords own this place.” Not while I own it.
- And I spent years researching my son’s disability. The possible causes, the possible treatments, the best doctors, clinics, hospitals in the world. And occasionally I bridge jumped naked with a stranger just to make sure I was still alive.
-And I found the cause and against all rational advice I followed a crazy far out medical plan and a gluten free, casein free, soy free, corn free (Well, what the hell is left you ask?) diet…and…it worked. My son has gone from very developmentally disabled and struggling in the world, to making amazing progress in less than 6 months, he is now reading at 5 years old. That’s not too shabby especially missing part of your brain.
-I took a massive leap this year to focus on our health. I took 10 months off from work this year, financial suicide, (I racked up more than a little debt in the process). But in the end, my reasons were solid. I found good medical treatment, slept a lot, took better care of myself and took stock of my life. I have healed emotionally in so many ways. Family drama is fading into the background. You make your choices and I’ll make mine.
- And I fought a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. And I won. And I am 90% better physically.
-And I found a job and I fought my shame and embarrassment ofM.S./Pparkinson’s like loss of muscle control to the point of not being able to walk or talk. And I got up every day for the last two months and said I am here and ready to work. Here is my exemplary work, despite being terrified and petrified and ashamed and twitching like a mofo, “Just pretend I’m like Will Smith Gettin’ Jiggy wit it.” And my work has appreciated my work, on its’ merits alone.
And I am here. I am here and I am 90% better physically, and my boy is recovering amazingly.
And I still have work to do. I deserve to be happy. I can make choices to make my life easier and it is not a copout to move closer to my job so that I can get an hour to myself instead of commuting in rush hour traffic. And it is not a copout to get a babysitter on Tuesday nights so that I can write my pain down and exorcise it from my soul so that I can show up tomorrow and be a better stronger, happier mama. I am allowed to be happy. I must be happy to show my beamish boy how. I must learn to carve a strong and courageous path to teach my boy that he is not disabled. That he has amazing gifts for this world and that they are more than enough to counteract whatever deficits the world may think he has.
That there was never anything wrong with us in the first place. So there is no reason to settle, to accept less than what we want.
So this year I plan to go for it, leap first, the net will appear. Take the time and space I need to be happy. My son needs to see his mama happy to know how to be happy. If I want him to be happy, I have to show him how, and part of that is in not compromising. I need a little more faith, in god, the universe myself…or something. There must be a great plan for us.
This year I will:
-Rip the band-aid off, speak my my truth in a respectful way and know that there is no shame in that, and in fact great things come from speaking the truth.
-Make space, make time for my friends, my music, my art whatever form that may take, no matter how simple, pathetic, or silly it seems.
-Love my boy just the way he is and yet still hold in my heart a vision of boundless possibilities for us both.
-And I will somehow enjoy life along the way and stop feeling guilty when I somehow manage to be happy.
This I will do. This I pray.