Confessions of an Urban Single Mom … Stuck

When it comes to the Life Thing, I’d like to think that I’ve got it on lock down. The Trolls and I have managed to turn our little matchbox domicile into a home that smells like us, looks like us and sounds like us.

We’re comfortable. We’re content. We’re safe.

I have a job at which I’m not half bad. I have a steady income, and although I have yet to experience a time where I can walk into Coricraft and swipe away to my heart’s content, we’re not hungry, and the lights manage to stay on. The car we drive is not prettiest thing on the eye, but it gets us from A to B, and generally when the sun sets, we all get to look at each other and say ‘we did good. Another day done and dusted. On the next one!’

When it comes to the Love Thing, though, my eyes… kind of glaze over and I draw a blank.

Why? Because I’m stuck. I’m stuck emotionally, physically and spiritually. I have been stuck for ages and as much as I, upon introspection, can give a rough estimate that I became struck somewhere between my fifth romantic disappointment and my 70th, I can’t really be 100% sure.

All I know is… I’m stuck.

I have been glued to an inbetween place that allows me to neither reach out fully to anyone else in a romantic sense, nor be fully reached out to. I am stuck in an inbetween place where I ‘ooh and aah’ gleefully as I rub my hands over The Mermaid’s pregnant belly, giddy with love and expectation over her bundle of joy that will greet this earth before this year comes to an end… and blatant, raw reluctance over even beginning to imagine rubbing my hands over my own pregnant stomach in a future where there might be a Troll 3 in the works.

I am stuck in an inbetween place where romantic, tear jerker movies have me in a daze of ‘God, please grant me that kind of all-consuming love’ prayers for hours on end… and an absolute, resolute refusal to believe that that kind of love even really exists.

I am stuck in an inbetween place where my eyes sparkle and shine every time I spot a wedding ring on someone’s finger… and the strangest gag reflex when the thought of getting married myself even dares cross my mind.

I am so stuck that while I can be graceful, elegant, funny, approachable and affectionate to potential suitors on Dates One to Three… for the life of me I can’t seem to be able to allow myself to get to Date Five.

Because Date Five is real. Date Five means I am making a conscious decision to open up my heart and mind ( and life!) to someone who will either turn out to adorn it, or destroy it. Date Five means I have to introduce my children and I’m setting myself up to ‘is he your boyfriend?’ type of questions from friends and family. Date Five means no more hiding. Date Five means… becoming unstuck. Like most single moms, I dream of a life where Date Five no longer scares me, and where being stuck is no longer my comfort zone.

I dream.

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