Growing pains...

Often when we engage in the world we pass that woman in the dollar store with the small child in her cart. No ring on her finger, baby with remnants of sweet potatoes on secondhand Disney character tee shirt.

Single mother and child. Of course this is a social premise.

Out of all the mothers in the world this is always the one I respected- yet never the one that I thought I wanted to be.

How does she do it?

Does she spend evenings on her porch chain-smoking, wondering how she'll keep her heat on next month? (Thank GOD it's still on today). Does she scrap together quarters to buy diapers for this week after she stands in line at the food pantry, hoping that they have the name brand Cheerios left when she gets her months hand-out?

I never thought I would be that one- but damn it, I respected her. The one woman show: working days, rocking child nights, pancake dinners three nights in a row. I respected that woman the most because she counts on her. After all, who else is there to count on when WIC only buys that cheap, bitter orange juice that you gag all the way down? But drink it up, darling. It's free.

At the end of the day, that woman counts on her. What pride she must have- I would surmise. But no, I will never be her.

Some mornings I wake up to the squeak of crib springs a room away. Lyrics from a Death Cab for Cutie song begin to play out in my sleepy consciousness, "I want to live where the soul meets body. And let the sun wrap its arms around me. Water cool and cleansing... and feel... feel waht it's like to believe. Because in my head there's a greyhound station where I send my thoughts to far out destinations. So they might have a chance..." Sing it, baby...

I use to sing this song to Harrison's father in the car after a night on the town. Now I sing it to our son as I arise to his smiling blue eyes. Two man team.

I push the cart through the dollar store- making a point to keep his striped Target sweater free of any meal remnants. I praise God when I can convince the Gas company to give me another week to write the check. I just spent the last twenty minutes digging for change in the couch cushions and pants pockets to wash clothes for the week.
This is a beautiful life, damn it.

And then there are the very difficult moments of single motherhood that I thought I was prepared for. Perhaps in some scenarios you never can be. Moments like the beginning of non-custodial parent visitation.

I knew when I decided to move forward with this "two-parent parenthood" synopsis that this moment would come. I thought by acknowledging the possibility I was prepared. I thought, I thought, I thought... But when you think and surmise about your reaction to a hypothetical horizon things aren't always as crisp and clear as how you actually feel when you read the unexpected court summons.

A court summons. After months of pleading with the man to pick the days and time that he wants to spend with his son, and being told that he's, "too tired" or "too busy" he finds the time to have his girlfriend organize a petition for visitation rights. The judicial use of the word "rights" here still heats me a little knowing that I have continually offered him any day and time he would like. In my mind he has been offered any rights he cares to initiate.

I have come to the conclusion that you can never prepare yourself for the day you hand your child over to his own flesh and blood: the same person that denied his son's existence for an entire pregnancy and the first 6 months of the boys life; that lied to his girlfriend insisting that he didn't have a son.

Your trust for this person would naturally wane; yet, in some form you have to learn to trust that every other Sunday and every other holiday this person is ready to put his life on the line for the only thing that matters in your life.
Sting.

To say that that I didn't hold some grudge would ultimately be a lie. Be gentle with me, I'm still growing in this process- it is true.

Yet the reminder: it isn't about me. From the day I chose this child- it hasn't been about me. I'm secondary within my own life and I choose this. I love this child more then myself. I continue to ask, in ten years, when I look back on this moment- how do I want to say that I reacted? (Do I sound sickly pious?)

Maybe by setting our ideals of what we expect of ourselves so high we really do begin to live above reproach by just missing our ultimate goal of becoming who we really wish we were.

I'm still growing in this process. That's the truth.