Anami Grace | Made Up Life

One of the loneliest parts about this journey of solo parenting is that I don’t have anyone to experience the exact reality I do with my children. Like. Nobody is around to hold the pleasure and the pain of these wonderfully difficult moments of loving myself and creating the relationship I want with my kids.

The reason I was able to finally recognize that: name it and finally address that loneliness was because the other day my neighbor called my younger kid “Our little crawdad” And it broke that loneliness lose in me so I could finally spend some time treasuring that darkness within myself.

Because. My ex-husband was not it. Sincerely no hate for him, he gave me two of the most precious treasures I could have ever even imagined, and recognized that these precious angels were mine, and only mine. And he let us go and supported us in the only way he could. At a distance.

And my freedom came in the form of divorce decree that makes my heart bubble with self love and pride every time I look at it. Like, hey. Thanks for the cool last name and the two kids. But we gotta go.

But, not having anyone to share these beautifully awful moments with my kids and I is mostly wonderful, but the loneliness that is held in these silent moments of love. Through the wonderful highs of making up ridiculous stories about your pets as a way to instill continued play in my children. And the lows of late night tears from seemingly permanent challenges that creep up like little monsters asking for us to love them all the way through it.

Learning over and over again how to best love these precious humans I’ve been entrusted with again today. Like, the bittersweet hurt of knowing that I’m going to breathe and it will change. Because being a parent is wonderfully temporary. And that’s the impossible thing about parenting. It’s a silent grief held only in the ones who carry their children in their souls. That we never parent the same kid twice. For in the space it takes to create the milestone, it leaves both of you impossibly changed. Forever different for having shared the intersections of two universes. It’s the impossibility of holding that moment and also simultaneously letting it go too.

Taking a deep breath and unfolding the fractal again tomorrow.

But the foundation of the way I feel about caring for the challenges of parenting my children is the way I feel about caring for myself. I had to learn how to fall in love with the care and compassion for myself first.

Tenderly loving the little monsters of me, scaring them back by being the monster of evolution. The most terrifyingly beautiful monster we all hold. Because to the monsters: unaligned habits, relationships, patters, thoughts, stories are all monsters to the discipline, curiosity, joy, emotional attunement, boundaries, brave steps, and playfulness.

Exploring and loving exactly who I was, and finding the movement through each stage, version, shape, feeling and existence I had right then, and learning to identify and meet my needs with the compassion I freely gave away to everyone else without ever wonder if they deserved it as much as I did.

Basically. I figured out what the gift of my existence was through loving myself through a variety of experiences. And as that grew within me, I was able to give more of it to my kids.

It turns out that the more that you care for yourself and love yourself and believe in yourself that the more you can love your kids and believe in your kids.

Which you’ll never believe until you give it to yourself. Stupid. I know. But I realized all of that because my neighbor called my kid “our little crawdad” and my life was once again ruined by love, community, friendship, amazing food, movement, flowers, half a peanut butter cookie, and a mcgivered nap.

All because I loved the monster of my own loneliness enough to make a way to others so they’d never know the depths of this pain. Only the heights of having someone show up with the best salsa you’ve ever had and the friendship of a lifetime.

All because you became your own best friend first. Anyway. Love and light to you all. Take care! Bye.