anew

Single moms. This past year, I've commented on their blogs, read their stories, and rallied around their causes all without feeling like one. From my insulated perch, I murmured in solidarity when someone broke their heart. I nodded at their tales of financial strain. I imaginary high-fived them on the rare days when everything, from parenting to dating to career, fell into place. But if I were urged to choose a group to join - an identity to own - the single mama moniker would not necessarily be the first one that entered my mind. Until maybe now.

I wonder if one cannot truly be a member of the single mama posse until her heart is ...well, shattered. Until the pieces that started splitting into fragments when that dream first died- whatever the dream might have been - become so broken themselves that all that remains is dust. I wonder if perhaps, for me, my heart splintered only partially when I was divorced last year, and over the course of this last year - through loss after loss -  it has finally cracked completely. And while that may sound alarming to one reading this, it needn't, because my hope now that I have little left is to (finally) build anew.

It was while I was on my little writing retreat (where I accomplished little writing) a few weeks ago that I crashed. For two days, battling high and chilly winds, I sat wrapped in a blanket and stared at the sea through a curtain of salty tears. In utter solitude, I sobbed with grief. Grief over the chasm between me and my big brother, and as an extension, my sweet little niece, for losing my uncle to cancer much too early, and over a man who turned out to be a sliver of a shadow of the man my idealism had created. And yes, daunting grief over being on my own. Alone with my daughter. Daunting grief indeed.

I left Florida wrung out - feeling physically waifish and emotionally depleted. I boarded the plane slowly but without looking back; honoring and releasing that which caused such distress was grueling, but ultimately it had to be less painful than harboring hope for something different - than believing in something or someone that doesn't exist. Acute pain rather than chronic destruction.

And now, here I am, back home waiting for the spring. And the sun. Hoping that out of all of the tears that fell, maybe a few are feeding new growth, building anew.

(stock photography from Dreamstime)