This Mama’s Dharma

As I hear my ex’s car pull up to drop off S, I open the blinds. The light goes on in the car.
She is sitting there. I don’t see her face, I have never seen her face…but I see the toss of a head. Long curly hair.
I feel sick. I feel my aloneness, my acute [...]

A little over a month ago, I declared 2010 (ok, perhaps a bit early) “The Year of Loving Myself Passionately (TYOLMP).” This is a serious decision for me: a holy vow to really, no-bullshit, truly, honestly shed some layers of self hatred and get down to the business of serious self esteem-building. I am literally [...]

Ah, the bitter irony of this life. I was to have a full five days to myself while Sami was at his father’s. And what happens? The Snowpocalypse of 2009. All my plans to be a whirling dervish of activity, dashed.
It ended up being all good. I just so happened to have a wonderful house [...]

“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.”
Helen Keller
As I embark on this path of celibacy and the journey inward, the journey home, I come face to face with blinding  spells of loneliness and self-pity. The old, familiar tale. The sense of [...]

Not partying, not smoking, not drinking, not dating, not indulging in my addictions, I am feeling raw emotions bubbling up to the surface with ferocity. Mostly guilt, sadness, shame, confusion…grief. Boatloads of grief. Trying to love myself through it all - my so human, so flawed self.
I have made so many mistakes in my life, [...]

“When we embrace anger and take good care of our anger, we obtain relief. We can look deeply into
it and gain many insights. One of the first insights may be that the seed of anger in us has grown too
big, and is the main cause of our misery. As we begin to see this reality, we realize that [...]

On August 2, I turned 34, and soon after, had a mini breakdown. It could have just been really bad PMS, but it felt like more than that.
I am perfecting the art of the mini-breakdown. It involves a few days of intense crying jags, not feeling real, barely being able to work, calling all my [...]

I hate the word “depression,” as I detest all clinical phrases. They serve to dehumanize and they also don’t get at what is really going on with people. A neat label does not begin to encapsulate the complexity of human existence, and I feel does it a disservice. But looking at the word depression in [...]

Father’s Day.
Why is it that when I think of my dad, all I can think of is his death? I remember entering his apartment, like a scene of a murder, but there was no murder - unless you count years of forced psychiatric drugging murder, which it is. I remember the smell of death all [...]

A good friend remarked to me today that she thought my challenge was not single parenting, but relationships.
I do believe she’s right.
Not that single parenting is not without its challenges. I’ve wrestled with how much to write about my child, when he is too young to event understand the concept of consent?
For this reason I [...]