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 [...]

“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 [...]

The day that I have dreaded for the last four years came and went.
Sami was in the bath, playing, splashing, the smell of berry-scented shampoo wafting through the air. I run a froggy washcloth over his squirmy little body.
“Do you have a mommy?”
Totally taken off guard. I spouted something about “my mommy being an angel [...]

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 [...]

My son is obsessed with band-aids. It all started with his school, when the teacher suggested that I try to provide some rewards for when he successfully used the toilet. I don’t really believe in motivating kids through bribes and rewards, but I felt pressure from the teacher to get the toilet learning going, and [...]

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 [...]

I know I’ve been pretty weepy/whiny/negative on here lately…and am not meaning to be…but shit is hard right now. And this feels like a safe place to write about the hard shit.
I am needing to travel a lot for work lately, and I’ve been leaning heavily on Sami’s dad…he’s been really good about stepping up [...]

My mother died 13 years ago this night.
In truth, we do not know if it was April 11 or April 12 that she died.
She died in the night, alone, suddenly.
No one knows when, exactly.
I was away at college, and got a call the next morning. 
So, I observe two days of mourning and celebrating.
My grandmother called [...]