This Mama’s Dharma

I find myself exhilarated by the early days of TYOLMP…but I also feel a bit alone in it. All of the single parent bloggers I know talk about their evolving relationships, newly-found significant others, their dates, their hook-ups, their ever-hopeful search for connection with another human being. And believe me, there is zero judgement or [...]

Thanks to Ms. Single Mama for inspiring this video!!

Tomorrow will conclude a full seven days spent with my son. A week without work and school, without the typical interruptions that punctuate my time with him. Just the two of us, and our friends, the only family I have. And it has been a beautiful week, for the most part. Just about every day [...]

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 [...]

It has been a very interesting few weeks.
Interesting is putting it mildly. It started when I got some completely unexpected and very upsetting health news - basically it was yet another cancer scare, and the good news is that it is benign and things are more or less back on track. But something has happened [...]

For the past few weeks, I have been working on improving the co-parenting relationship with Sami’s dad, and I think my efforts might be bearing fruit. Sami is our joint venture, and we might as well approach his care and upbringing from a spirit of cooperation and relative friendliness. It’s been easier said than done. [...]

I know I cannot act it out, this rage. So it is impotent. Impotent, limp-dick rage. I don’t know what all this energy is for; so much of me is going into the anger right now. Is there a constructive direction to take it in? Or must it just rage through in its impotent way?
As [...]

“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 [...]