Anomaly

I do not make sense. I feel like I am a million things at once, but not really any of them at all. I’m an adult but still my parents’ child; I’m a college graduate who works in a call center; I’m single but I’m a mom.

And that last one right there is the kicker. I am a single mom. Other single people are worrying about school or dates and I’m trying to figure out how to pay for diapers, and how to be around to be the one who changes them.

For the most part, I feel like I can relate to other moms…until they start talking about their husbands. And then I just feel like a lost little girl again. I always thought I’d get married when I grew up but here I am now all grown up and that marriage thing still hasn’t happened. It’s like a foreign concept to me. A foreign concept that always will be foreign because I’m almost four years older than the average age for a woman in Idaho to get married.

I know I sound kinda whiny, and I’d like to say that’s not intentional, but this is a vent, after all. I know I made decisions that led to this point in my life. But knowing that doesn’t make things any easier. If anything it just makes it harder to know that I brought this on myself. I feel guilty no matter what I do. When I wasn’t working full time I felt guilty because my parents were so willing to help me and Riley. And now that I have found a job I feel so awful leaving my baby boy every day. I miss him insanely and I wish things were different. But they aren’t different. This is my life.

Maybe when work slows down I’ll stop feeling like there is a dark cloud of insanity hanging over my head. I’m required to work overtime, which as one of my coworkers said, is good for the pocketbook but not for the soul.

So back to me not making sense. I know I’m not alone and that there are other single moms on the planet. Lots and lots of us. But when Riley wakes up at 4am and it’s just he and I walking the bedroom floor for an hour, I feel all alone. That’s when I wonder what in the world I have gotten myself into, and if things will ever get better.

Amanda, 25, Idaho