Being a single mom is hard.
Motherhood, parenthood and child rearing are all hard life experiences—enlightening, life-changing miraculous experiences, but hard nonetheless. Being responsible for the lives of human children: for washing them, feeding them, mending them, helping them develop and guiding them on their journey in this world.
Now throw in one more component: being single. Single Moms are this weird species that don’t really fit in anywhere. We have our married friends, and hanging out with them is just…well, different. And then we have our single friends, who don’t really understand what its like to be responsible for another human.
Married friends have luxuries we single moms don’t, and they don’t often remember how vastly different our situations are. They have a partner to help out financially, emotionally and physically, but us single moms…we are all we have. If we get sick, we still have all the work to do.
Our situation never changes, regardless of how circumstances do. As life evolves and money comes or goes, when it comes down to it, we still have a small human that depends on us for everything. We still pay the bills, and do the work, and clean the house, and surprise the sleepovers, and…the list is endless. We are our own breed of human, and until you’ve been a single parent, you can never really understand.
The “singleness” in my journey as a mother is the loneliest thing I have ever experienced.
Despite the love I have for my children, and for myself, it is absolutely lonely. For instance, when I am sitting up with my son at three in the morning because he is sick, only to finally get him to bed just in time for my alarm to go off. Or when I rush to get to work on time, and have to deal with violence, death and an inequitable educational system. When my card gets declined, as I try to purchase milk for my children. When I finally watch my son ride without training wheels for the first time, or celebrate my daughter’s new found confidence. With all these experiences, I am utterly alone. No one can share in it with me—no one witnesses the pain, the joy, the tears or the laughter. No one can share in my conversations, or celebrations, or comfort me when I finally break.
It is with that loneliness that I learned to love myself and my life as a single-mom. That loneliness forced me to look deep inside and find a truth I never new existed. I am a ferocious lioness. I am a bad-ass mother with a fearless soul, and my love for myself and my children can overcome anything.
The loneliness still visits sometimes, but it no longer consumes me. Rather, it drops by to remind me that I am human, and that I desire the company of a life-long companion—but also that I am okay until I find that other soul.
So to all you single mamas out there, currently battling the loneliness each and everyday, know that it gets better. Know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and know that you have the ability to rise above this and come out more strong and fierce than ever before.
You are a lioness, and you should never allow anything—especially loneliness—to silence your roar!
~
Author: Nikyla Stock
Image: Instagram @thesmithsix; author’s own
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina
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