Solo Mother

Putting things into perspective

by christina on May 22nd, 2008

I’ve been frustrated and feeling sorry for myself lately, for no concrete reason but that dreams don’t look like they’ll be coming true any time soon. Hey, at least I have dreams, right? So I can’t afford to take the kid on vacation this year. At least I’ve saved enough to go on vacation, so I can pay for the kid’s summer camp out of that fund and tell the ex to go bugger off if he’s not going to pay child support for half a year. Seriously. This is how his child will remember him, the man who never called.

So work is HARD. So what? I chose to work with a group with hard issues. I might make a difference, some day.

But still, I’m blue. The simplest things seem to be the most complicated. What I want is always just beyond my fingertips, and all I can do is surrender, and believe that some day, some way, I’ll get it right. I’ve just had to go through and completely delete a friend from my life, because it wasn’t healthy. I’ve never done that before it was too late. Let me tell you. It still hurts.

I’m wallowing in a little corner of my soul. Disgusting habit, I don’t recommend it. At least I’m old enough now to compartmentalize it and not let it take over my life.

Did I mention I’m going to be 40 on Monday? There is no one besides my parents who can stand beside me and know me. My history is unknown. There is no one to grow old with.

Yeah. Like I said, I’m wallowing a little bit.

But I saw something today that shocked me.

Someone I used to know is homeless.

When the KoE and I used to commute from the old house to school, I’d see this woman I once knew sitting on the benches outside a woman’s shelter in the early mornings. I wasn’t a friend of hers, but I knew she was a razor tongue and a sharp mind beneath dyed black hair and a habitual blue bandanna. The type of woman who wore those black, rubber bracelets mixed in with the silver bangles. The sort of chick who had more than just her ears pierced.

I thought perhaps she’d channeled all that energy into counseling for battered women, and that would explain why she sat on the benches early in the morning.

Today, I saw her in the coffee shop in my office building, quietly going through the trash, caging cigarette butts long enough to give a damn about. Her hair was white, and her posture and rhythms gave tongue to the possible cause of her demise. I couldn’t remember her name, though I’m sure, based on who I was back in the day, she’d no doubt remember me if I gave tongue to my name.

What could I have done?

Nothing. I watched her go about her afternoon foraging, and said nothing. She looked clean, and reasonably well fed. For the mentally ill there is little I can do– hell, I can’t even help my friends out of depression. I might, however, give a donation to the shelter that is so obviously giving her some sort of quality of life.

I wonder if she has a child. I wonder if some mother worries about her, somewhere. I wonder why the hell it’s not me, standing on some streetcorner, finally unable to keep the ends meeting in some imaginary middle.

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