And then the funniest thing happened.
The kids got older.
They became more self sufficient and aware.
My son turned 5 and the younger two girls turned 3. (Yes, I have twins.)
They started to see more when they observed.
They started asking more questions.
(Why, why, why Mom?)
What a great question.
Hold ON. Let me think about that.
Kids Are Like Sponges
Seriously, why do I do that?
Then the new survival mode became a combination of raising the kids while I was re-parenting myself.
Reviewing all the assumptions of my beliefs, behaviors & messages that I shared with the kids.
Oof.
Parenting 3 young kids and reparenting myself at the same time is some crazy stuff.
It’s doing the work, healing, and teaching all at the same time.
When I was growing up, a general rule was to finish all the food on your plate. No waste.
Don’t throw out food.
Be mindful of the effort and money it took for that food to get to your plate.
So clean plate club all the way and it works for the most part.
Except one day, the kids and I were hosting a potluck and there were all sorts of random food on their little plates: chips, fruit, cake, hot dogs – party food.
We had been eating and munching most of the afternoon and they were about to throw out their plates…and I said to them “Don’t throw it out! Finish your food first.”
I literally yelled at my kids to eat cake and chips.
Facepalm.
That was one of the moments that really made me reconsider my beliefs and more generally my values.
The next three years became survival mode in a whole new way.
It was a time of revisiting everything I knew about life and what I was taught. It was considering “Does it really make sense to me? Do I want to teach my kids this pattern of thinking?”
It was a conscious review of my childhood, my “rules”, my identity, and everything that I held as true.
And, that’s a lot of freaking review!
In fact, it’s ALL the review.
It’s like you just finished a book and then you go back, pore over each paragraph and stare down each sentence.
What is even happening?
You know how the book ends and as you go back, you see how the story arc builds to the ending.
This survival mode was deep and made me really consider “Who do I want to be?”
There was a lot of sifting and sorting.
Healing, for sure.
But awkward, painful, and HARD.
It essentially made me rebuild myself value by value, belief by belief, and story by story.
Overall though, it consciously gave me the gift of having the ability to choose.
It was exhausting, enlightening, and empowering.
And somewhere in this new age survival mode, I started rebuilding my identity.
I was no longer the single mom to feel sorry for but instead a woman with kids.
I was no longer the woman on the search for a man but instead someone that was comfortable in her own skin looking for the right partner and relationship.
I was no longer the girl with FOMO trying to do everything to please everyone but instead a woman with boundaries, interests, and a life of her own.
Somewhere in that time frame I started doing activities for myself and having more fun: improv, artwork, cooking, creative endeavors.
Trying new things.
Connecting the dots.
Considering life in a thoughtful way. Thoughtful in a customized to me sort of way.
What do I want?
I started to figure out what I actually wanted.
When I removed the cobwebs of being on autopilot, I started to hone in on who I wanted to be in the present and consider new possibilities for the future.
And so, I walked down the path – healing, eyes wide open, finding my neutral center, trying new paths, experimenting with life and moving forward.
How and why I dated changed over a couple of years. It went from trying to be what the other person was looking for to deciding if the person was someone I wanted to be with.
My parenting logic stretched into raising future adults instead of bending life around what the kids wanted and preferred.
Survival mode was coming to an end.
At least that version of it.
My physical and mental health shifted as I learned more and became more consistent in my weekly routines.
My opinions and desires started to matter more and it came to see the light of day more and more often.
And then the unfathomable happened.
