I'm Enough

When I first found out I was expecting, I was prepared for changes and for lessons and for my entire life to get flipped upside down. What I was not prepared for was how much my son would teach me. To give a brief background, I am a single mother to a high energy, loving, silly boy. I left his dad when he was only a year old and we are maybe coming close to the point of co-parenting. Maybe. But this story is about being a single mom during Covid.

In January 2020, I was a banker with a well known bank. My son went to an amazing in home daycare five days a week. I was enrolled in college online to complete my bachelor's degree after starting it about a decade before. I had a two bedroom apartment and although I was struggling, I was managing somehow. I did date here or there but found it hard to really connect with someone. The one thing that I feared when I watched my son play by himself was that I wasn't enough for him. My son swoons over babies and loves children younger, his age or older. He regularly has said "I love the whole Earp (Earth)". Between working a stressful 40hr job, going to school online, and being cook, cleaning lady and grocery shopper; I didn't always have the time needed to just sit and play with my son and enjoy him.

March came, and the lockdown happened, and my bank made me work in a full service location while I had no childcare. I was given a list of emergency daycare centers for healthcare and emergency workers and told to keep working. I did my best with friends and family watching him as often as they could, but I struggled big time. It wasn't until the middle of June that I could get him back into a daycare center full time. I thought he would be so happy, he would love to see his friends again. He hated the school. I couldn't put my finger on why. There was nothing wrong with the school as far as I could tell. But he would fight me every morning to go to school. And this is the child who greets every other person in the grocery store, every time we go in. His anxiety got higher, his outbursts were often. We were both separately stressed to the max.

In August, I met someone new through E-Harmony. We hit it off pretty well. Talked for nine hours on the first date and I'm a very guarded person so all he got was a peck goodnight as I left. He had three teenage kids that he saw part time so he understood my stress with school. He suggested I make the change to get my son into a better school. It would mean putting my banking career on hold but this new guy offered to help. I didn't take it at first. I was still guarded and wanting to solve things on my own. It was mid October when I finally decided to do it. It was strategic, I'd leave the bank when another banker wanted my position. I'd work part time while I got my son into an amazing school and then I'd go from there.

Everything I was doing was for my son. A better school, a better blended family. So when the boyfriend asked me to move in, my son was thrilled, I said yes. I felt like it was fast. We met in August and this was late October. But I had felt like I wasn't enough. This new blended family would give my son what he really needed. More attention, more people to play with, a better school in the process. I thought I was making the right choice for him. I was wrong.

My son became infinitely happier because I wasn't as stressed. I was home more. I had more time to spend with him. I got him into an amazing creative school that he adores and they love him for him. My son loved the older blended siblings that he had but he still relied so heavily on me. This whole year that I've struggled (both physically and internally) thinking I'm not able to give my son what he needed and all he truly needed was... me.

We've now been living in a spare room of my friends house for a month. Everything with new guy blew up in my face. He didn't actually accept me as I was, he didn't understand or like my son. Arguments became more frequent and less resolved. I managed to get some assistance in January and now having no home and only very part time work, I got the guts to apply to work from home jobs I might not qualify for and I landed one. It's not an amazing situation, but it's been an amazing lesson to learn. My four year old taught me something I had yet to learn in my entire life. I am enough. Just as I am.