After a long, errand-filled day, I had just turned out my reading light, closed my eyes, and turned over to get some sleep. And then, I was plagued by that awful infestation that happens to all us single mothers at some point or another (surely?)... the one that gets our minds in a tizzy, our blood pressure sky high, our anxiety so out of control, no amount of Zoloft will ever give us peace of mind---I started wondering where I went wrong. How did my life end up this way? This is certainly not the meal I ordered... When did I become "that" woman?
You know who I'm talking about... I have become the girl who "had" so much potential. I'm the lady all the elderly women at church gossip about, the one who got knocked up way too early, did too many bad things to too many good people, threw away all her dreams and goals to 'live in the moment' and have a good time.
Good times had, here I am. I'm a single mother. I had to move back in with MY mother to be able to provide an adequate home for my child. I have no job. I have no college degree. This is me in the present. In the past, I was another type of girl... I was the one who could be anything she wanted to be. I was the girl offered scholarships to all her choice schools. I was too smart to make mistakes, too tough to fall in love, too motivated to ever fail.
But here I am, and I failed.
Don't get me wrong--I have a beautiful baby that means the world to me, great friends, a very loving and supportive family. But. I have not done the things I wanted to do. I am not where I intended to be, and I am not able to give my child the things I had always promised... I failed by my own standards at my own game on my own scorecard. And hell, I just started playing.
All this leads me to wonder... where do we go wrong? People don't propose marriage intending to break their vows. No child ever chooses "homeless" as a topic for their "What I Want to be When I Grow Up" projects. Yet people have affairs. They get divorced. They sometimes end up homeless. People get addicted to drugs. People end up in debt... things happen. Bad things. And most of the time, these things are not at all what we intend... sometimes, they're just the opposite. But they're the things that make our life what it is. The cold, hard facts.
My cold, hard facts are these:
I'm young. I should be out at clubs, drinking too much and having casual sex. Instead, I'm sitting in my old bedroom, at my mom's house, in a town too small to be considered significant by anyone not within a five mile radius. I was an honor student, with a high GPA and an even higher I.Q., capable of damn near anything, and yet here I am--single, heartbroken, unemployed, and a complete mess. It's like I'm thirteen again, except now I'm responsible for this little person... with so much promise, so much hope, so much... POTENTIAL.
And how the hell do I keep him from ending up like me?
