Life as a single mom is balanced. I love shared custody. I get built in time alone that I never had as a wife. I can do what I want and pursue utter joy. I can be detached from responsibility because my boys are in good hands with their Dad. I love how calm and peaceful my home is when I’m alone. I love listening to the happy sounds of my children. At the same time, it can be really difficult. Sometimes the balanced scales tip and difficult can feel impossible.

It’s hard being the emotional strength of my home, when I don’t have a partner to share the load.

It’s stressful when I’m the only one fulfilling the financial desires and needs for myself and my children.

It’s painful knowing you will face the rough weeks and difficult aspects of adult life alone.

Being a single mom means I do it all, while making it look easy so my kids don’t feel responsible when I feel like I’m failing.

Check on the single parents in your life. It’s unrealistic to think we’re always doing just fine.

It’s been a difficult week or so. Mom life, daughter life, sister life and my side hustles have been more stress than joy. My usual ways of coping through self reliance weren’t supporting me. Indulging in the many ways that I know how to just be a woman (not mom, sister or daughter) was helping, but at the end of the day, I needed support. Some days are harder than others and some days are easier. When it became clear that I wasn’t coping, I started reaching out for connection and support. I’ve had to accept the fear that comes with being vulnerable so I could be supported. Each leap of faith I’ve made has delivered me to a place of comfort.

Face Your Fears

It shouldn’t seem like a big deal, but for me it was. My biggest fear was admitting that I felt weak. I had to admit that I felt like I couldn’t cope with everything on my plate and I had to accept looking incapable to myself and the people I talked to.

Allow Your Truth to Land

I didn’t excuse or dismiss what I felt. I spoke my truth without making it smaller than it is, or making it bigger than it is. (I’m still going through it.) I let them know what was happening. I let them know how I felt about it. Some things feel fine. I’ve got this. Other things make me feel powerless and I can’t hold everything together.

My friends met me where I was. Some were clearly shaken. They weren’t prepared to see me cry, or express not feeling confident. It’s not a side most people see because I don’t often indulge in moments of self defeat, and I’m usually able to hold it together until I don’t have an audience. Some felt like my vulnerability was a safe place to deepen our connection. These moments where I feel like my foundation is cracking and shifting beneath me are the hidden areas where I can find those moments where I give the most compassion and empathy and this is how most people know me.

Recognize Your Gift of Disclosure

It’s so easy to feel that your burden would be too heavy for someone else. I didn’t unload everything I’m dealing with on any one person. Most people are used to dealing with so much in their own lives that supporting others with an issue that comes with distance can feel like contributing outward. This can heal the person that’s helping you. In trusting someone else to support me, I’m allowing them to give. When I hold the people that love me at a safe distance, they are unable to show up and support me. I take away that opportunity.

Accept Support

This part should be easy, but it gives me the greatest pause. This is where my world collides with bad memories of love, sex and death.

I believed in a marriage that failed. Being vulnerable in sex can be frightening when you know the pain and fear of sexual violence. Death is the ultimate betrayer of hope when you are forced to part with someone you weren’t ready to say goodbye to. It’s hard to trust in something that you know has hurt you tremendously before. You must believe that you will reach out beyond safety and you’ll land in someone else’s safety. Vulnerability is the only road to intimacy.

Support doesn’t always look like being bailed out. It can be a listening ear. It can be an embrace that holds you together. It can be unwavering eye contact. There’s so much in being seen as you are, without the weight of how you should be, or what is expected of you.

Embrace your vulnerability and the connection that comes with it.