Reading this line from Sarah Nicole Lemon made me catch flashbacks. Not pleasurable ones, but also not necessarily miserable. More just like “potent” flashbacks.
Then reading about the interactions with men of various types and levels of “wanting to fuck or not.” By the end of her article, I saw so much of my own past within it, it got me wondering:
how many other divorced women go through this?
Then a second question, How many men and women struggle this intensely just to survive?
Here’s the short version of my own story:
I split with my daughter’s father when she was 2. Initially I had a great job with benefits so there were worries. Then, the 2008 recession hit and I was laid off from my state funded job because our a**hat of a governor at the time decided to cut funding to our program, even though it was a very effective one.
I found myself with no income but luckily $5000 in savings. The bad thing was, I didn’t find work until my savings was almost depleted, and even then, it was a minimum wage job. I had to leave my apartment and find something cheaper.
My mother and stepfather agreed that I could take over the manufactured home they had bought for my younger brother, because he had stopped the payments, so I was going to make those payments instead since they were more than 50% cheaper than the place I had.
Except that days before moving in, they said I could only move in if I let my barbituate addicted unemployed brother live there too.
I refused to allow my then 3-year old daughter to live in the same house as a drug addict.
I was now going to be homeless.
So I accepted the only place I could live, and slept on my friend’s couch with my daughter for the next few months.
I was working overnight as an ER tech at a hospital, sometimes working mornings, and other times double shifts at minimum wage. We took turns watching our daughters so that we could each go to work.
After a few months, I got a somewhat better job and moved into a studio apartment. But for the next few years, I had to teach full time, tutor after class, and work as a photojournalist for the local paper
just to survive.
And I mean barely eeking by every month. Barely having enough for shelter, car, and food. My daughter’s father refused to do anything more than $20 to $40 a month and would not sacrifice the way I had to provide. He insisted on only working as a self-employed graphic designer, even though, he wasn’t making enough to cover… life.
So I look back on this and realize that her father was not doing his part, my family allowed me to end up homeless, and the world around me wondered why I developed my so-called “resting bitch face.”
You all should have been happy I called it my “coping enough not to scream in public face.”
Occasionally I would date, but not much because of one central reason: Most of the men I was dating didn’t want to face the struggle. They wanted me to be all bright and sparkly and curvy… of course, curvy.
They expected me to be their release, their chill point of the day, but I was already caregiver to my child, caregiver to my students, caregiver to my emotionally broken mother who had allowed me to be homeless.
They didn’t want to know that the week before our date, I had $20 to buy enough food for both me and my daughter, someone at work was trying to get me in trouble, my car died on me on the way home, and right at that exact moment that he asked me why I looked so upset, I had visions of all the undone housework waiting for me after I got done pretending to give a shit about his story about shopping for his new car and the grief his ex gave him.
That’s why I didn’t date much. It was then that I realized I could only ever date a man who was first my best friend.
He had to see me at my most broken, and still adore me. In fact, I needed a man who was going to see me face a struggle, growl at that struggle and then encourage me until I overcame that struggle.
Why would I expect that? Because that is how I interact with all of my friends, and I know that someone who has my back like that, is someone I can devote my life and sexual energy to.
There are so many more details, and perhaps I’ll write on them more later.
Fortunately for me, there is a happy-continuation to my story. (Not a happy ending because we are still in the process of life) — I am in love and in a partnership with my best friend. And he is every bit of what I could have hoped for. Not perfect. But damn sure perfect for me.
And at this time, the financial woes are gone (and we pray for that to remain true.)
To anyone out there who feels overwhelmed, honey I know that pain. And one thing I would tell my self from the past is:
Hold on Love. The ride is going to be bumpy, but the land you reach on the other side is more than worth it.
