Well here we are ladies–at The Corner Bakery Cafe in Fort Collins.
OK, I realize you aren’t here, but if I can’t be with some of the smartest women I know because of distance and statewide boundaries, then I shall have to create a virtual space where we can come to hang out. Lord knows we don’t have husbands or jobs that generate enough income to buy us plane tickets for weekends together in Vegas.
I’m forgoing my trip to the restroom to write this first post. That makes me think of my fabulous teaching career. I have a master’s degree, three teaching endorsements and a (mostly) successful work history and I make $33,500 a year. I am on medical leave right now. I think I burnt myself out. Could it be that single parenting, working 80 hours a week (for 33,500 which equals about 8 bucks an hour), being taken advantage of by “friends”, watching both of my parents endure stage 4 cancer the past two years, having my ex-brother-in-law rip his children from our lives, having a sister who refuses to have a relationship with me, giving my offspring up for adoption, being in abusive relationships, losing my job because I followed the law and did the “right” thing, seeing that only men or women with men behind or beside them get to the top? Could it possibly be any of the above reasons that I am on medical leave?!? Or maybe just the fact that I have a job making so little that doesn’t allow for bathroom breaks? Ya, maybe that’s the reason…lack of access to the bathroom.
I don’t know. I hate to sound dismal. But it’s dreary and cloudy on an April morning. Life feels daunting today. Everything is grey. My stomach hurts. I still have to go to the bathroom.
My “real” friend showed up. She’s married. That’s hard for me to relate to. It was my dream.
I’m making a new dream now. I know that my life experiences are not just mine. They belong to so many of the single mommy woman I know. That’s why I’m here. I want to find one phenomenally, successful woman who has children but never had a man to stand behind or beside her. If I can find that one woman, I will follow her lead. If I can not find her, then I will be that woman and I will drag all of my female single mommy friends right to the top with me.
That’s why I am here.
I’m going to write about our lives, our truth, as we have known it.
keomaikalani 