seismic activity has been reported

One of the effects of having a child that no one ever told me about is that it lowers your tolerance for bullshit.  You can't kid yourself anymore about all the things that are wrong in your life, deep difficult things that need to change.  Caring for a newborn, having your world (not to mention your body) torn inside out makes for a great catalyst.

I'm having a slightly less seismic shift now that we're being booted out of our apartment.  Big changes are ahead.  The biggest change in my life since that afternoon that I knew I was going to leave Hijo's dad.  We'd been arguing over my return to work.  Hijo was not quite a year old. We were living in a one bedroom apartment in the heart of Seattle. My friend S. (the friend with whom I'd gone on the big adventure to Mexico which had led me to meet Hijo's dad in the first place) was working at a local health clinic that needed bilingual folks for their administration staff.  It sounded perfect.   I could work part-time, use my Spanish, hang out with my best girl--just the kind of thing I'd been hoping for. 

Hijo's dad, who'd always been jealous of my friendship with S., told me I was forbidden to work with her.  That is what we refer to, my friends, as a last-straw-camel's-back moment. 

I had always cut Hijo's dad a lot of slack for the culture that he grew up in.  It's no secret that Mexican society is not exactly a bastion of feminism.  He was a product of his environment, and he couldn't help a lot of things.  And he wasn't so bad (I'd told myself over and over and over).  He'd do housework!  So, he's not really macho or misogynistic.  Right?  The fact that he'd socked me pretty harm in the arm that one time in the car when I was pregnant didn't mean anything.  Right?  I'd provoked him, pushing his buttons, knowing what to say that would hurt him. 

But telling me that you're forbidding me to see my friends?  Oh, no.  That I will not tolerate.  (Funny, how you never know where you'll draw that line in the sand.)  Hijo's dad finally said, "If you feel that way, then I don't think that we can live together anymore."  Exactly.  We can't.  I called his bluff.

Which is how I became a single mom.  Or, as I used to call myself on my personal blog, an urban hipster hippie mama.  Now another part of my identity is about to change, and it feels almost as scary and exciting as that one.

Stay tuned.

Comments

[JenniferB]

Uprooting is tough, and being a single mom is tough too -- I'm rooting for you.

[jeanie]

Janeen

Been reading your blog for the last few weeks, and I am hoping (my version of praying!) very hard that the universe will open the right door for you!!!

Good luck! Good luck! Good luck! My straw-that-broke-the-camel's back was having to take a sick baby on 3 buses to my ex's work to collect the car (my car) 2 days after he had flattened the battery and couldn't be bothered to get it fixed. He was sleeping as it was his day off - and I figured, well, I am a single mum anyway, might as well wear the tag as to live the life.

[LISA L.]

BETTER TO BE SINGLE THAN TO PUT UP WITH THAT KIND OF C---... I WATCHED MY MOM GO THROUGH IT AND IT OOZED OUT ONTO US KIDS AND I WILL JUST NOT TOLERATE IT. IT DOESNT WORK OUT FOR ANYONE.

[LISA L.]

I AM HOPING EVERY THING WORKS OUT WITH THE MOVE. I HATE MOVING, THE UPROOTING JUST SUCKS.