Single Mother Multitasking Maven

If you had asked me when I was 18 years old where I saw myself in five years or in ten years, my answer would have went something like . . . At age 23 I would have seen myself starting my second semester of at one of the top fifteen law schools, preferable in New York City. By age 28, in 10 years, I would have seen myself in my third year of practice, as the newest up and coming litigation and/or mergers and acquisitions corporate attorney. I would see myself living life in the fast lane, doing my seventy hours a week as any typical associate attorney at a big law firm. I have seen myself attached to an equally fabulous tall, dark and handsome associate attorney, maybe cohabitating, with a dog, in swanky loft.

Never would I have responded to that question with a five year plan that included potty training a four year old and chasing after a diapered almost three year old. Married to my high school bad-boy boyfriend, with his gorgeous smile, deep blue eyes, he working as a dispatcher and I a fulltime student at a second tier law school (third tier depending on the ranking) in Buffalo New York.

But priorities change, life changes, when you find yourself pregnant at nineteen and again at twenty. After two babies I decided that it might be a good idea to marry the father of my children, I mean why not, we were already doing everything married couples do. I was a mother, a housewife, a student. Not only was I learning politics and law, I was also learning what it took to be a mother and wife. I would soon learn that I had all the makings of a wonderful mom, but was no longer cut out to be a wife. And eight months after the end of my first post-separation relationship, I wonder if I am cut out to be anyone’s significant other.

I did get the degrees. My schooling was the one slice of my pre-babies/marriage identity that I had left and I clung to it for dear life, even as my marriage was dissolving around me. Three degrees in 8 years all by the age of 26, I graduate cum laude with a BA in Political Science and then went directly on to earn my Juris Doctor and MBA.

I have done pretty well in my 28 eight years, soon approaching 29 years; I am starting to fear 30. And in the midst of single motherhood madness, when my seven year old is on her second mini meltdown since I picked them up from their after school program, my almost nine year old is telling me, once again, how I am ruining her life because I will not let her spend endless hours on Habbo.com, and dinner is burning on the stove, I often forget . . .

My daughters are and will always be my greatest accomplishment. They are exquisitely intelligent, kind-hearted, cooperative, well-behaved (for everyone but me), and amazingly well adjusted considering their sometimes maladjusted mother.

These are the ramblings of a single mother multitasking maven. Enjoy!