When you first tell people that you’re going to be a single parent people immediately respond with sympathy & worry, people projecting their anxieties on to me and my pregnancy meant that I didn’t get the typical “congratulations” & well wishes. I was congratulated with unsolicited advice & the promise of loneliness. It got to such a point that I honestly began to believe that people enjoyed telling me all about the life of resentment and regret I was about to lead.
I honestly dreaded feeling the way that people told me I would so month after month I expected it to creep in, I thought that loneliness was just around the corner waiting to get me.
Thing is, we’re now almost at 8 months and I haven’t felt it despite the overwhelming amount of people telling me it would be a part of every memory.
Loneliness doesn’t crash in waves like I was expecting, it’s just the occasional offhand thought that I’m raising my child alone. That someone else has opted out of the parenting role I’d always assumed somebody would fill. The loneliness doesn’t stem from missing it partner, it comes from wondering if I could provide a better life for my child if there was someone else there too.
Crushing loneliness took the form of financial burden, I’m a young & broke student who’s only life experience stems from working at bars. Who’s there for backup if the car packs it in, the car seat needs replacing, school trips need to be paid for? I am responsible for someone else’s existence, that’s a responsibility that sits squarely on my shoulders, there’s something both alienating and empowering about that. There’s no one to tell me I’m doing things wrong or to disagree with the way I parent, there’s also no one to bounce ideas off of & problem solve with.
Maybe to some parenting would be an isolating & lonely experience but I refuse to see it that way. I’ve moved on from the greedy narcissism typical of almost everyone in their early twenties and discovered a new sense of self that encircles someone else. How can there be room for loneliness when every tiny decision has impact on someone else’s life?