A Little Bit of Background

There’s a song lyric that goes something like, “it took some time to get this good at living my life.” Well, I’m 33, and I’ll be honest, I’m not very good at it. Life throws a curveball, and instead of swinging, I take it in the gut. Or duck to avoid it all. Which never really seems to work either.

I got pregnant with my first child about three months after my 21st birthday. The kicker? She was planned. Poorly, I might add, but planned, nonetheless. For some reason, my boyfriend (future husband/future ex-husband) and I thought that two kids working barely-over-minimum-wage jobs and living at their parents’ houses would be phenomenal parents themselves. Brilliant thinking, right? Admittedly, I grew up fast after that. Not so much that I kept myself from having a second child just under two years late, though. But we got married, after an eight-month breakup while he dated a woman who had a child from a previous relationship, then we got a house.

When my oldest was five and youngest was three, though, I’d had enough. I’d tried doing the “right thing,” and it just wasn’t working for me. My ex-husband was, is, a good man and a good father. But we were horrible together. I was a manic-depressive bipolar who hyper-fixated on work and neglected the relationship with my husband. My husband was still young, two years younger than me. He enjoyed having friends over for jam sessions and would let the house look like squatters conveyed there on a nightly basis. I was just…done.

So, I left. I filed for divorce the day after I move the kids and myself out. The house was such a disaster zone, I refused to leave them there. Plus, I really couldn’t bear being away from them. I never kept them from him and never will. Seriously, he’s a great dad. And since then he’s grown up a lot.

However, because I was (still am, I guess) human and had desires that I hadn’t really expressed in a while (yeah, I was horny), I decided to explore my new freedom. Did you know that the pull-out method is even less effective if you’re both drunk? Trust me on this.

So, that’s how I got pregnant with baby number three. Newly divorced, living with my mother and two children, and sleeping on the pull-out couch (at least something pulled out properly, right?).

Ridiculous summary so far, right? Well, after my third baby came, I did finally start to get my head on straight. I went back to college and got my associate’s degree. I made it a year out from achieving a double bachelor’s in forensic investigation and psychology before Covid hit, and the world shut down.

The kids couldn’t go to daycare anymore, so I had to hire depend on family members while I worked. Continuing my education for the lab work that I had to be present for was just not feasible anymore. I couldn’t balance work, spending time with/taking care of my kids, and going to school ALL at full time hours. Something had to give.

Now, we’re four years out from the Rona Rave of 2021, and I’m still a year away from getting that degree with no end in sight. But life is good anyway. I have a job that I genuinely love. My kids are happy and healthy with only mild obsessions with TRANS fats and video games. My boyfriend and I are rock solid after three years of dealing with health issues, my roller-coaster of a libido, and dealing with two baby daddies. (Don’t worry, I’ll touch on all of those things in later editions.)

But overall, life is sweet.