April's Lack Of

Hi PSMers!

Apparently, April has been a month off for the PSMing website/blog/diary/doohickey. What can I say, it's been a tough month. I lost another good friend (2nd in 4 months) and am trying to rally. Add to that, two long-time friendships that ended in December and March, and my only Spawn moving across the country in January, and you've got not just a PSM trifecta, but a quintupla-something-or-other. They weren't kidding when they said 2012 would be the end of the world. My world, anyway. I'll be back on track in May, though. I just know it. Or June. Or 2013.

Thanks!

Karen (That's not me in the picture, but I do wear a dress that looks eerily similar around the house a lot.)

28-Day Pit Stop (Mar '12)

On the 28th day of each month (in honor of PMS and that whole menstrual cycle thing), we make a Pit Stop to rally support for each other during a particularly trying PSM time.

This month's little adventure asks the question, "Will She Ever Stop Posting Stuff About Change?" The answer is, as if you didn't know, of course not. After all, change is what post-single motherhood is all about. Sometimes, daily hourly* change. *I haven't mentioned my crying fits at red lights lately, have I? That first year after Spawn left me, I could be driving anywhere, pretty fine for a moment in movement thinking about this or that or the other thing, and then a too-lengthy stop at a red light would cause me to cry uncontrollable. I still can't explain it.

These years are big, important times in our kids' lives, sure, but also in ours. We may not know it as we struggle for composure each day, but we are changing in BIG, important ways.

Each month I link to a list of encouraging, supportive resources. But this month's list is short and sweet, because I really think we all could spend a whole lot of time with this man. Chris Guillebeau writes and blogs in support of his goal to visit every country in the world. His message is not just meant for writers and travelers, though. What he has to say and offer is universal. His site is titled The Art of Non-Conformity, which is a concept that might be foreign. If any group is expert at conforming (adapting, agreeing, accomodating, going by the book - just a few synonyms from the thesaurus), it's definitely us PSMers. But in our new lives, we probably have a little freedom to consider being non-conformers, too. We're changing in every other way, why not just go on and throw this into the mix?

Start with the links below and explore a little. He's comforting, down-to-earth, and realistic about the ups and downs of working through change and goal-setting, and finding ourselves, sometimes accidentally, in the meantime.

Change Your Life

Unconventional Guides

Qualifications?

Let me and others know what you think! Leave a comment below or touch base on Facebook or Twitter (@psming) anytime. We're in this together!!!

Memory Lane

I was cleaning up a flash drive recently and ran across some journaling I had done in 2000. This was a particularly tough time in the tiny Rutherford household, as we had just moved to Memphis, Tennessee, the year before so that I could finish a degree for free while working at a university there. My son's father, from whom I had been divorced six years by this time, had followed us there, profusely promising to babysit Spawn. Yes, thanks for asking, I can still hear the sirens in my head, but I really, really needed this degree for the extra income I knew I would need as Spawn got older. So, I just plowed on and hoped for the best.  

Which worked well. The ex's promise lasted less than two months and included five, exasperated afternoon phone calls from my son's school saying that a parent had not picked him up. Each time, the ex blamed Matlock. I kid you not. It came on three times between 1pm and 4pm each day, and he "got wrapped up in it and just forgot". After much turmoil, grit, bartering with his friend from school's grandmother for babysitting (there was a law at the time that children under the age of 12 could not be home alone for any amount of time), and death plots, I did eventually finish school in 2002. And I haven't had a conversation with Spawn's father since.*

*If you know me, you know that this changed me forever, explaining a lot about who I've been for the last thirteen years and continue to be, in many ways.

Anyway, I think the following three days sums up a lot of my life as a single mom. It's a mystery how I can look back on this now as a PSMer and miss it.

November 12, 2000. This was my first weekend alone in years. Had the whole weekend. Austin went to the lake with Ryan and his family. Had big plans to read, get ahead in school work, take bubble baths, watch girly movies, take walks. Yeah, me ME. Well I did all those things, but it didn't seem very spiritual or personally fulfilling. I think I feel selfish. Saturday night, I craved okra. There was only 1/4 bag left, and this is Austin's favorite. How could I cook his favorite without him? How could I explain it? Not to him, but to myself. If I turn on the fireplace in the middle of a Sunday afternoon just for the joy of it, how much more will my gas bill be? My god, what am I? Some sort of second class citizen who doesn't deserve anything? If I do something for myself, it feels like taking away from someone else. Even writing this feels indulgent.

November 13, 2000. Team decided to go to dinner after work. I couldn't go. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Can't go. Then, a 23-year-old guy man-boy named Brad sent me an instant message. "You'll miss out on the fun if you don't go." "I just can't. Kid at home at 3." "Y'all should both go then. Go home and get him and come back. We'll wait." "Thanks, but that's okay. It would be almost two hours before I got back." "Next time, then." Made me cry. That was the sweetest, kindest, most sincere gesture in my general direction in ages. Someone actually understood. Something so small to him, so huge to me. He had no idea. Then when I got home, I got mad at Austin because there was dirt all over the living room carpet from his shoes. I came upstairs to write this for 30 minutes. And now I feel guilty all over again. The whole idea of coming home was so that he wouldn't be alone and I just yelled at him and came upstairs to vent here. I have two chapters to read and a quiz tonight, too. Maybe I'm just a selfish bitch. Maybe I'm resentful. Fathers get to do what they want when they want. I can't be the only mother to feel like this.

November 14, 2000. I think I have a crush on the man-boy at work now. He asked me about a scene from The Graduate (there was a question in some online quiz he was doing to kill time at work), and I got flustered. Am I that starved for attention? Of course I am. I'm just going to assume this means I'm still female. Anyway, will try to count my blessings today. 1/4 tank of gas. And only two more days till payday. Carry on, girl, carry on.

28-Day Pit Stop (Feb '12)

On the 28th day of each month (in honor of PMS and that whole menstrual cycle thing), we make a Pit Stop to rally support for each other during a particularly trying PSM time.

This month's little adventure is entitled "Maybe a Career Change". Once you get over the hurdles of getting the spawn out of the house, you might find you have more time and freedom than you ever remember having. You may also have a little or a lot more money with which to investigate options for your everyday work life.

I'm no expert at this, though, so I'm asking for your input and advice. I'm going to list a few sites I thought of below, but if you know of any great ways to go about changing careers (or jobs), please  leave a comment below or on our Facebook page. Collectively, we might have the perfect path for those of us thinking of making a change.

There are the usual CareerBuilder and Monster Websites I think we've all heard of and probably seen. More and more people are using LinkedIn these days and it's worth a look-see, in my opinion. There are discussion groups and links to associations in countless fields and interests.

About.com's Career Planning section has a slew of tests and quizzes and advice.

I recently did a career assessment offered by MAPP, and it was surprisingly accurate about my likes and dislikes. If you LIKE their Facebook page, you get a discount off full reports, too.

Quintcareers.com has a 10-step approach (sounds like a lot of steps, and I'm not getting any younger), but it does have some good overall advice.

I really like the journaling toward self-discovery followed by some good old-fashioned informational interviewing approach. Both seem to pinpoint what excites me vs. what upsets me pretty quickly.

Now, this is just for starters and one gal's findings. Turning the tables this Pit-Stop and asking for your suggestions!

One PSM Stage Forward, Two Stages Back

Well, it has arrived. I officially serve no purpose. Not even as the ATM I've been for the last couple of years. No more college to pay for. No more monthly bills (except for a small straggler or two). I can best explain my level of relevance by sharing the following exchange with Spawn. (My 21-year-old son recently moved to Lake Tahoe for a year-long project and had to shop for the basics to equip his new apartment. I have to tell you that just the other day I was driving along the highway, looking around, and spotted a Red Roof Inn that I would think of as being in the middle of nowhere if I didn't know what was just beyond the exit ramps and thought about how this kid road-tripped across the country alone with a GPS and no hotel reservations. He was stressed the week before he left, and I could tell he was nervous when he got to town before he found his apartment. But he did it. He saw the Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, FLagstaff, Las Vegas on a Saturday night, Death Valley, Hoover Dam, and some others I know I'm forgetting. (I was texted all of two pictures along the way.) He did it a lot excited but a little afraid. What a lesson he taught me. At 21, I couldn't have written a check. So as much as I diss on the Spawn - and will continue to do so because it's a lot of how we express love - I couldn't be more happy about him. My life's joy, I tell ya, my life's joy. But you probably knew that.)

Anyway, back to the exchange. Boyz. Ugh.

“I bought all kinds of stuff for the bathroom. Shower curtain....”

“Ooo, what color?”

“Shower curtain color.”

“Seriously?”

“I think it’s a tan color.”

“K, what else?”

“A trash can.”

“Ooo, what color?”

“Trash can color.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s white.”

“K, what else?”

“A bath mat.”

“Ooo, what color?”

“I don’t really remember.”

“Does it match the shower curtain? Complement it?”

“Uhhh.”

“How could you not remember what color it is? You just bought it 4 hours ago.”

“Uhhh.”

So the PSM stages, once again, keep repeating themselves. I was sure we'd get to go straight through them and be done. And satisfied. What was I thinking?