Reflections at 46
I never thought I would be here. Single at 46, working 2 jobs, living on the Central Coast. I had never even heard of the Central Coast 11 years ago. I thought I would be living in Orange County in my seemingly perfect suburban life, watching my kids grow up with all their childhood friends from church, enjoying our weekly Sunday lunch at one of my sisters’ homes with our whole extended family. I thought I’d be in the same friend group from my 20s, planning trips to Europe with our best friends because our kids were moving out to college or getting married. Traveling as couples and living that empty nest life. I thought I would be working a little part-time job to keep myself busy.
Isn’t that what we strive for in our 40s and 50s? The perfect middle-aged life. But there is always more to life than what we plan for. Do I want all those things? The Sunday lunches, family vacations, the nuclear family. The comfort, the predictability, the conventionality. No. Because to have those things, I had to sacrifice myself. I was raising 3 kids on my own, trying to keep up the facade that everything was fine. Smiling while sitting in the front row in the church pew, yet I’m calling my sisters crying each week because I was slowly realizing the life I had always envisioned was drowning me, and I knew eventually I’d have to stop treading water. I idealize the image of an intact family, but I wouldn’t trade the pain and heartache and struggle I have endured to become the woman I am now, the mother I am now. I wouldn’t trade any of it.
The reality of my life now is that I am a divorced single mom of three, almost all adult kids. I work six days a week to make ends meet, and I live 4 hours away from my family, whom I see a few times a year at holidays or when they come to visit. Although I talk to them every week, we are still extremely close. I don’t have the traditional married couple friend group. I haven’t watched my kids grow up with their best friends. Honestly, my kids have struggled to find friends. On the outside, my life is not ideal, but on the inside, it is beautiful. I have seen the light and joy return to our home. I have seen each one of my kids at their lowest, and now I’m watching them as they bloom and create and enter into the excitement of young adulthood. The closeness of my kids and our little non-traditional family is more than I ever dreamed of. I listen to the music my oldest son creates, and it is rich and beautiful, and his talent and skill amaze me. He is quieter than his extroverted siblings, yet his words are thoughtful, and he thinks deeply when he shares. My daughter is wildly creative and thoughtful, and lights up the room when she enters. She’ll be moving this summer and starting her new journey. I have no doubt she will shine and thrive. My youngest son is thoughtful, creative, and philosophical. He is becoming a brilliant writer and is wise beyond his years. Seeing him come into his own has been awe-inspiring as a mom.
We are told divorce will ruin your kids, but the very opposite has been true; they are thriving. And so am I. I have built a brand and business I am so proud of. I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art and Business, all while working full-time, running a business, and raising my kids. I have returned to writing poetry, found my heart in the country, built friendships that I can’t imagine life without, I ride horses again, and feel light and love and God in this life I have.
Almost every night, our little family has dinner together. There is laughter and fighting and conversation and all the things you want and expect. I have watched my whole house “burn to the ground,” and I have had to rebuild the walls of my home with the support of friends and family and really good therapists. This home and family that I have now look wildly different from what I ever expected, but it’s real and honest, and I have watched redemption in real time.
My birthday was a few days ago, and on our large family group chat with my parents, siblings, spouses, and grandkids, each family member wrote me a happy birthday text. My brother-in-law wrote, “Happy Birthday Christy - this is the year of the phoenix! Get after it!” He is right, and I am. I am getting after all the goodness this life has to offer. The rising that comes from burning and ashes is beautifully painful. We all avoid pain; we try our best to protect our children from it, but it is the very thing that brings out the people we are meant to be. I have watched my kids and I all three rise from the ashes of what we thought our life would look like, and I am amazed at who we are each becoming, our empathy, creativity, and resilience. For me, this is the ideal life.