Coming Around: Life As A Young Mum

I started my family life earlier than most of my friends. I was pregnant at 17, an unwed mother at 18 with a live-in boyfriend, and a single mother at 19. Nothing like jumping right into adulting. I have always been a little ahead of the curve [she says with sarcasm font].

I had just graduated from high school and gone through treatment for endometriosis. I had an older Russain gynocologist who informed me there was a chance I might not be able to have kids later on in life. Well, when you tell a teenage girl she might not be able to do something she is bound to try and prove you wrong.

I had an almost non-existent conversation with my guy about it and we decided I would go off the pill. Welp, it didn’t take long! 3 months later I was learning about prenatal vitamins and trying not to lose my breakfast while driving to work.

Fast forward to 1995 and I was navigating life as a single parent because her Dad and I never did see eye to eye even before we brought an infant into the mix. I was enjoying the perks of the separation and getting to live a somewhat normal 20 something life with the custody agreement of every other weekend but most of those weekends without my curly headed, bouncy little girl were rough ones.  I found myself feeling less and less like my peers who were focused on their next best thing but looking for a more stable life for us.

After a few bumps in the road, I became what felt like a somewhat natural mother. I think I took from my own life of mostly raising myself being the youngest of five with parents whose marriage was falling apart most of my life and siblings who were at least 7 years older. I began to put myself in my daughter’s shoes and try and give her a much better life than I had – even if it meant living in my mother’s 1/2 finished basement for the first 3 years of her life.

I seized every opportunity to move us forward even if it meant compromising my own life and dreams. There were relationships of convenience that lead us out of that basement. Once I gained a little more confidence I left the situational relationships and bought us our own little house. We started to gain some momentum and both grew so much in that house. We were growing up for sure.

After I went through a failed marriage to a much older local man we moved out of that house and only town we both knew as home to a new city. It was the summer heading into her junior year. This is where I think we both figured out our wings could spread far and wide beyond the life we had known up to this point. My daughter found her way to college and studied nursing while I worked full time, sang most weekends in a band and learned to surf.

Since our time living near the ocean, we have both actually grown up. My daughter discovered her new home of Boise, Idaho while checking out the country as a travel nurse. She is knocking out her student loans one at a time and planning to buy her own home as soon as she can afford it. I have found love with a man I reconnected with from our hometown and am living in the Green Mountains of Vermont.  I guess you could say we all come back to where we started from in a way.

I started this blog as a way to explore the many ideas bouncing around in my head. This one snuck up on me. I sat down to write a totally different post but this one just kind of happened instead.

I hope you liked learning a little bit about me and my life.

Just Bee….

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