My friend Mel sat across from me at the neighborhood pub, a sigh painting her pretty face weary.  A sparkling carafe of purple sangria sat between us on the chipped wooden table, lemon slices and ice cubes bobbing invitingly at the surface.  I looked up and watched pub patrons ambling at the pool table, poised with their darts, stroking their beer mugs beside them.  Husbands, I thought, husbands and boyfriends and sons.

“I do blame his Mom, for 80% of his laziness at least,”my friend sighed, cocked her eyebrow at me and held the carafe over my empty glass.  I nodded.

“If she hadn’t spoiled him, done his laundry, paid his bills and bought his damned toothbrushes, he wouldn’t be so completely lazy,” she finished,”He is 29 and has no idea how to do laundry.  I’m serious.”

I nodded again, and shuddered too.

I could relate.  99.9% of my friends could relate, in fact: whether they were married or simply in a serious relationship.  So many of our men expected us to cook and clean and work and caretake — simply because their own Mothers had done it all.  They knew nothing else, we guessed.  But that didn’t make it any less annoying.

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I don’t believe I can have it all.  I don’t mean that in a negative way, just realistically.

As a single Mom, (taking romantic love out of the equation) looking only at the triage of home, work, and child,  I can only keep two happy.  Most of the time, it’s my home that is the neglected of the three, covered in secret dust bunnies, holding sad crusty dishes in her sink.  I’ve tried the house cleaner route, but it’s too much of a luxury right now and honestly: my son is number one, my work is number two, and the smudges on the bathroom mirror will just have to wait.

I have found, though, that there are a few small things I can do that allow me to have maximum bike-riding time with Nolan, completing my work and maybe making a bed or two.  Here are my best 5 timesavers.

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I’m wearing my green knit hat, which is an excellent sign that I wasn’t able to make it in the shower that morning. My son’s lunch kit contains Alphagetti, of which I’m not proud, and a small green salad with chopped nuts and tomatoes, with which I am rather pleased.

We step in from the rain and into the pleasant clamor of his daycare, and I kneel down to pull of his boots and grope for his indoor shoes.

“Hi Nolan,” smiles the Director of the daycare, walking by with an armful of construction paper,”Are we going to make your Mom a painting today?”

“Mmm, no,” he says, and leans into my legs and I sigh, bracing myself for The Cry.

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The inside of my home is brown and white, silver frames and a lot of straight lines.  I’m not one for doodads and clutter, other than the necessary remnants of the playtime of a 3-year-old.

My fridge is the exception: it’s littered with pictures and magnets.  There’s my best friend Carrie with her handsome husband and their gorgeous little daughter, born two years after Nolan, to the very day.  There’s my ex-boyfriend Jae, now my very good friend — with his partner Stephanie and their ridiculously sweet baby boy.  Just as importantly: my inspirational magnets.  I have magnets that talk about peace, fame, and age.  They’re reassuring and calming and they make me think every time I open the door to pull out a carton of raspberries, a juice box for my son.

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As a single Mom, I’m assaulted daily with all the various ways my fractured home might manifest itself in my son’s future psyche.

He might not go to college. He might harbor secret resentment. He’s more likely to have a broken relationship himself. He might have some kind of messed up social dysfunction that can be directly traced back to that time his Father and I had a fight about hair whiskers in the sink. Or not.

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The crushing pain of the dissolution of a family unit is one of life’s inexplicable mysteries. I don’t think it can be fathomed until experienced first-hand: like labor, like the vice-grip horror of the loss of hope. It’s a death, of sorts: of a family unit, of hope, of the purity of those moments in the hospital with a first born child when you couldn’t imagine anything but the eternity of your overwhelming, deep love. Your little family unit, together forever.

It took me well over a year to be able to get through the day without physically mourning the loss of my son’s father in my daily life. I didn’t let the tears flow in front of my son, or my immediate family who had supported me so unflinchingly during some very heavy days. But at night, when my head hit the pillow in the silence of the night, memories infiltrated and I let tears drop silently, unnoticed, until my pillow was soaked through to the the side. I was pretty sure my heart would never heal.

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A knot starts building in my stomach sometime before 7:00 AM, as I sip coffee at the computer and clean new spam and newsletters from my inbox. My 3-year-old stirs in his bed: I hear the covers slide on to the floor and then the thud of little boy on the hardwood, the patter of small feet running over to me. He smells sweet, like milk and honey, and his hair is damp and stuck to his perfect peach forehead. He climbs on to my lap as he does every morning, leaning into my neck, allowing me to curl my body around his and remember what it felt like three years ago when he was protected, inside me. We’re quiet, as we are every morning, content in our perfect satisfaction with each other’s company.

And suddenly I blink back tears. I’m going to leave him screaming in horror and turmoil in just over an hour from now, and I don’t know whether I can stand it anymore.

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Last week, for the first time in almost 5 years, I took a full week’s vacation.

My son was scheduled to spend the week on an island with his Dad and paternal grandparents.  I, though sorry to hug him goodbye, had a lump in my throat and permanent adrenaline coursing through my body.  A holiday!

I had a small suitcase packed with two bathing suits and white terry shorts, my iPod and three books, a bottle of perfume, and, perhaps most importantly, no Internet connection.  I did bring my Blackberry (I’m an addict, after all)  but I only read my urgent email and didn’t respond to a thing: everything could wait till Monday.  I had a vacation to inhale.

The destination shifted a few times but the company did not.  My vacation companion would be my new friend: a tall, dark man with curly black hair and a quiet manner.  We’d only been hanging out for three months, playing that odd furtive get-to-know-you-game.  In this case, it had been complicated for my intense desire to keep my son far from any semblance of a romantic life.  My feelings were bundled into a fray of exposed electronic wires: nervousness, doubt, giddiness, hesitancy.  I continually felt like something was off but I assured myself: of course it feels wrong, this is brand new, senseless territory.  Coy romance games suck even more royally when you’re not a naive twenty-something.  Go with it, I told myself, go with it.

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