No one wakes up one day and says, I want to be a single parent. When a child is involved, you usually think, the other parent will be there for long haul. They'll be there for the good, the bad and the ugly. They'll be there to share everything with you and the child. I was no different, I got married at a young age, I waited 4 years before we talked about having kids. I figured, if we weren't going to make it, it would be over in the first few years.
I was born to two hard working parents that stayed together and shared the world with my sister and I. Through good times and bad, they were able to rely on each other and always had some one to pick up where the other just didn't have the drive to continue. They could tag in and out as needed, bills were shared and split. The stress of everything was carried together and they fought hard to keep the family the way it was.
So when I decided I wanted to have a family with my then husband, I thought we would fight hard together to raise the family. We sat down and discussed the option, I started the discussion, thinking if he had objections we could work through them and decide together. His main concern was the can of frosting I had taken from his hand to gain his full attention. By the end of the discussion, we decided to try as long as he had the frosting back. Most may have saw this as a red flag, but I thought differently. So we surged forward to make our family.
There I was 2 years later and 2 kids later, sitting on a chair at my parents place, kids taking a nap looking at the rubble that had become my life. My husband deep in a relationship with another woman, in the house I had made a home and me at 26 living at my parents house with my children starting over. How had it got to this point? Where was I going to go? What should I do? As I sat, in tears starring at the screen of my dads laptop, I replayed every decision over and over again, hoping at some point my soon to be ex-husband would wisen up and continue working hard for our family.
It was at this point, in my head, I had two decisions I could make. I could live off the government and hope another man could come and take the place of my soon to be ex-husband or I could stand look at all the rubble and start my life all over again. I honestly can't say this was a decision for me as I knew there was no way I was going to let this happen to my life ever again.
I was in self-pity mode, my husband had stripped me of any and all self-esteem I ever had leaving me with self loathing and a brain of fog trying to find any reminiscent of the person I once was before I met him. It wasn't going to be easy, but I had two tiny human beings looking at me to be better and to provide them with a steady life, as their father had turned into a new man that had no children. "They weren't at the fun age," he'd say to me. He was out with his friends, girl friend having a great time and blowing off his weekends with our children.
I knew with my lack of skill set, I'd end up being that single mom that had 3 different jobs. One job to pay the sitter, one job to pay the bills and one job to get groceries. They'd never see me and that's no life for a child. As I stared at the laptop, I started to search for Forensic classes, schools, something that could capture a part of me that would make me happy and get me financially stable. I came a crossed Digital forensics and I began to sign up for school.
Signing up for school was a huge step, as I knew, if I came close to failing math I would run from school as quick as i could. Math was not my strong suite and more often than not I ran from anything that involved math. Sad really, but it was my biggest fear. As I signed up for school and started the process, I began looking for a job that would help me pay for at the very least food to feed my children, while my parents paid for a roof over our heads and heat to keep us warm.
So began my new start. There was a long winding road a head of me, there would be a lot of healing, a lot of hurdles and a lot stress, but I had two little humans looking at me to better then I was right at that moment. I couldn't let them down and I also knew their father was not going to be the father my dad was through out my life. I wasn't sure where I was going to end up, if school would even help me land a job with good company, but I was going to try my hardest to do what I needed to do to get everything I had lost back. There wasn't going to be a single person or reason I did not get what I wanted, what we needed. Nothing.