This is my first post. I don’t expect anyone to read it or care, but sometimes it feels good to pretend. I’m a single dad in my early 40’s. My daughter is almost 19, and my son is almost 11. Aside from my kids and coworkers, these are the only people I have left in my life. Everyone else has disappeared. I literally have no family left, and the friends I used to have are all doing what I did 15 years ago… settling down, raising a family, being a spouse, etc. Even the neighbors I’ve had for the past 20 years have all changed. My kids are with me on weekends, and these are the moments I live for. When Sunday evening comes around though, I find myself dreading the next few days.
My childhood was kind of a mess, but I was able to make something of myself as an adult. I never had daddy’s money to save me when I needed help. I’ve done it all myself. The past 10 years has been absolute hell for me though. When I think about the person I was a decade ago, and the things I used to be capable of… it’s beyond devastating. I can vividly remember having that “gift of gab”, and being socially interesting. I can remember people actually seeking out MY attention, which feels like an impossible idea today. Honestly, I wish I could just forget all of that, because it makes me sad knowing what I used to be.
Since then, everything has fallen apart. In 2014, my relationship with my children’s mother fell apart after years of her lying and cheating on me. The relationship lasted several years, and absolutely took a major toll on my mental health. I recovered a few years later, and ended up marrying who I thought was the girl of my dreams. She was kind, she had morals, she was generous, and she was my best friend. She was also a closet alcoholic who only married me to win favor with her father. Her older sister had married years ago, and has the perfect little life… so she had always felt inferior. I didn’t realize any of this until a year after we married tho. Eventually she admitted she “bit off more than she could chew”, and left the night before Thanksgiving in 2021. No warning. No notice. She never said goodbye to the kids, and it’s the last I have seen her in person. It broke me.
Since then, weekdays are like Groundhog Day, and weekends with my kids are my refuge. They have no idea how much their presence means to me. It’s literally the only thing keeping me going. As they get older though, I know things will change. Weekends will start to look a lot like the weekdays… and I’ll no longer have that to look forward to. I’m scared, b/c I don’t want to live like that. I’m too depressed and anxious to meet anyone. I’ve tried medications, therapy, etc… but with a life as complicated as mine, I don’t have the money to afford the countless hours of therapy and medications I need to make a difference. It feels like this cake has already been baked… and it’s starting to become stale.
I was hoping that my 40’s would go the way people say it goes… “life gets better after 40”, and “you’re much more secure in yourself”, blah blah blah… but my path has been different. I don’t know what the next year, 5 years, or 10 years holds for me… but the writing is on the wall.
My childhood was kind of a mess, but I was able to make something of myself as an adult. I never had daddy’s money to save me when I needed help. I’ve done it all myself. The past 10 years has been absolute hell for me though. When I think about the person I was a decade ago, and the things I used to be capable of… it’s beyond devastating. I can vividly remember having that “gift of gab”, and being socially interesting. I can remember people actually seeking out MY attention, which feels like an impossible idea today. Honestly, I wish I could just forget all of that, because it makes me sad knowing what I used to be.
Since then, everything has fallen apart. In 2014, my relationship with my children’s mother fell apart after years of her lying and cheating on me. The relationship lasted several years, and absolutely took a major toll on my mental health. I recovered a few years later, and ended up marrying who I thought was the girl of my dreams. She was kind, she had morals, she was generous, and she was my best friend. She was also a closet alcoholic who only married me to win favor with her father. Her older sister had married years ago, and has the perfect little life… so she had always felt inferior. I didn’t realize any of this until a year after we married tho. Eventually she admitted she “bit off more than she could chew”, and left the night before Thanksgiving in 2021. No warning. No notice. She never said goodbye to the kids, and it’s the last I have seen her in person. It broke me.
Since then, weekdays are like Groundhog Day, and weekends with my kids are my refuge. They have no idea how much their presence means to me. It’s literally the only thing keeping me going. As they get older though, I know things will change. Weekends will start to look a lot like the weekdays… and I’ll no longer have that to look forward to. I’m scared, b/c I don’t want to live like that. I’m too depressed and anxious to meet anyone. I’ve tried medications, therapy, etc… but with a life as complicated as mine, I don’t have the money to afford the countless hours of therapy and medications I need to make a difference. It feels like this cake has already been baked… and it’s starting to become stale.
I was hoping that my 40’s would go the way people say it goes… “life gets better after 40”, and “you’re much more secure in yourself”, blah blah blah… but my path has been different. I don’t know what the next year, 5 years, or 10 years holds for me… but the writing is on the wall.
although sometimes, for various reasons, we just don’t have a response. I wish I always did. 
