28-Day Pit Stop (November)

On the 28th day of each month (in honor of PMS and that whole menstrual cycle thing), we make a Pit-Stop to rally support for each other during a particular moment of PSM.

Submit a comment with your experience. Yours may be just the inspiration or the support or the laugh a PSM sister needs!!

This month's little adventure is entitled "Home for the Holidays", because that's what so many of us are in post-single mom years: home. alone.

Each of us has a unique story about how we handle the holidays as single mothers. Typically, holiday visits are well-planned way in advance and work slightly to our advantage. But as post-single mothers, we have to give up control to our adult children, which often means a change not in our favor. We're old news, nothing special, and the ones who are always around anyway. I'll share my situation as an example.

My son and I have lived in Indiana since he was 12 years old. For the first two years, I went with him to see his father's side of the family in Atlanta each year for Christmas. It didn't work well, because people were distracted by their nosiness about my life and didn't pay him the attention he deserved. So, I decided to meet his father halfway and let my son go alone while I turned around and headed home alone. That lasted two years until he could drive himself and didn't even need me for the halfway part. Now, he's in college in another town, so I see him at Thanksgiving.

It's something to adjust to, let me tell you. For single moms, the holidays are hectic and require lots of juggling and lists and things to do. For post-single moms, they can require next to nothing. Yet, every image this time of year is of warm, inviting people planning and decorating and shopping for their perfect Thanksgiving and Christmas with their huge and happy families. It's all joy and love and peace on earth and goodwill toward men. And if you've any other arrangement, well, you must have had a really bad luck of the life draw or made really poor life choices. Poor you.

But what those advertising companies don't know is that you're the lucky one! You get to take a deep breath, smile at all those memories of lovely holidays past, and finally enjoy that bottle of wine and good book for which you have waited YEARS. That m'friends, is the happiest of holidays!!

Read on for a few other suggestions while we check the lug nuts and put air in your tires for the next 28 days. And don’t forget to send in a comment if you have any ideas or stories for fellow PSMers!!

November's Pit Stop Suggestions:

Any holiday-gone-wrong movie to make you appreciate the peacefulness: Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, Christmas with the Kranks, Home for the Holidays, Elf, and of course, Home Alone (One, Two, Three, or Four)

Volunteer - visit a senior center

Go to a candlelight church service

Arrange any budget travel road trip for a couple of days or if you can't travel yet due to tuition, just enjoy planning for the future trips you'll take!!

How To Be Alone

The video below by Andrea Dorfman and Tanya Davis is fantastic for those of us embarking on a spell of alone time. I think it’s just a perfect message for PSMers transitioning from the Paralysis stage (the first year you are truly alone in an empty house with so much emotion to work through) to Rehabilitation (the next year when you feel a bubble of desire to venture out again). *I have to say that the part about standing at the edge of the dance floor gave me a hive or two. Ignore that part if you have to. :)

Granted, the severity of PSM’s Paralysis is a direct result of how social and connected you were as a single mom. But, if you’re like me, you weren’t. There’s the whole time issue, what with the school activities, the jobs and the demands to dream up cheap and constant entertainment. And then there’s inclination. My Spawn had become my best friend, so I wasn’t really inclined to find a new one. And the only thing I was inclined to do on my rare evenings off was watch television, read a book, or take a nap.

Still, the house is empty and we are indeed alone. It’s new and awkward and scary. We have to give ourselves permission to take some down time to adjust to this unfamiliar new life. But then, we’ll start to feel little nudges from the Universe to get outside, to reconnect with the world. And we may have to do it alone! Like Ms. Davis says – start small and be patient! I saw a lady in her work clothes walking to the bus stop the other morning. As she passed an apartment complex, the sprinklers suddenly came on. At first, she flinched and jumped a little. But then, she held out her hands and raised her head to catch the water for a moment before continuing her walk. I thought I wanted to be just like her. She knew exactly how to be alone.

Tell us about your experiences learning to be alone! Visit www.psming.com and send it in a comment or email.

28-Day Pit Stop (June)

On the 28th day of each month (in honor of PMS and that whole menstrual cycle thing), we make a Pit-Stop to rally support for each other during a particular moment of PSM.

Submit a comment with your experience. Yours may be just the inspiration or the support or the laugh a PSM sister needs!!

This month's little adventure, entitled "Home Alone", refers to the moment that you realize you are home alone for what feels like good. In Spawn's eyes, you may not be his home anymore. You're a place to visit. After everyone else has been visited, of course. The first time my son refered to his temporary digs at college as "home", I lost my footing. I was home. We were home. But never he was home. And if he was home, where the heck was I?

Read below the BE-YOU-tiful visual for fun links to enjoy while we check the lug nuts and put air in your tires for the next 28 days.

June's Pit Stop Links:

You May As Well Start Figuring It Out

A Liza Minnelli Classic Pick-Me-Up

Mind-Numbing Time Wasters, but fun all the same

While You're Watching all those Old Movies, You'll Wonder Where They Are Now

For People Who Still Love THEIR Mothers