Why I (Seriously) Love Being a Single Parent

From Toxic Partnership to Single Parent Bliss

My daughter is five and fabulous.

My dog is six and riddled with anxiety.

I’m a forty-year-old single parent, and I love it.

Why? How is that even possible you may ask?

Because the drama and chaos have been removed from my day-to-day life.

Everything is more predictable, and I no longer have to deal with the unseen bullshit that comes from not meeting some outdated, unfair expectations of what I should be doing for my kid or partner…especially when, let’s be honest, very little was ever expected of my spouse.

I used to get pressure from his family and mine.

Now? I get pressure from neither. I seek advice from no one except myself, and I’ve built some seriously badass boundaries about who gets access to me and why.

When I was in a “partnership,” which was the polar opposite of what I actually had, I was working twice, if not thrice, as hard as I am now, and I was emotionally not well.

It was exhausting to repeat the phrase, “I am not going to make a mountain out of a molehill. If it doesn’t matter in five years, let it go,” while picking up an adult man’s dirty laundry off the floor, food wrappers off the counter (when the garbage bin was right fucking…