And, This Day Again.

I never have my daughter for Mothers Day-- this is by choice. Today's call was "Hi Mommy, Happy Mothers Day! I think I'm going to go to the park, ok bye, I love you!" Click.

There may have been a little more conversation than that in there, but it was all one sided attempts by me to keep her on the phone-- when she's done, she's done. She is 6 years old, she doesn't care who her mother is and she isn't supposed to. She's not supposed to spend a day celebrating the love and attention of her mother, which at her age she is legitimately entitled to entirely. She's supposed to take me 100% for granted, she's supposed to consider me someone who needs to be here all the fucking time doing exactly what she needs me to do like it's my fucking job. Because it is.

I'll save the "Tell me how much you love me" coy ego-boost fishing for falling asleep with my boyfriend (yeah, I do that shit: Sorry, boyfriend). And on Mothers day, I'll sleep in, I'll have lots and lots of sex, I'll not do my hair, I'll watch horror movies in the middle of the afternoon, and my life will be completely fucking fabulous, laid back, and responsibility free.

The bottom line is, mothers day is a family holiday and I have no family. I have no partner. My mother is dead. Mothers day doesn't particularly apply to me. It's not a happy day, it's one I would rather didn't exist. The man who got me pregnant will never show up, all 4 feel 5 inches of him, to be the big person and say "Thank you for raising our child completely alone with no help from me while I cheated on taxes to declare her and finished my schooling with no job on the returns: And now, watch me skip out while YOU'RE going to school, because shit bitch-- I got my education so thanks for going to school full time with no help from me while I move on to the next phase of my life AGAIN. Trust me, I'll profit on your losses in my refusing to co parent over and over again, because you're the best mom ever!" (and then produce for me a bottle of Chanel Mademoiselle Coco, a Sephora gift card and a promise to babysit any time I want in the next 3 months-- ah, mine is a rich fantasy world indeed). There is no flowers or cards or anything to be sent to my own mother, and I don't know that she ever really dug on those things to begin with, every year since she died is a reminder of how really bad I was at those things when I had the chance, time to reflect on how it must have felt in those last three years of sickness that mothers day came and went with no card to be found in her mailbox from South Bend, Indiana. My 6 year old isn't really going to be sitting and reflecting on how much I have or have not done for her, or what it's going to feel like to either of us thinking back on mothers day 10 years from now-- as well she shouldn't, and I would be the worlds most fucked up parent if for a split second I thought it should be that way. All and all, mothers day is about your community, and I have none. I have a child I want nothing from but her happiness (and the adorable card she made me in her first grade art class), I have no mother, I have no family. And I just want to skip mothers day, every single fucking year.

I went with a friend and his son for lunch today, and was given chocolate from a tiny candy shop in some little town near here. I am blogging while I devour the box of chocolates unceremoniously, in my pajamas. I may watch mommy dearest, I will totally not clean my apartment as I had originally planned on, and tomorrow I will have lunch with another friend of the maternal persuasion with difficult circumstances-- ones I could never begin to fully comprehend. And I'm leaving the "Mothers Day" tag off of it, and chalking everything up to "I had a very nice weekend" of whatever sort it was.

Things I have learned today

1)Baby sitters will never never never be an exact science-never. There is a perfectly good reason that we pay them $5 an hour.

2)Neither will napping after ones child has returned from school. Sadly, there will never be $5 an hour for that.

3)I don't actually "like" any piece of clothing that I own (if by "like" what I mean is feel even moderately attractive in). No really... not a single thing.

4)Once you throw lunch dates into the mix, it's difficult to know if you are on date number 2 or date number 3.

5) Once you are a 30 year old in the world of dating, you don't really remember what it is that is supposed to be different between date number 2 and date number 3.

And as I told my friend Courtney earlier-- napping went poorly, I don't like my outfit, but in the end it comes down to a few simple things before venturing out on a Friday night:

6)If I'm going on a date with an extremely attractive man, I've made it 30 years without really regretting any of my tattoos getting a divorce or losing a limb, and I've yet to utterly fail my child, then all I really need is a little eyeliner and a Red Bull and I'm good, baby.

Yeah, that's right... it's the small victories and a simple willingness to be happy with them some days, though regretfully I must admit, that's something I have no doubt I will forget and have to relearn at least a thousand more days to come.