Life Challenges: What Led Me Here (Part IV)

It seemed the fire department took forever. A few minutes felt like hours to me. As I watched my house from outside in the bitter January cold, I couldn’t help but feel like I was trapped in some twilight zone nightmare, wondering if I’d wake up to find my house still there.

The fire department arrived and put out the fire. Fortunately, it didn’t spread to the first floor of the house, but there was significant smoke and fire damage in the basement. The house reeked with smoke for a long time after that, and I found myself pulling out fans and opening windows during the bitter January winter weather in order to get the smell out.

The fire was only a symbol of the state that my life was in during that time. One negative thing led to another, so it seemed. It seemed that whenever I turned around, nothing turned out how I had planned and the stress just got bigger.

I ended up landing the job in New York City, moved across the country with nothing to my name but two suitcases of clothes and a few photographs of my kids. Not wanting to disrupt my children’s schooling in the middle of the school year, I thought it was best if they finished the school year and joined me in the summer to start school in the fall in New York: at least this was my plan.

I naively gave my husband temporary primary care of the kids in the meantime, thinking that this would be only a temporary arrangement until the next school year. My plans didn’t work out as I had envisioned them and I quickly found myself in the middle of a contentious divorce and custody battle with the first round lasting another year and a half. (There were several rounds after that in court, too. While I won a court battle a year later with the same judge who had previously ruled on the custody battle a year earlier, the fact is that I still am a non-custodial mom. )

Sadly, as much as I tried to protect them, my kids suffered the most throughout it all. All the words I can muster up here cannot accurately express what they went through. It is not my intention to write this story here, because, in some ways we are still living the story. I will save those bittersweet memories for my book, which I hope will provide some healing for all of us.

The role of “non-custodial mom” is a role I’ve now lived for over seven years. It wasn’t a role that I ever thought I’d be in, nor a role that I wanted. I spent endless nights crying over my situation. I cried when my kids would get mad at me, because my time was so limited with them, and I wanted everything to go perfectly when we were together. I cried because I knew I couldn’t explain to them how this situation came to be. I cried because I knew it would be years before I could really explain to them why things happened as they did. And I cried because I didn’t know if they would eventually understand it. But more importantly, I cried because I missed my kids and felt their pain and suffering.

Being a non-custodial mom can be very difficult. Although many fathers know my pain, they don’t know what it’s like to be a mother and be away from her children. People would look at me and I could almost “hear” their judgments of me with thoughts like “A mother never leaves her children.” or “I could never do that.” If there is one thing that I have learned from all of this, is that sometimes we are in situations in life that we never thought we'd be in. So I’ve learned not to say “never.”

Being a non-custodial mom is a role that a lot of society doesn’t understand. Most people assume that a mother always gets her kids in a contested custody battle, unless there is something wrong with her. All too often I could feel other peoples’ disapproval of me as a mother when I revealed my situation to them. I used to think, “How could I get them to understand that I love my kids so very much? How could I get them to understand that the court systems vary by state and that there are many other women out there like me, physically away from their kids, but who are and continue to be, excellent mothers? “ I used to spend a lot of energy feeling sorry for my situation, for my kids and for what I felt were the injustices of the court system, crying my eyes out because of the predicament that I had gotten into.

During this time, I had a lot of time to myself and began working on my own personal development. Looking back, I feel I didn't handle all of this well, as I was too hard on myself. People say I've got the strength of a mule, but inside I was heart-broken and wounded. I needed to seek forgiveness. I wanted so badly to have forgiveness from my children and finally realized that I needed to forgive myself first.

During that time, I can honestly say that Jesus saved me. I had a lot of time alone and found myself praying and getting involved with a church and church life in New York. The time spent grieving for my father allowed my mother and I to heal old wounds and to mend our hearts with one another: just in time, before she developed dementia.

Alone and praying everyday, I began to study the power of prayer, the law of attraction and learned to meditate. I also started to read everything I could get my hands on that dealt with these issues. One book led to another and I began my journey of love as The Spirited Strider, a name I call myself on my blog and website. It’s a journey I am still living, but this time I am doing it by exploring my passion for writing and teaching. I am finding my journey very exciting.

Although I would never choose consciously to be a non-custodial parent, my children and I have adjusted to our situation. Writing articles, blogs and participating in various on-line forums about spirituality and personal development are opportunities that I just knew I needed to be a part of.

I'm grateful for my journey, for the opportunity to be here and excited about what's to come.