I want to respond to this beautiful post in some way, but I am at a loss for words. Thank goodness you are not!

Oh, Jen. I wish I had an answer.

I’ve had this dream where I’m all alone

I DREAD winter so much. I also struggle but not as much as I might. There is the issue of the heat, always. Do you wear performance fleece instead of turning the heat past 50? But then everyone gets so sick, usually. I did try that once.

I honestly wish you could move. I guess…are you waiting out the housing market? Or is it too hard to move? I just don’t think small towns are good when you’re single. Am I being interfering?

I don’t think the East Coast is good when you’re single. But I guess it is all so complicated.

I really do think you should email me one day and then you should come with your daughters and visit me and make my husband babysit and then we’ll go to my gym and sit in the sauna. Seriously! Let’s just go do yoga and sit in the sauna. I can’t afford the gym but yeah, the winter thing. It feels like I won’t survive it! So email me fairly soon when I have to cancel my gym membership.

This is a lot like the way I grew up: single mom, two children, little if any financial support from my dad (he was poor too), a sense of uncertainty about where we would live, how we would afford things like new gym shoes and the dentist. We never owned our own home, not even in part, were happy that public schools were free. We were on welfare for a short period of time when I was very young and my mom was sick, but she only took government assistance out of desperation. Yes, we were (and you are) the kind of people (those who actually try) such programs are really for, but I think she feels guilty about it to this day.

I remember going Christmas shopping at thrift stores one year. We never had much in the way of gifts anyway, but this was a particularly lean year. We did our window shopping, picking out things we might like, but instead of finding the gifts under the tree, some kind soul we had never seen before brought us a bag full of all the things we had seen and liked at the thrift store.

I’m careful about telling these stories. If I told them on my blog, I’m afraid it would upset my mom. Also, other people wouldn’t understand. They’d feel sorry for me for having such a poverty-stricken childhood. But we were not destitute. We always had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, even if it was often rice and beans. Although I knew we were poor, I never *felt* poor except when some snot-nosed “rich” kid (more likely middle class) teased me, which was not really too often. My childhood was really a very happy one, in spite of my parents’ divorce and our lack of material things. I always knew my parents loved me. Some of those kids who had more weren’t so sure.

The worst thing for me as a kid was the depression my mom would sink into around Christmas or birthdays when she couldn’t afford to get us the things she would have liked or on regular days when something would prompt her to compare what we had with what other kids had. She didn’t seem to realize that none of that *stuff* really mattered. What was important to me was the love and the happy times we shared as a family. That was all I really needed. I wish she could have seen it and been happy.

Your last post (They Both Convex) was so beautiful. I cried reading that. Moments like that are what your daughters crave more than any store-bought goodies or fancy houses like their friends have. They have a mother who is imaginative, funny, and, most importantly, who loves them. That is true wealth.

If you really want to give them something, give them your strength and humor in the face of adversity. Don’t forget your happiness. It’s something that comes from within and is not dependent upon circumstances. They want your happiness as much or possibly more than their own. That doesn’t mean you put up some facade for them. They need to know that everyone has things that drag them down, but that with creativity and humor and strength, you can get back up again. When they are grown, they will know how to face anything life throws at them and come out on top. There are some advantages to growing up with out material wealth. You are a wonderful mom. I have no doubt that your girls will someday look back on their childhoods and think how rich they really were.

Oh dear. I have those dreams too, where I’m searching. Sometimes I see him and he is too busy to talk. Only it’s been 14 years since he left. My daughter is grown and married now. She none too worse for wear having lived through it. I’ve asked her “did I do okay?” trying not to seem too too needy for some kind of pat on the back. “Oh Mom, it’s nothing 20 years of therapy won’t cure” she laughs while play punching me in the arm. There is an end to this, some day, and it’s a happy one too. There’s no shame in doing the best you can.

I found your blog through Schmutzie’s Five Star Friday - I know the boat you are in, New England cold winters bring me to tears every year because I cannot afford to keep the heat on all of the time to keep us warm all of the time. I’m in CT, my house is not insulated properly, and I often hole up with the doors shut in my bedroom with my daughter so we can blast the heat just in one room to cut down on costs and just hang out in there and read and watch movies and stuff on my computer. I hope things work out well for the both of us this winter - and chin up, sister, you are not alone!