I don’t wish Single Motherhood on anyone.

It’s not a situation that any woman enters into with glee and racing anticipation - no little girl grows up with dreams of becoming a Single Mom.

And yet, I can say with full certainty:  I would not trade the last two years for anything.  They taught me more than four years of University, several trips around the world, and four years in a monogamous, committed relationship ever could.

I say this with knowledge of the risk of sounding trite: those two lonely, soul-searching years taught me how to be happy and confident with my tiny party of two.

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I’ve been missing in action from this space, struggling for several weeks with what I would write.  This column is called Single Mom at Work, and it’s been a diary of my experiences of heartbreak, hope, balance, and the all-encompassing undercurrents of this life: happiness and stability.

When I started writing for Work It, Mom!, my little boy was just two years old.  We spent our time mostly alone: on the beach searching for scuttling creatures, in the forest twirling in the rain and stomping mud soaked boots.  Looking at the clouds in the air, searching for the future in a promising ray of light.  I made dinner for him and ate the leftovers off his plate.  My Mom took him while I did my business trips: exhausting day jaunts to San Francisco and LA when I’d leave the house at 4am and return near midnight, my Mom asleep on my couch and my still-wee boy entangled in his blankets, dreaming.  I’d kiss his head and creep to my room and set my alarm for two hours later, when I needed to complete a freelance project.  I supported the two of us with no financial aid from my son’s Father: it compelled, exhausted, and terrified me while simultaneously filling me with a kind of pride.  I could do this, I was doing this, albeit sometimes barely.

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