Yellow Brick Road

Solo parenting after separation.

Suddenly, my future looked so different.

It shakes you a bit, and sometimes not all at once, but in fragments along the way.

It’s not just the split, the letting go of someone who was once so concrete in your life.

It’s the shifts in your daily life environment.

Trying to fill the ‘home’, you once felt – and what that looks and feels like now.

The internal shifts of needing to reteach yourself how to live and not just survive.

Where you gave too much, but that doesn’t sit with you anymore.

This is – the yellow brick road.

With a 5- and 2-year-old, my first thought naturally was;

“How am I going to support my family?”

“I can do this!”

But after living so long in survival mode. I felt stuck in my masculine energy. I was leading, controlling and thinking logically.

I lost touch with my femininity. The calm, nurturing and softer side.

My kids needed their mother. But I couldn’t even connect with myself.

I felt internally stuck. I realised that I haven’t felt emotionally safe for a long time. And that had built up some thick walls around me.

At times I felt lazy.

But I was run down. So run down I lost 8kg dropping down to 45kg due to stress, anxiety and lack of appetite.

Metaphorically speaking before my separation, my life felt like I was like a building – crashing down into rubble.

With no light on the horizon, and no hand reaching back to me.

This was a big turning point for me to realise the impact it has on a person who gives, even when the scales were one sided heavy.

So, I got myself up, but I walked the other way. Because I learnt that I am in control of what happens to me. I learnt that if I had to get myself up when I was knocked down, why didn’t he?

Their burden is not meant to be fixed by you.

You are the lover.

You are the supporter.

You are not - the endless giver who fades to grey.

I felt strong through my 1^st year after separation.

I paid off debts, saved up and took the kids on a holiday.

My 2^nd year after separation, however, was very different.

Walls I built through living in survival mode were finally starting to drop. I could cry again.

And while this was great, I felt as though I lost my sense of emotional control and strength.

I cried the most this year than I have in a very long time.

I learnt a lot about love. I learnt a lot about myself. I learnt about the necessity of having healthy boundaries, good communication and self-respect.

The most difficult year for me was the 2^nd year.

Trying to live with all the built-up stress, anger and frustration, while raising my two young children who also can’t self-regulate.

The hardest part was carrying everything at once:

·       Financial Stress

·       Solo Parenting responsibilities

·       My own emotional Healing

·       Two young children who can’t regulate their own emotions yet

Walking down the yellow brick road felt lighter at first.

But over time I realized I was still carrying so much.

Anger, triggers, frustration, fears.

I felt overworked, overstimulated and empty.

I love my kids deeply.

But I am not happy - at home with my kids.

That’s hard to say. But it’s real.

I am still learning to adjust and rebuild my life and the life I want for my two children.

I am coming out from – self-abandonment, disassociation, fear and heartbreak.

I am trying to calmly process all of this and heal.

All while I have two young children fighting each other and testing me all the time.

My ‘home’ felt suffocating.

I feel guilt.

I am just not the mother I wanted to be in such prime time in my life.

But I didn’t plan to feel this way. It’s a process.

Coming home to myself hasn’t been peaceful.

There were a lot of deep and painful screams.

A lot of crying.

A lot of saying the wrong thing to the kids because my brain just couldn’t process and react calmly while feeling like my nervous system was under attack.

But with the crying, came the writing. The art to express was returning, and a flame started to reignite.

Where had this fire been this whole time?!

I started this blog for my own healing. It has felt so fulfilling to me.

But I am finding this deep purpose of wanting to become what I’ve always wanted to become. I really want to empower others to believe in themselves. And to do that, I needed to become the person I want to be.

Because we all deserve to live – not just survive.

Here I am, in the 3^rd year. Reinventing myself. Because I can.

Doing what I love no matter what others say.

Trying new things because I want to.

Because this is my life.

I still feel very much in the unknown. Still walking that yellow brick road.

But I have grown so much on the journey.

And although I still get overwhelmed.

I still face triggers that set off my survival mode.

But I am accountable.

Some days I may wake up late in bed heavy. A day or a few I may need.

Because the pain and healing are real. It all meant something. Learn from it.

These days, most days - I’m up writing. Reading. Planning.

The only sense of comfort and joy you’ll find on the yellow brick road;

Is working towards a more vibrant life and how you’re going to radiate that along the way.