It’s ok if society doesn’t like it. It’s ok if men don’t like it. It’s ok if your family doesn’t like it. This is a time for you go within and really meet who you’re about to become, unapologetically.

The Rebuild

Single parenthood allowed me to pick up the pieces of myself that were shattered by my son’s father. It took a decade for me to put them back together on my own terms. For many years I sat in the wasteland of “I don’t have a choice”, “How can I do it all?” and “There isn’t enough time”. When I got to know my broken pieces, I realized that what I actually had was a gift to put myself back together on my own terms. 

Some masterpieces are created over night; some take decades.

One of the first broken pieces I got to know was that single parenthood disrupted my timeline. Having turned 30, this was supposed to be the time that I began excelling in my career. I spent my 20’s building my vocal cords and creative voice. Single parenthood was not part of the plan I spent the last decade obsessing over. When I became pregnant, I worked a great deal on shifting my identity to songwriter from performer. I was ok with this. But when shit hit the fan the year I turned 30, I was a mother bear who’s baby’s survival depended on her ability to support him. Not only did my voice die, but I was starting from the beginning. When an animal is threatened, there is no energy for writing music. It’s goes to running or fighting… or starting a gruelling university degree from scratch and moving in with mom.

I cultivated a relationship with my timeline. It wasn’t a wasted decade; it was a piece the puzzle that would ultimately be my life. Life is never linear nor is it supposed to be. I honoured this time as a mature student learning a new skill. While sitting next to the 19-year-olds started their degrees, I realized that it wasn’t a disadvantage to have a little bit of life experience. It felt like the new knowledge I was acquiring was for every single mother who went through abuse as I did. My abuse was mostly psychological and financial, and the knowledge I was acquiring was for all of us.

Reversing the spiral of declining self-worth.

The next broken piece was that having a son in my 30’s made my “stock go down”, as I heard from several men who I went on first dates with. When I expressed that I didn’t think we were right for each other, there were a few times I heard how I should be lucky that they gave ME a chance (given my baggage). 2 things here. A man that would even think something like that was not my man, so I was lucky enough to find out early that he was an asshole. The second was that my stock (as one so eloquently put) in fact did not go down. I knew the truth intellectually, but emotionally, I believed what he said. This is one of the reasons I carried so much pain inside. I subscribed to the “who would sign up for this?”. I’m going to be honest. It wasn’t until my late 30’s when I felt my being a mom was well received by the men I had chosen to go out with. Some of them were single dads. Looking back on it now, I’m glad this was my reality. It shifted my focus from building a relationship with a new man to building myself into the mom my son deserved through the younger years of his life, and a model of strength and resilience needed in his early adolescence. 

After I earned my CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) designation, it felt like a few of the pieces were put back together; the one’s that represented a foundation of being able to financially support my son. It’s during this time where I searched for clarity on how I was to use this knowledge and experience to become who I needed to be. There were moments when I believed that I went in the opposite direction of what I was born to do. The hardest part was over, and as the dust settled all I wanted to do was get creative again. Once the crack of “how am I going to support my child” was sealed, I felt the creativity come back, but it had evolved into something a little different. What was previously about building a career out of music and learning how to creatively express myself turned into this desire to use this creativity for the benefit of my “sisters”.

I vividly remember a moment when I moved back to my mom’s place, immediately after my ex threatened that if I ever went after him for child support, he would tell the judge that I was so “financially stupid”, that he would have my son taken away from me.

When this happened, there was a very desperate and broken part of me that believed him. The breaking down of my self esteem began a few months into our relationship, though I didn’t realize it at the time. So what did I do? I couldn’t afford to go back to school just yet, so I looked up free finance courses online. I came across Robert Shiller’s Yale course on Open-Yale. I started watching it while on my mom’s treadmill in her dark basement. One of his opening statements (and I’m paraphrasing) was that “as stewards of the financial industry it is our obligation to use our knowledge to not just benefit ourselves or our clients, but to USE FINANCIAL CREATIVITY to benefit society as a whole”. I immediately got goosebumps. I knew that the “creative world” of finance (whatever that means) was for me, but it wasn’t until I had the strength of the CFA designation behind me that I knew I earned the respect and acquired the knowledge to put this into practice.

Our pain is our paint.

Part of this is what I’m doing through this resource. I want to shorten the time it takes to “be ok” for everyone who reads what I have to say. I also intend to use my financial knowledge to create a machine in support of those raising the next generation alone. I’m working on that quietly too. We’ve been through trauma, and there is no doubt that the world isn’t set up for us. There is a world, however, where all the pain is the paint we need to create our masterpieces.

We will be met with vitriol by people who say stupid things like “single moms are a drain on our welfare system” or “they shouldn’t have had kids if they couldn’t afford them”. Oh, I’ve experienced several of these unfortunate souls, many of whom owe significant child support arrears and don’t believe it to be their responsibility to care for children they’ve brought into the world. Who cares what they think? It doesn’t matter what anyone else says, because it only matters if we believe it.

There is a new culture arising that we’re part of. It’s our responsibility to the women who come after us. We are not alone; we are not broken and we are not destined to lose ourselves and abandon our dreams. Sit in this place of confusion, despair, and have an absolute knowing (don’t hope, don’t maybe) that this is your path to becoming someone spectacular for you and for your children.

This is the metamorphosis process. The dead and disoriented caterpillar goes through a gooey phase to strengthen her wings. Honour this process and imagine all the possibilities of who you want to be. Have faith that she is waiting for you on the other side.

Take a moment to reflect on how the worst days you experienced COULD actually become your best days. (I reflect on this regularly, and it’s been a game changer.)

Put together a path for yourself from that terrible moment leading to the place where all of your dreams have come true. Do you even know where that is? Identify your dreams and sit with them daily.

There are infinite paths and mapping out a few for yourself will be helpful when you feel disoriented.