I love the holidays and some of my best holidays have been spent as a single parent. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss having someone to share them with. When I’m Christmas shopping or wrestling the Christmas tree alone, I wish I had a significant other to help me. This is another one of those times when having to make all the decisions yourself is overwhelming. I miss the comfort of having someone by my side, not to mention having someone to snuggle on the couch with while Hailey opens her gifts.
I remember the Christmas’s when I was married, how the two of us would stay up talking and wrapping presents and putting together doll houses. The lights on the tree twinkling and Christmas music playing in the background. It’s easy to see that time as idyllic, it wasn’t but that doesn’t stop your mind from pushing the bad memories out and focusing on the good.
I’m also sad that Hailey’s father seems to have forgotten that he has another daughter. Just because she is eighteen doesn’t mean she needs her father any less, I wish he understood that. Christmas morning will be quiet, just the two of us. Our mornings have always been quiet, after all, Hailey has always been an only child, but I do wish there was more for her.
I think that is the hardest thing about being a single parent, feeling that your child is missing out on more. I can’t say exactly what that more is, because it really is everything. More money, more parental attention, more opportunities, more involvement.
The one thing my child is not missing out on is love, there is plenty of love to go around in our house even if she does just have one parent. The sweetest sound in the world is still my daughter saying, Mommy, I love you. And that is what her father is missing out on.