First check your feet - then choose your dance.

My first month as a single parent is drawing to a close. In some ways it's been easier than I though - in others, much harder. I am usually such a solitary person, I didn't realize how very accustomed I had gotten to there always being someone around to talk to. I divide my time pretty much equally between feeling strong and confident and like a total failure. Most times, I look towards the future, making plans and setting new goals and just trying to get through each day with some small amount of grace.

Other times I sit around feeling like a total nutcase - a bad mommy whose daughter watches too much tv, a bad friend who burdens people with the constant need for stupid favours because she can't remember that she just can't pop out to the grocery store for diapers at ten o'clock at night anymore. A bad daughter who hasn't yet managed to mail her Father's Day gift because she just can't seem to get it together.

Some days I wake up positively giddy, as though I have been given a precious gift - my life has been handed back to me without the constant stress of a relationship gone terribly wrong. I feel like I found myself somewhere inside a very bitter and angry stranger, and rediscovered the person who knew how to laugh.

The only thing I don't seem to be doing is mourning the passing of my marriage. That worried my for a while, that I must be suppressing something to feel so little about the ending of a huge chapter in my life. Then I realized - I already did that. I've spent the last two years doing that.

The mourning is over. It's time to let it go, grab onto this new life with both hands, and leap.