I am the dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding

This year has been a difficult one for me. I have had this funk around me. I try to push through and I make myself go out and do things even when I HATE being out and with people. Becoming one with my couch has been much more enjoyable lately, not even pigging out just zoning out and watching netflix or some other TV shows. I think tonight I put a finger on what has been bugging me. I am so sad that my son is growing up and leaving me. In my head I can see the dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding when he starts to whine, "why do you want to leave me" and I can totally understand that feeling.

Tonight we went to the band banquet, I drove myself and the kid came separately with his GF. Tomorrow we are all going to a baseball game. He asked for his and hers tickets tonight so they can drive together and I had to ask him if we could ride together. I even said I would ride with him, I don't need to drive, but I had to ask. IDK why this makes me want to cry but it surely does. That is when it hit me, this is going to be my life with him from now on.

He is going to continue to grow and become more independent and I am going to be on the sidelines. I know I have been on the sidelines for a while but now that he is driving and has a job my sideline position is growing and I am sad.

I was never a person to cry at life events, aside from funerals, but at happy events I don't cry at bc they are happy events and I don't want to cry during happy times. However at this moment when the child is moving on and growing up all I want to do is cry and bury my head in the sand. I have his senior pictures but have not been able to give them out. I have told people when his graduation party is but I have been unable to put out the official invite for this event. I am struggling and I think it's bc if I give out the pictures or officially plan the party it makes his growing up real and I am not ready.

Question: Why is he leaving me???
Answer: Because it's time and that is what happens when people grow up.

How do you change the way you are seen to others?

This past week there have been two comments about the fact that I was a teen mom. The first was really quite rude and the guy who made apologized immediately for it bc he knew he had gone to far. But it got me thinking that really after all these years my life is not defined by being a mom but being a teen mom. Then today my mom and I were discussing my brother. I was expressing my opinion that he is 31 and needs to grow up and take care of his stuff instead of dropping it on my parents like he is doing right now. She then says well you made a bad decision when you were 17. WOW nothing I ever do will be good or get her approval bc when I was 17 I got pregnant. Now mind you the brother who we were discussing got himself into trouble in hs too, he got expelled for a time, it was over turned but he too got into trouble. Does she bring this up with him? Does she hold things over his head? Nope she continues to clean up his messes and if I mention it she throws it in my face that I had my son as a teen.

And I let her get to me. As I am typing this, I have tears streaming down my face. I am not saying that for someone to tell me it is ok and the my mom is horrible. I am saying it to show that her opinion affects me and her words still have a way to cut me like a knife. For fuck sake the kid is about to graduate from HS he has a job and has a plan for his future but bc I had him when I was 17 he is tainted???

So let's look at what I have accomplished since I was 17. The last few months of my 17th year went as follows:
June: graduate high school
September: give birth
November: get married
January: start college

I took classes for 5 1/2 years to graduate. I also worked 30-35 hours a week and worked 5-6 days a week. I didn't take the easy way out. I worked. I have been paying my own bills since I got married.

I graduated from college a year after my ex left. I did have to work with a professor on a class a bit bc of the divorce but otherwise there was no delay in my studies, in fact I was able to graduate a semester before I thought I'd be able to. I worked my butt off. Yes my parents watched my son for me and paid for my degree (which they paid for both of my brothers to go to school too). The condition to watch my son was it had to be for school or work, they didn't watch him for me to go out and party. In fact I didn't go to a bar until I was 22 and with friends while my brother watched my son for me. My son was always my priority.

I was able to purchase a house when I was 31. My mother offered help with the down payment or rent at my last place but I declined I purchased this house on my terms.

My son may not have had everything he wanted and things were a struggle sometimes but I did have great family support. I had support from both my family, my son's family and the friends that have become family. And now I get support for my BF's family. I know that I am lucky that I have been able to accomplish what I have accomplished and that I wouldn't be here without the support of those around me.

But DAMN it was also me. It was also me that was going to school and working, sometimes 2 jobs, to help put food on the table. It was me that volunteered to be a team mom when the kid played baseball, it was me at his practices and games. It was me who drove to Delaware every weekend for a month to see him perform with the indoor drum line. It was me that volunteered with the band parents association and fundraisers for the band. This is all me, I did that.

So why does it matter anymore that I had him when I was young? Why have we not moved past this? How do I redefine myself as just a mom and not a teen mom? Why do I feel the need to qualify my accomplishments with an asterisk since I started younger than others and had help? I mean really haven't most people received help at one point in their lives or another?

I am not posting this for attention or to hear nice things about me, I am posting it as a reminder to myself that just bc I started young doesn't negate everything else I have done. My son is healthy and happy and about to graduate high school and I did that.

Mom life

I cannot imagine my life without my son but man some days I hate mom life. I hate all the fighting, I hate having to be the bad guy all the time, I hate have to micro manage him but most of all I hate that he is growing up. I was never one of those people who wanted to be a mom or dreamed of being a mom, that might be bc I had my son when I was 17 so I didn't have much time to dream about being a mom. But ever since I had him he has been my life. I have tried to be there for him, I have tried to be a active mother, meeting his teachers, being a team mom when he played ball, taking him to different skate parks when he was into that, and getting involved with the music department in his high school. I want to make sure that he knows that I am supporting him dreams. I want him to know that I will be there for him. Ever since high school started for him I have been dreading him graduating and moving away. I don't know why this has been so stressful for me. Its the natural progression of life, you grow up graduate and start life as an adult. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that my whole adult life has been being his mom, there was no time before for me to be an adult on my own so as he has grown so have I. Where will I be once he has graduated and moved out. Will I still be known as his mom? I know I will always be his mom and always be a mom but him graduating feels like a big part of my life is coming to an end, am I ready for this?

This might be why I think about having another child, since I still can and then that would delay me having to be an adult on my own for another 18 years. holy cow batman, this realization just came to me as I am typing this entry out.