I do not play golf.  Correction, I do not play golf well.  I played competitive fast-pitch softball most of my life which means I swing that sissy little club like a bat.  I have to stand at the men’s tee because I hit the ball further then I should, and always into the rough.  I’m sure I could be a fairly good golfer with proper training, but I’m also sure that’s true for most people.  There is a word used in golf that I love, mulligan.  It is a sophisticated way of saying, “I totally screwed the pooch and I need a do-over”. My life now is absolutely a “mulligan”.

The funny thing about my mulligan life is that I thought I was doing everything perfectly the first time around.  We as a culture are brainwashed into believing there are these boxes you check off as an adult to prove you’re on the right path, and succeeding at being a human being.

• Go to college
• Get a good job
• Get married
• Have kids
• Buy a big house in the suburbs
• Stock the garage with two Toyotas
• Get a dog

I checked off all the boxes so how on earth did I screw up so badly? Turns out, those boxes are for suckers.  It’s not until you have checked off all those boxes and you’re terrifically in debt that you stop and think to yourself, “I’ve been had”.  Essentially, this is a long con our society pulls on people who think they’re providing a better life for their kids. Every generation wants to be better and so the con continues.

When I was a married-single-mom I was living in a 3400 square foot house with an in-ground pool and full size basketball court in the backyard.  I had a six-figure a year job and two great kids and I used all those checked boxes as a mask.  A mask that told the world I was happy and successful, a great mom and loving wife.  I was none of those things.  Eventually, my marriage became so toxic that I put on a ton of weight and that mask cracked on yet another “trip” down the stairs.

I married the wrong person.  The moment I came to the horrifying conclusion that I was in an abusive relationship was a typical night at our house.  He was mad, I was mad.  He was yelling and calling me names in front of the kids and I realized I was proud of myself because I had finally mastered the art of not crying.  Crying only made him angrier and he would mock me as I stood there sobbing.  He would lock me out of the house if I tried to go to the yard so the girls couldn’t hear me cry and he would kick in the bathroom door if I tried to cry in private.

Physical and verbal abuse are easy to identify.  Psychological abuse is so much harder because you yourself feel like you’re to blame.  The only way to really describe it is to give a ridiculous example.  Let’s say we were out of milk.  Let’s also say I made the terrible decision to ask him to pick up milk on his way home from where ever he was, because he didn’t work, but he was never home.  He would immediately begin accusing me of scissor kicking a goblin in the nuts.  I now feel the need to defend myself against this insane accusation because I know I never scissor kicked a goblin in the nuts, but I can’t prove it because I can’t even prove the existence of goblins. In the end, either I would go get more milk because I had the audacity to ask this of him after scissor kicking a goblin in the nuts or, he would stop and get milk and then lord this enormous favor over me for six weeks. While my ex never actually accused me of accosting a goblin, he would invent some outrageous accusation that would instantly put me on the defensive.  It is impossible to combat this because instinctually you want to use logic to defend yourself but the accusations are not based on logic they are solely to put you on edge and tear you down so that eventually you learn that everything is your fault and you have no right to ask for help.

To say I was miserable would be the most colossal understatement imaginable.  I was a “bad mom” and a “stupid fucking retarded bitch”.  He loved to tell me that he would have stopped calling me a “bitch” if only I could have stopped being a bitch.  I tried to stop, I really did.  But I now know that would have been impossible.  Eventually, he stopped coming home before midnight.  Funnily enough, I was still a bitch because I was too stupid to stop asking him to buy milk.

When he stopped coming home, I was relieved.  It was liberating! It was just the kids and me every night.  There were no fights.  There was less stress.  I did better at work.  The kids did better in school.  Then I started to suspect he was cheating.  Admittedly, it took me longer to figure this out because I was just so grateful he wasn’t around all the time.  The night I confronted him with my suspicions, I thought he was going to kill me.  I should have left as soon as he stopped choking me.

Everything seems so black and white now.  Of course I should have left.  But he always convinced me I imagined it.  That I was crazy and it was all in my head.  This happened a lot.  He never apologized, he would just tell me an alternate version of events, and then tell me how it was all my fault because I was insane.  Just like I was imagining that he was cheating on me.  All of it was just “in my head” right up until the moment I caught her straddling my husband in the middle of the afternoon.

I’m sure my wide, unblinking eyes and manic grin made me look genuinely psychotic.  There she was, a married mother of an infant child scrambling to dismount and hide behind my husband.  He had talked about her enough that I was 99% certain I knew who she was.  I should disclose her full name here, but I won’t because unfortunately I never lost my conscious, so we’ll just call her “Her”.  I walked over to them with a giant Cheshire Cat grin on my face and made “Her” shake my hand.  I remember thinking how weak and fragile her hand felt in mine as I said, “You must be Her, my husband said I’d like you.  I also like it on top.” I then proceeded to tell the two of them that I wouldn’t tell her husband just so long as my ex gave me a non-contested divorce.  After which I left and drove back to work.

I had so many thoughts going through my head after I caught them.  Mostly, I was surprised at how calm I felt.  It was as if I was channeling a different, stronger woman.  A friend told me the next day she thought I might have actually been channeling a female family member who had died, but was watching over me.  My mom said she thought both my grandmothers and my aunt had been standing there with me, cheering me on.  I kinda like my mom’s version, I know I felt stronger in that moment then I had in years and the idea of those three women who I loved so much standing beside me was very comforting.

Everything after that is pretty much a blur.  He refused to move out and I couldn’t leave the girls.  The woman he was cheating on me with got spooked that I would tell her husband and came clean.  Her husband essentially put her on house arrest, so my ex was suddenly home every night.  It was the worst case scenario.  If he hadn’t been there, I could have finished all the repairs on the house in half the time.  I got rid of practically everything, which was an extensive amount of stuff.  Sold the house, packed the dog and clothes for the girls and we left.  We rented a fully furnished 600 square foot house near downtown with a yard.  It was perfect. I had my kids, I had my dog and I was free.

The first night we were there I fell asleep on the couch and the kids couldn’t wake me up.  I was so exhausted that once I escaped with my children my brain turned itself off.  When I woke up it was past midnight and my kids had tucked themselves into the queen bed they now had to share and were sound asleep.  I know they saw me as a bad mom that night.  I felt like a bad mom that night.  The next morning we talked about it and they understood why I was so tired but it will never erase the fact that I didn’t tuck them in on their first night away from their home and their dad.  They know not to let a man speak to them the way their father spoke to me, but I worry they will repeat my mistakes or blame me for their world turning upside down.  I am a bad mom because I stayed and a bad mom because I left.

I lost my job two weeks after the girls and I moved.  The house down-town was super expensive so we only stayed there a month before moving to a different fully furnished apartment in the basement of an old church.  I rented both the house down-town and the church apartment through AirBNB.  We didn’t have a lease at either place, we were just renting by the month.  I literally had no job and nowhere to live.  Eventually, I had to go on food stamps and medicaid.  I did everything I had to do to take care of my kids and I will never be made to feel guilty for the decisions I made.

I was back cleaning dressing rooms and working at Macy’s when I was finally able to secure a wonderful job and I met an amazing man I call “Cute Boyfriend”. We live with him and his daughter now in a beautiful house with a great yard and even better schools.  My relationship with Cute Boyfriend is nothing like my relationship with my ex.  Cute Boyfriend is calm and respectful and patient.  He views me as a partner, not a house elf.  He is fantastic with my girls and I adore his daughter.

My memory of my life before is blurry, but now I wake up every single morning and I know I am going to be okay.  My kids are going to be okay.  I don’t know of many people who get to start over the way I did, but I’m not going to waste this opportunity. This time I’m not going to check off boxes.  I am going to live the life I want to live.  This is my mulligan life.

I was 27-years-old when I found my daughters.  I wasn’t looking for children, I was actually on a date with a guy I had been cast alongside at a local theater.  I knew he had four kids, his boys lived with him 50/50 and his daughters lived in Virginia.  That was about all I knew about the kids and honestly I wasn’t looking for a long term relationship so when he asked me out I agreed because it sounded fun.

When I first saw the picture of two tiny little blond girls dancing and smiling I knew they were my daughters.  If you ever want to feel like a crazy person, have this experience.  You will interrogate your sanity like the Riddler after a seventh cup of coffee.  It wasn’t until after I met other adoptive parents that I learned my reaction is not an uncommon phenomenon.  Many parents know that is their child(ren) by looking at a photograph.  The main difference being the other parents, the “good moms”, were in the market for a kid, whereas I was tipsy and wearing a low cut blouse.

The girl’s bio-mom abandoned them when they were six-months and two-years old.  Their dad couldn’t handle the responsibility, so he sent them to live with their maternal grandparents over 1,700 miles away.  I met them only a few weeks after I saw the photograph, they were four and five-years-old.

When I got to the house, I stood on the porch for about 10 minutes before walking in.  I knew I was about to meet my daughters for the first time and I was terrified.  When I finally walked in my youngest bounded at me with an enormous smile on her face.  My oldest hid at the top of the stairs and peered down at me though the railing.  I have a picture of the two of them on that night, they are dressed like princesses.  I keep that photograph in a locket, a moment frozen in time.  The moment the three of our lives changed forever.

When they came to live with me they had the clothes on their back, a couple of stuffed animals and lice.  They had been kept alive, but they had not had a good life.  They had never had a haircut, never woke up to presents under a Christmas tree and they had never had a mom.

Their father and I were married after dating for 9 months.  This was a terrible idea! He literally called me at work and asked if I wanted to go get married.  He and I were happy then and he knew I’d fallen head over heals for the girls and wanted to adopt them.  The fact that I was able to adopt them is one I still ponder.  It took three years and lawyers in two states to make it official.  The girls and I celebrate “Gotcha Day” every year on June 27th as if it is everyone’s birthday, Halloween, Christmas, New Years and Flag Day all rolled together into one giant love burrito.

If I didn’t tell you my girls were adopted, you would never know.  They are my daughters and I am their mom.  But it is important to understand this relationship and history, because it is a part of us.  I stopped telling people my girls were adopted a few years ago. Mostly, because people are idiots and would often ask me, “do you ever think you’ll have children of your own?” Or, once they knew, they would constantly find ways to mention my daughters’ bio-mom, a woman who hasn’t seen them in over a decade, and refer to her as my girls’ “real mom”.  Let’s clarify two things right now:

1. I do not need to have children “of my own”. I have children and they are all I will ever need
2. I AM THEIR REAL MOM

I may be a bad mom, but there is nothing about what I do that is fake or artificial.  When they are scared at night because they think the invisible flesh-eating-bugs (Vashta Nerada) from Dr. Who are under their bed, I’m the one flopping around on the floor pretending the bugs are eating my arm.  I’m the one who tried to resuscitate “Athena” the gold fish when she went belly up. I’m the one banging her head on the table after 3-hours of math homework with my oldest.  I’m the one who sat at a completely cleared dining room table every single night with my youngest until she finished her dinner.

I noticed while at the Children’s Museum one day that the other adults all looked happy but exhausted.  Then I realized that’s how I look, all the time.  Real parents look this way, fake parents look two-dimensional because they’re on TV or in a magazine.

The weirdest part of being a mom, is you’re not a mom until you are one.  Which sounds on the surface like the sort of obvious statement that doesn’t need mentioning.  Except it is SO true.  When you first become a mom, you worry about everything, you second guess everything, essentially you become a total paranoid and neurotic nutcase.  But you don’t really become a “mom” until you figure out what kind of mom you really are.  Eventually, you find your own rhythm and you have done enough trial and error to know which all-natural stain remover actually removes stains and exactly how many grocery bags you can carry in addition to a screaming child.  That’s when you are really a mom.

It is the best and worst feeling in the world being a mom.  You love more than you ever thought your heart was capable of loving but that “worry” you start off with never truly goes away it just morphs into a sixth sense and gains squatter’s rights in the pit of your stomach.  Being a mom, a real mom, is different for every woman.  Unfortunately for my girls, I am a bad mom.  The kind of mom who will absolutely help you get your coat unstuck from around your head…I just need a photograph first.