I have so many Mom confessions. These are the things that would embarrass my teenager if she wasn’t so used to me being a hot mess. Now she just sighs and shakes her head about most things. Raising a mom is difficult, ya know?
I started spending time alone for the first time in my life this past summer. This was after I left a relationship I’d been in my entire adult life. My daughter wasn’t with me most of the summer – she was at her dad’s, hanging with friends or off at sleep away camps. My therapist urged me to take myself on dates.
(How’s that for embarrassing a teenager? Her mom telling the world about going on dates with herself?)
One of my goals was to get out and go to some new places. So I was excited when I found a cute little used bookstore and coffee shop near the river.
I ordered a breve latte and a cheese danish.
The latte was beautiful. I take it unsweetened (though a different coffee shop I visit offers one with honey steamed into the milk, so I always indulge in that). The barista heated my cheese danish in the toaster oven. Then I took my little breakfast to a table outside. It was summer in Florida, but there was a breeze from the river.
So I sat down with my perfect latte and amazing danish. It was a croissant pastry with a cream cheese filling.
And then disaster struck.
I dropped my delicious danish. It hit the ground under the table.
I almost cried. Really. I was in the midst of big changes and heartache after months of crisis and chaos. That latte and cheese danish by the river was one of the few times I’d felt kind of okay in a long while.
And then I dropped my freaking pastry.
I looked around. No one else was outside.
So I picked up my treat and took a big bite anyway.
It was still warm and creamy.
Then I realized I was sitting by a window and everyone inside could see me.
And people were totally watching me eat food off the ground.
But I didn’t care.
I dropped a cheese danish on the ground and ate it anyway.
And that kind of became my philosophy to keep going on the hard days. Some days you’re doing pretty okay. But then you drop your pastry on the ground. You can get mad and throw it in the trash. You can cry about it. Or you can pick it up, take a bite even though it’s no longer perfect and keep moving forward with your life.
Sometimes gross mom confessions take on a whole new meaning.
