A few days ago my 11-year-old son told me I should think about getting a hobby. If I wasn’t so shocked, I would have LOL.

“Honey,” I said, “In the last few years, we’ve moved in with my boyfriend, I’ve broken up with myself*, then moved out from my boyfriend’s. I’ve had two major surgeries, you’ve moved schools twice, my job moved to another state, then I changed jobs. I’m exhausted.” Then I added thoughtfully, “I’ve only just started to come out of the haze now.” My son did an “Oh… true…” nod and continued what he was doing with no further interest in the subject.

I’ve always rolled my eyes at blogs and broadcasts that were titled, “Where have I been?” It assumes that every person reading their headline has been dying to know what happened to that blogger and why they’ve been absent. I doubt anyone really cared. If the blogger was actually successful enough, the question of their absence would have been answered by the public long before the blogger realized it was even an issue.

And still – here I am, thinking I should write a “Where have I been?” blog. No one cares. I don’t even care enough about the last few years enough to write about them. Lol > But what I can tell you – or what I’d rather tell you – is what I’ve learned along the way. I’ve learned so much. And I want to tell you about my experiences. Both good and bad. What worked along the way, and what didn’t work.

I’m so happy to be back. Ironically, after all of the shenanigans of 2017, I’m so ecstatic that I can simply call it a “challenging” year. It was probably the most difficult year I’ve ever had, and yet I only want to call it “challenging.” Why? Probably because the previous 45 years before that were what helped me get through 2017.

Let me tell you about it.

Welcome to my not-so-new hobby: 1YearOfSingle.

-1Yos

*Oh, look at you searching for the meaning of that asterisk! Good for you! Well, you found it. I guess I should tell you what it means then?  Well, back in 2017, I had to break up with myself because my bonehead boyfriend didn’t have the balls to do it himself. My 11-year-old son and I were feeling completely unwanted, living in the guy’s house, and all the Talks in the world weren’t helping the situation. To add to the pile, he was lying to his daughters about us. So I had to shoot myself in the foot and tell him that it wasn’t working out. As soon as I brought it up, he said something like, “Well now that we know what the problem is…” I wanted to say, “No, dipshit – now that I had the balls to tell you that I already knew what the problem was.” I was furious! The kicker was that my son and I had just moved into his home after donating most of my belongings, and he was out cheating on me and telling his daughters that we were the assholes. The thing that hurt the most is that he brought my son into it. Trash. Complete trash. It pains me that his daughters will never know the truth. And yet, maybe they’re better off.