Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes motherhood is this blissfully amazing experience where you’re completely rocking this mom life, everyone seems good, you’re coasting along like you actually have your shit together, and you totally rock that side part and the mom jeans. Then…BOOM life decides to be like that sixth grade bully and kick your ass and steal your lunch money. One minute I’m announcing how amazing I am doing at remaining positive and living in gratitude. I’m over here shoving the whole “live, laugh, love” mantra down everyone’s throats and living my best life. All of a sudden I get thrown the curve ball of being unable to juggle the work-kids-my own life balance and everything goes to hell. Negative Nancy decides it’s time to show her face and I’m back at square one. I’m wallowing in my inability to do everything on my own without any help. I’m throwing attitude, spewing negativity, and projecting my anxiety onto everyone that attempts to help me find solutions to my all or nothing state of being. When you don’t have a support system nearby and you have spent the past umpteen years not fostering relationships outside of your home it gets lonely and hard to manage everything. You become self reliant and are trained to do it all on your own. Well they say “it takes a village” and they are so right. What do you do when you have no village? I snap out of my negative Nancy personality once I wake up the next day, but not before making sure everyone in the house knows what I do for them. It’s hard to admit that I’ve made this life this hard by trying to do what I thought I was supposed to for so long with very little help from anyone else. I work full time in management. (Fancy right? I’m a boss ass bitch!) I have my three girls high school, middle school, elementary school (all the stages at once…THREEFOLD) Divorced from a narcissist who could definitely run the local chapter meeting of narcs each month. Engaged to an amazing man who is beyond understanding, patient, and willing to help when he isn’t busting his ass (that ass though) and parenting his own teenage daughter. My family has moved away. Friends weren’t an option when I was married before and starting new relationships and finding moms who don’t have toddlers, eat meat, drink alcohol on occasion, cuss, and can let loose without telling me all the ways I’m screwing my kids up that ACTUALLY want to hang out is like trying to find my Milky Way I left out on my nightstand. It’s not happening. (My kid most definitely ate it and probably hid the trash under her bed in a futile attempt to hide the evidence.) I would love to hear how other people find friends close to 40. I go to work, I come home, shower, have dinner with my kids, watch some new episode of “Snapped” and go to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat. Maybe that’s what I need to do…create mommatch.com where you can find like minded moms to hang out and see if you could potentially be friends. I always figure it out and I think we as moms don’t give ourselves near enough credit for being the glue that holds it all together. No one can do the job you do for your kids. You know them best and therefore are the best person to be with them. You’re allowed to have bad days. You’re allowed to be overwhelmed, stressed, angry, or impatient sometimes. Just because I decided I would be more positive and that I would live with more gratitude doesn’t mean that every moment of everyday will be perfect or that I will be able to catch every curve ball that flies my way. And that’s ok. We as moms tend to hold ourselves to these high standards that we would never look at our friends, our sisters, our daughters, or our own mothers and expect the same level of perfection. We all need help sometimes. Find your people. Find your tribe. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness or admitting defeat. Through my anger, tears, frustration and my feelings of failure I realized something major that I hadn’t even considered before…my refusal to ask for help and my trying and failing, or even when I do it but I’m stressing about how to do it is actually doing my girls a major disservice. If I’m stressed, pissed off, angry, stretching myself too thin I’m not giving them my best. My not asking for help is adding more stress to me and taking away the mom they need. They need to know it’s okay to ask for help when they need…I would expect it and if I can’t take care of it, it is my job to ask someone else for help for them. They can count on me. We always figure it out because we don’t give in to bullies. We fight back. Today I will be thankful for my people the ones I can count on no matter what. The ones I know that when push comes to shove they will be there. My tribe. I am grateful for my village. Even if we do need an expansion pack or some additional villagers from time to time. I know the people I have now are the ones that will always be there whenever I ask.