They are full of the promise of Spring. They are filled with the promise of things to do, people to see, and adventures to experience.

But some Sundays are blue.

For reasons that don’t fully reveal themselves, they feel slower and laced with melancholy.

I’m usually a bootstrap-pulling optimist but there are times when I feel like generally throwing up my hands and asking the heaven’s ‘WTF?’

In these times I’m reminded of something a friend told me once as we were talking about my life as a single-parent. She said:

“Your life isn’t marked by the selfishness that pervades the lives of single adults without kids.”

She went on the say how her own life, and those of her single friends, have a self-indulgent quality because there is no one else to consider when financial, career, educational, or other important decisions have to be made.

In her world, everything is about her.

Not so for a single parent.

Every decision I make affects him.

My whole world is about LE: his general welfare, whether or not his clothes are clean and his teeth are in good heath.  It’s about the level of success he experiences at school and in friendships; whether or not I’m being a role model worth emulating.

Blue Sunday’s are when all of these ideals are called into question.

• Am I doing a good enough job raising him?
• Should I be tougher, softer, more friend-like, less friend-like?
• Why is there never enough money?
• Why can’t his mother help?
• Should I look for a job where I don’t have to travel?
• Will I ever feel normal again?
• And just what the hell is ‘normal’ anyway?

These and many other questions circle my head like some sort of cartoon thought-balloon that follows me around. Such are Blue Sundays.

I know I’m not alone.

But it sure feels like it. I know there are other single-parents who experience Blue Sundays.  No doubt they number in the millions and have the same level of responsibility -some with more- who also doubt their effectiveness. We tend to think of ourselves as alone and without support because most of the time it feels that way.

No married or otherwise attached person with, or without, kids can understand what single-parents go through. I didn’t until I became one.

Blue Sundays aren’t bad.

They’re temporary. They pass. And sometimes, they make Mondays that much brighter.

“LE’s really growing up, isn’t he?”

A former colleague and mastermind buddy emailed me a week or so ago. She’d seen this video and commented on LE’s vertical growth, his deepening voice, and his overall physical maturity.

“Yes,” I countered in a reply…”but into what?”

The Metamorphosis of Attitude

Along with the metamorphosis of physical attributes that accompanies the big ‘P,’ teens experience a new set of attitudes. Encouraged by raging hormone fluxes, these attitudes are often uncontrollable at first.

It’s as if they discover their innate sense of power and ability to express themselves. Of course, how they choose to express their emotions is as individual as each emotion.

But with three teens to my parenting credit, this last trip through Teen-land might be the most challenging of all.

When it Comes to Parenting Teens, Experience Means Nothing

• Forget that I have helped co-parent three teens in the past ten years.
• Forget that each are highly functioning young adults.
• Forget that I’ve earned more degrees than 92.1% .of all Americans.
• Forget that I’ve been through this minefield and lived to tell the tale.
• Forget that I decided seven years ago to take this child and leave a household brimming with domestic violence in order to give him the chance he needed to live without fear.

It means nothing. At least where my innate teen-parenting skills are concerned.

Here’s An Example

It was 8:20a on the Sunday morning after Thanksgiving when I received the call from LE. He ‘demanded’ to know where I was.

“Buddy woke me up,” he says with emphasis on the ‘woke.’  “Where are you, anyway?”

He sounded like my father about 35 years ago.

“I’m down here at Deluxe Foods getting some coffee. I’ll be home in a few minutes.”

“OK, but Buddy was really barking, you know.”

Oh, OK. Let me drop what I’m doing to come home and silence the dog so you can continue to sleep into the afternoon!

That wasn’t really my response, but it did raise its hand in my consciousness seeking permission to express itself.

Back To Reality & to School

Of course not all days are like this.  Since Christmas, and the advent of an X-Box 360, I’ve seen little of LE except at mealtimes. OK, I’m kidding. I seen when nature calls, too.

He’s been off from school for three weeks and returns on Tuesday to the world where everyone acts like he does. In a way, I’ll be glad he back in school. But it’s also been a good Winter Break for us as a family.

Despite the X-Box factor, we’ve spent a good deal of time together.  My employer shut down for the week after Christmas and LE and I spent it together.

And even if he’s turning into a teenage mutant ninja something, he’s still the best thing in my life. 

According to a recent study, moving more than three times can increase feelings of isolation among kids.

A study recently published in the Archives of Psychiatry, summarized here in an article on MSNBC.com, states that:

“… kids aged 11 to 17 were twice as likely to attempt suicide if their families moved three or more times compared to those who had never moved.”

Three States in Four Years

By the time I was 6 years old, my family had lived in Alabama, New Hampshire, and Texas.

Although I was born in Tennessee, I wouldn’t say we resided there – I was born in my parents’ home town of Savannah, Tennessee while my dad was being discharged from the Air Force and training for his new civilian job in Huntsville, Alabama.

I don’t remember moving to New Hampshire, but I do remember all subsequent moves. Here’s the chronology of my moves:

• Age 1 – in 1958 we moved to Huntsville, Alabama.
• Age 4 – in 1961 we moved to Manchester, New Hampshire.
• Age 12 – in 1970 we moved to Pasadena, California.
• Age 12 – we moved 10 miles west to La Canada, California.
• Age 13 – We moved down the street (out of a rented house and into our own).
• Age 20 – my parents moved to Northern California and I stayed in So Cal.
• Age 22 – moved to San Jose to returned to community college.
• Age 23 – moved to Riverside, California to attend university.
• Age 27 – moved to San Francisco to attend medical school.
• Age 31 – moved to San Jose after medical school.
• Age 47 – moved to Rio Del Mar, California where I presently live.

Never Traumatic

Moving was never traumatic for me. For my sister, it seemed to be.  At 4 years my senior, her friendships and other relationships were more advance than mine and so she felt the isolation the above study cites as common in kids who move frequently.  To my knowledge, she’s never attempted suicide.

But for me, I didn’t feel anything different. Perhaps moving made me more of a loner or maybe that is simply my personality. 

I know -beyond any doubt- that I am an introvert.

• I’m drawn to solitary pastimes and activities.
• Being ‘on’ in presentations or parties drains my energy.
• Regrouping and recharging alone enhances it.
  

Was it the frequent moves that influenced my introverted nature or was I destined to be this way regardless of the moves?

What About You?

Have you moved frequently and felt the isolation that the study cites?  Did your moves influence your personality as an adult?  Or are you one of those adults who never moved and can walk down the street to your best friend’s house from elementary school?

Share your experiences my leaving a comment, won’t you?