If I told you I my husband left when I was 8 months pregnant, and then told you I was living in an area of the country I had recently moved to and was in the gathering-acquaintances-but-no-real-friends stage and that I lived hundreds of miles from my family, you  would probably feel pretty bad for me.  But you shouldn’t.  Because in the end it turns out okay.  Better than okay actually – it turns out to be incredible. Not immediately, not even close.  First there are lots of fights, visits to therapists, doubts about making it, and reminders of my own failed marriage every time I glimpsed others wedding bands.  And then there was the journaling, the sage burning and the many forced activities with family and friends for the sole purpose of distracting myself from a negative spiral of thoughts.  Finally, one day there was laughter, real laughter, and a sense of confidence that everywhere my baby and I would go, we would find love.

From the day he walked out that door, people reached out to me in beautiful ways.  Many were people I didn’t know or would have never expected to care.  There was the tribe of twenty-something outdoor chicas who organized one fun bash after another to help me celebrate being pregnant and becoming a mom. There were formally aloof colleagues who literally staged interventions at every turn – in my office, in their living room, and in the ladies’ restroom.  These were woman who worked full time and raised babies and swore to me that they were coming over to check on me whether I liked it or not, and were not going to hesitate to scrub my toilet bowl when they did visit.  And they did.  They came bearing gifts of beer, ice cream, diapers, books, and office gossip. There was a friend of a friend who is a single dad and talked me through single parenting and promised me it would all be okay, even as I cried into my beer at the local pub.  And then there was my mom.  My mom, who I couldn’t even begin to appreciate or really know until I had a baby of my own.  My mom, with the energy of a small army harnessed in her lean, tall frame, has cleaned, shopped, taken care of my baby in the early mornings to let me sleep, and answered every single one of my billion phone calls at all hours of the day and night, even if it was just listening to me cry.

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So you see, even from the beginning, there was love everywhere, all around me.  I’m ashamed to admit just how unappreciative and blind I was to it.  I felt sorry for myself.  I didn’t even care that people were being nice to me, because the one person who I really, really wanted to be nice to be me wasn’t even there.  It’s taken nearly a year to let go of the vision I thought he could be, but I have and the fog of self pity is finally lifting. As the fog lifts, I am noticing that love’s all around me.  There is love in the people who smile at my baby, the people who pick up pacifiers he’s dropped, and the people who offer words of parenting wisdom, unsolicited or not.  Being part of all this love, well, just makes a lady feel rather lucky.

You know how when you travel with another girl friend as opposed to your guy you just naturally meet more people?  There’s something about a couple that makes others assume they want some privacy and to enjoy one another’s company.  Well, I have a hunch there’s something about Baby T and I that signals to people to come say hello and stretch their arms out to Baby T, inviting him in for a cuddle.  It seems like wherever we go these days, we’re making friends.  Sometimes it’s in the places I’d least expect, like the Thai restaurant that just happens to be located inside the corner gas station where the deli used to sell sandwiches.  Turns out this deli turned Thai take-away sells some pretty fine pineapple curry, so Baby T and I sometimes stop on the way home from daycare.  The Thai owner has taken to carrying Baby T around the premises cooing to him in Thai, with a ridiculous grin on her face the entire time.  This nearly always results in me grinning ridiculously.  She always insists on carrying Baby T to my car, and her husband carries the food, while other customers patiently look on at this curious parade.

Or take the hardcore motorcyclists we met on the skyline the other day, taking a break to appreciate the view.  He seemed downright giddy when he saw me reach for Baby T in his car seat.  His demeanor changed in an instant from hard motorcycle dude to all soft and giddy, as he told me he is a grandfather to a two year old.  He insisted that he hold Baby T and, much  to my surprise, Baby T was entirely delighted by this arrangement.  When Baby T’s delighted, so am I.  That means we’re both doing a lot of smiling these days.

And Baby T was having so much fun that I just had to give it a go:

Has anyone else found connections with people they least expect because of their baby?  Please share!