My New Gateway to Sanity

I am relatively new to this blogging world and I owe all of my interest in it to a dear and treasured friend. You can catch up with her and the positively refreshing glimpse she captures of our world at The Dreaming Press. It was college where we first met. Sadly, our destined path took us on differing routes and inevitably we lost touch. Thank God for Facebook and it’s masterful gift of connection!  There is nothing better than finding someone you had once lost.  My heart sings with joy to have her in my life again.

Two years ago the thought had crossed my mind to blog my journey of becoming a stepmother.  Mi Hombre had even encouraged it, but I refrained. In all honesty I felt that I was in no frame of mind to be writing publicly. I was more in the frame of mind to be checking in to a padded room fully equipped with my very own wrap around jacket-and not the Marc Jacobs type if you know what I mean.  I am sure that with my seemingly bi-polar life the blog would have manifested into something truly dismal and bleak.  It would have served no benefit to anyone other than to witness the emotionally draining toll that it can take when you first begin to blend a family.

Instead I resorted to a stocked cellar of vino and berating Mi Hombre for the monster I perceived that I was becoming. Childishly, I had to blame someone and since it was his baggage that had my panties wound tighter than a girl scout knot, it only seemed fitting. However, when my hair started to turn gray and the laugh lines turned to frown lines I decided enough was enough…there had to be someone out there that understood my pain.  I started a Facebook group to support myself and other women who were going through similar and unnecessary unpleasentries.  “From Single Girl to Stepmother with Grace” was my confidant, my punching bag, my gateway to sanity.

Now, with the conception of this blog I have been reading and acquainting myself with the blogging world of Stepmoms.  I was delighted to find that there are so many of us out there in cyberspace trying to cause a paradigm shift. Us-‘Agents of Change’ are walking a parallel universe and striving one blog at a time to abolish the stepmother stereotype.  For me, I was equally encouraged to learn that normalcy meant struggling with the whole single gal turned stepmother adaptation process…and that consuming large amounts of wine and feeling like you belonged in a psych ward went hand-in-hand.

Undoubtedly, many of our stories sound the same.  The differences between us are in how each of us handles the challenges that arise and how healthy or toxic the relationships are with the ex and the stepchildren. This is my story and I am looking forward to sharing my own unique perspective now that I am a little more sane and a lot more conscious! Hopefully my experience will have the same impact on other single gals becoming stepmothers that all of your stories are having on me.  Thank you all for your warm welcome to the sisterhood! Thank you Gillian. You are my inspiration-a gleaming breath of fresh air, and an authentic spirit that I truly admire.