What's Wrong With Men?

We had beautiful summer weather today, and I spent the day on the beach with two girlfriends and kids. It was a great break from our normal busy days.

We are all single, raising the kids on our own, and never thought twice about it.  Is it always easy?  No, of course not. Some days  I just want to run away, or at least crawl under my covers and hide out for the day.  But that's not an option.  When you are solely responsible  for the financial security of your family, the education, emotional and physical well being of your kids, giving up is never an option.  You do what you have to do, and make it work.  The hard part is doing it all with a smile and enthusiasm.

As we sat on the beach watching our kids play in the water and on the sand, chit-chatting and sharing laughs, my friend says; "Here we are, three wonderful women; smart, decent looking, good sense of humor, raising our kids and having our lives together, yet we are all single.  First  I thought, what is wrong with us?  But you know, there is absolutely nothing wrong with us. What is wrong with the guys who can't see that women like us are a catch?" 

Photo by Vongvanvi/FreeDigitalPhoto.net

Well said, my friend!  Why on earth do we always feel like we don't measure up, when we consistently are told "I don't know how you do it all". 

Who made us think it is us there is something wrong with when our marriages or relationships didn't last, or our exes chose not to be involved in the children's lives?

Where did we ever learn that as single, working mothers, we have to live up to a level of perfectionism unheard of for other living creatures, before we can feel we are "good enough"?  So our beach time turned in to a little pep talk for ourselves, and apparently a well needed one. 

No, my kids are not perfect, but their mine - so to me they are. 

My house could desperately need a scrub down, but fun time with my kids was so much more important than a clean house. And since when did a few dust bunnies hurt anybody?

No, I'm not quite where I want to be professionally or personally, but I have my goals and I'm working diligently to get there. I will say that by now, I'm damn good at overcoming obstacles, and you'd be hard pressed to put me in a situation I couldn't find my way out of (knock on wood...I really could use a break from obstacles!!) 

I probably won't be shopping for sexy lingerie in the very near future, but I did get the ego boost today, that I didn't get while visiting the lingerie website last week. Nope, my  body doesn't fit the measurements of the perfect woman, but I'm 40, gave birth to children and still wear a bikini to  the beach. If some 22 year old thinks I'm too old, too fat, too saggy or whatever, tough shit! I'm really not trying to impress anybody, especially not someone under 30!

Obviously the pep talk worked.  We left the beach content with ourselves, our lives and our singleness.  I, at least, had a bit of a refreshed outlook on my future, and the knowledge that no matter how tough things can seem, or how down you can be on yourself, girlfriends will always have your back.

So what's wrong with men?  I don't know.  Some are total assholes, but others are wonderful.  Some make choices I will never understand, others make perfect sense. Why are all three of us still single?  We just didn't meet the right ones yet, or maybe we just don't want to.