One Is The Loneliest Number

My daughter is my life, I said that before and it's true. I'm there when she wakes up, I'm there when she goes to sleep. I've never missed a moment of her life and I don't plan on missing any either.

But sometimes I wish there was more in my life. Sometimes I feel so alone.

Whenever my daughter is sleeping, whenever I have nothing to do, I sit here at my computer lurking in chat rooms trying to find a conversation that will take me away from my loneliness for a brief moment. I'm not looking for anything from these people I talk too, I but use them to kill the time.

I used to have a lot of friends. There were many times were I didn't have enough time in the week to hang out with them the way I wanted too. But now all my friends are either in college or partying their lives away and I'm nothing but a 'I wonder how she's doing' question that barely runs through their mind anymore.

Sometimes I wish that I had a sibling but my parents decided that they weren't having anymore children after I was born. My mother was in labour with me for 36 hours and finally the doctors decided that they would preform a c-section because I wasn't coming out. The scar my mother has from that looks horrible and sometimes I feel she blames me for ruining her 'perfect' body.

There used to be an elderly lady who lived across the hall from me. From the moment I moved into this building she made me feel welcomed. The first time I met her, she came over with a big plate of homemade cookies and stayed for hours. She would come to be the woman I went to whenever I needed someone to talk too. When Alexis was born, she started to refer to her as her 'grandbaby' and she did everything that I had dreamt that my own mother would do with Alexis. Once when I wasn't feeling good, Mabel (that was her name) came over with a pot of soup and made me eat some while she looked after Alexis.

A couple months ago Mabel had a stroke that left her paralyzed on her left side and unable to do all the things she used to do. Her oldest son and his wife asked her to go and live with them so now she lives five hours from here and I barely ever get to see her anymore. I miss her so much.

When I'm feeling lonely, I normally try to get out of the apartment. Sometimes Alexis and I go for walks, or we go to the park. We used go to the local parent-child center for their 'Mommy and me' play group. When Mabel first told me about the play group I thought it would be a great chance to meet new people and to make friends with other women and to talk about motherhood issues. But after a few times there I realized that it wasn't going to be like that for me. Everyone in this group seemed to already have their friends and no one wanted to get to know the new people. Plus most of the moms were in their mid to late 20s and married so having a single 19 year old around didn't sit too well. Whenever my back was turned, the gossipping would start. They all had heard one thing or another about me and my daughter and believed it to be true without getting to know us. It was disappointing because I had so hoped that we would find friends there.

My daughter is awake.

One thing that pulls me through the darkness of being alone? Knowing that one day my daughter will tell all her friends that her mom is her best friend.