As the manager brought up different wines on the wine list, I made up descriptions and talked about the boldness of this wine and the oakiness of that one, hoping that if I spoke with enough confidence, I would sound legitimate.
Which is how I learned that even managers of fancy fine-dining establishments don’t really know whether a glass of wine has notes of chocolate and cardamom or a buttery mouthfeel with hints of vanilla, almond, and pear. I basically just described a bunch of my favorite dessert recipes in wine terms and prayed he’d never tasted a marzipan tart.
My gamble paid off. And the next time I walked into that restaurant, I walked in as an employee.
Two months after I started my waitressing job, I found a small two-bedroom apartment and put down the money for the first month’s rent and a security deposit. But I knew I wasn’t going to be able to fully cover rent on my own, so my kids and I were going to need to have a roommate.
I scrambled to quickly find a perfect someone willing to move into a situation that would afford them a teensy private bedroom and common spaces they shared with three other people, two of whom threw the occasional tantrum. To make the living arrangement even more desirable, Luka—like many three-year-olds—often wet the bed, and the accident would always soak through his Pull-Up and into the mattress. This created a fun late-night ritual where I would drag his mattress into the living room, pour white vinegar on it, hit it with a hair dryer, pour baking soda over that, rub it in, vacuum up the baking soda, then drag the mattress back to our room, muscle it onto the top bunk again, then scoop up my son and deposit him back on the bed. (If I could have afforded it, I definitely would have added vodka to the routine.) So not only would my lucky cohabitant be woken by the dulcet tones of two toddlers jumping up and down clamoring for breakfast at 6:00 a.m., she could also enjoy the soothing serenade of a hair dryer and vacuum every night around 3:00 a.m. Who wouldn’t love that?
After trying out a few different people, I finally, by some small miracle, found Karen, a kind, independent, straight-shooting woman who never planned on living with small children but somehow didn’t want to kill mine. To this day, I have no idea why she agreed to cohabitate with a depressed, broke single mom and her two hyper toddlers. But I am eternally grateful to her for putting up with us.
The weeks that followed our move were packed with many hours of appointments and paperwork and waiting in long lines, one kid in a stroller and one in my arms, applying for food stamps, applying for Medi-Cal (a program in California that offers free or low-cost health coverage for children and adults with limited income and resources), trying to get Luka into a subsidized preschool for just a few hours a day, and, most important, trying desperately to make sure I didn’t take all my stress and exhaustion and sadness out on my children. My children hadn’t asked for any of this.
In order to receive government assistance for a whole slew of things, I had to prove that I had a job. Which meant that I had to walk into the upscale restaurant where I worked and ask my upscale boss in his upscale suit who lived in an upscale house to sign a form that basically said, as far as I was concerned at the time, I was a loser who couldn’t feed her own kids. I was so embarrassed. I shouldn’t have been because there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting help when you need it, but I was mortified.
During my first few months at the restaurant, no one knew my full story. I was such an emotional wreck that I worried if I opened up even just a little bit about my personal life, it would all come flooding out and I wouldn’t have the strength to stop it. At work, I knew I had to hold it together and be professional. I couldn’t risk losing my job.
I lied a lot during that time. I pretended a lot. I hid a lot of what I was really thinking and feeling. I just wanted to feel normal. I said and did anything and everything to make myself feel like a normal mom, a normal person, even though inside nothing felt normal and everything felt crazy.
In some ways, I was repeating the coping pattern I’d deployed in my marriage—pretending to those closest to me that everything was fine and not allowing anyone into my full, messy truth. So often when we are at our lowest, we close off, fists clenched. We isolate ourselves. And yet when we’re at our lowest we should be opening up, leaning in, reaching out. I hated feeling alone, yet I wasn’t letting anyone in. I was lucky that even as I pushed the world away, there were people who showed up for me. People who loved me when I couldn’t love myself.
“I’m flying out to see you! I want to be there for you,” my friend Jo, who lives across the country, insisted. She was a busy mom with three young kids, one who was an infant at the time. She didn’t have space for my drama. But she loved me enough not to see me as an inconvenience.
“Why don’t you let me watch the kids for the evening so that you can pick up an extra shift at work,” my friend Melissa offered. And I learned to accept her help.
“I’m stopping by after work with some books for the kids,” my friend Jonathan said. He was like a brother to me, like an uncle to my children. He was the one who bought my children bunk beds and once let me borrow eight hundred dollars to cover my rent. I will never forget how good I felt when I saved up enough to pay him back. I never wanted any of these wonderful people to feel I was taking advantage of them.
“I talked to my manager about the expired food we toss,” my friend Dave, who worked at Starbucks, told me, “and said I knew a single mom who would really appreciate the food. It might be a little stale, but it’s still good.” So many mornings, my children and I ate semistale Starbucks muffins for breakfast. And I was so grateful.
My people showed up for me. I learned through my friendships with Jo and Melissa and Jonathan and Dave and so many others who loved me despite my crappy existence that I didn’t have to walk through my hell alone. These wonderful people rallied around me and showed me that I deserved love and care, even when I felt worthless. With their help, I slowly came to understand that the reason I needed help from others wasn’t because I was an inadequate human. I needed help simply because I was human.
We are not meant to go through this life alone. Name any situation you want to improve and I guarantee you, you’ll get there faster and more effectively if you reach out to others. We want to be our best. But the truth is, our best is beyond us. We need others in order to be our best.
Years after my divorce, my friend Jonathan was visiting me from New Zealand, where he had moved for a job. We sat in my backyard eating lava cakes and reminiscing about the crazy years following my divorce. I blocked out so much of that time that my memories are blurry at best. So, out of genuine curiosity, I asked him, “What do you remember the most about me during that time?” I expected him to tell me how pathetic my life was, how he pitied me.
“The thing I remember the most, Kristina, is how much you hated yourself,” he replied. “You gave yourself no credit for how strong you actually were, for the tireless efforts you took on daily to coordinate life and get your kids everything they needed. Instead, you just hated yourself.”