Single Mom Out Loud

The joys (and desperation) of raising a boy without a man

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The Familar Stranger 

I met him in a beach town during a beach winter.

This was never our love story. It was MY love story. I lived it alone. Both the love and the pain.

I loved him unconditionally. I loved him desperately. I loved him purely.

But I was no angel.

My hands are dirty with all the mistakes I have made and all the unnecessary distress I have caused.

My shoulders are heavy with the weight of the guilt and the lessons I have painfully learned.

I was a wounded and damaged 23 year old child who know nothing about the real world. He already knew who he was and he had the experiences and the world in his hands.

I wanted grand gestures and proof of an unconditional love I wasn’t willing to give myself. I wanted passionate and dramatic fights. I wanted an adrenaline life fueled by chaos, which I thought was an antidote to tedious routines and dull relationships.

I was broken and didn’t even know.

He just wanted to come home to a calm house and to feel at peace in my arms. He wanted to focus on his job and not worry that I would ruin it all.

I loved him way more than he was ever capable of loving me. And that love, uncontrollable at its core, destroyed everything I was always terrified of losing.

I loved him and I bled knowing he didn’t love me back.

I loved the way I used to look up to him.

I loved the way I would ask him questions expecting the most intelligent answer.

I loved the deep conversations about politics and life and how it used to feel whenever he taught me something new.

I loved his roughness. His beard. His gray hair. His wrinkles. They were like scars, reminding the world of the battles he had fought and all the pain he had endured.

I loved his masculinity. But I would  disappointedly hurt every time it wasn’t enough to stop him from running away from his responsibilities.

I loved his bright mind as well as his darkness. Although I knew one day both would destroy me.

I loved his simplicity and the softness of his shaved head.

I loved his basic white shirts and how he cuffed his jeans; Just as much as I loved him in a suit and how classy and sophisticated he would look.

I loved the dive bars and the way he used to get dirty working on this bike.

I loved his smile but hated the immature faces he would make for pictures.

Maybe he thought it was cool. He was already so cool in my eyes.

I loved that he hated pretentiousness. Pretentious is now his middle name.

I loved how he hated serving people and wanted nothing but to stop.

I loved his strength but hated that it wasn’t enough to control me. I needed to be saved from myself, so I loudly and desperately screamed for his help.  But in the perpetual state of fear I put him in, all he heard was craziness.

I now wonder if his inability to handle me was his ultimate gift; it forced me to learn to handle myself.

I loved our bike rides to the beach and the endless summer we lived in. I loved his toned body and his dark tan. This tan is long gone now. A reminder of his new colder Northern life.

I loved the dreams but hated that somehow I could never make them reality.

I loved the tiny dimples under his eyes whenever happiness would take over the seriousness of his face.

I loved our chemistry, the sex, and how we just couldn’t get enough of each other. Ever. but I hated the fights, although I was mostly responsible for them.

But most importantly, I loved who he once was and I miss how perfectly I used to see him.

I now spend my days reliving the past through the eyes of my future.

The tiny big hands.

The exact dimples.

Every gesture.

Every look.

It all brings me back to that time and that person.

It’s the part of him that will always be mine. Just like the permanent wound that doesn’t show on my body but its deeper and more painful than anything that bleeds.

What happened to him? Where did he go?

I do know who he was is no longer here.

I hurt for the tiny part of him who never got the chance to meet his past and who will only hear the stories I will always fondly tell….

Of a man who once existed but is now long gone.

A body so familiar but whose new soul I haven’t met before.


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Real Men and Why I Can’t Resist Them

The other night a friend and I were talking about boys and men and how to spot one from another. Being able to differentiate the two is an art acquired after years of dating. With age and experience, comes certain abilities and wisdom, and being able to spot a real man in an ocean of guys is definitely a good skill to have. It will save you a lot headache and heartache and it will even save you from horrible sex.

Real men are awesome. I am not talking about guys who aren’t done being boys yet, or guys who think being a man is being an asshole. I am talking about real men. The ones who have lived enough to know exactly what it means to be one, the guys who are done growing up and are comfortable in their own skin. I love those men.

I love how they dress, how they stand and how they move. I love how they kiss and how they hug. I love how they discuss politics, grill a nice steak and are obsessed with their single malt. I love how they take their team seriously and how they genuinely hurt when they lose. I love rough hands but gentle touches. And I am absolute sucker for neck kisses and that passionate grab that makes your legs tremble.

I love how confident they are and how confident they make you feel. There is nothing sexier than a man who owns his body as well as his mind. He owns his triumphs as well as his mistakes. He doesn’t make excuses for his shortcomings and he takes responsibilities for his bad choices. He is just all around confident in who he is and who he used to be, even if that means accepting that he wasn’t all that great at some point. Real men learn and they are eager to share their lessons with you.

I love how they take control. How they open the car door and carry my groceries. I love how they can surprise me by paying the bill on their way to the restroom because they know I would insist in splitting. I love how they can pick me up and put me against the wall with so much intensity but yet so much gentleness. Maybe it’s a reminder that he is bigger than me or maybe it’s a power thing. Whatever it is, its sexy.

I love how they initiate sex in the middle of the night. Real men know how to do it right. They do it slowly but hard. I love the way a man who knows what he’s doing carefully rearranges and positions my body for me. The fact that he’s guiding the situation, softly but firmly in control, means that I can just enjoy the ride. Yes, please. Once, twice and three times on weekends.

I love how they can do things. They know how to change a tire and the oil. They know how to fix my bike last minute because I forgot to check it before that well planned bike ride. I love how they can cook better than me but pretends mine is better. Real men just know shit. Period. But they are not pretentious for knowing. They are modest. They are humble. They are simple. They might be the best at his career/job but they don’t act like it. Real men are never douchey.

I love how solid they are when I am freaking out. I have gotten way better at controlling my emotions and acting rational. I think overcoming my initial reaction to lose my shit has been one of my biggest accomplishments in the last decade. But I am still me and I am still a Brazilian Woman with Latin blood, and sometimes I still lose it. And when I am losing it I don’t need a guy to lose it with me or to try to fix me. I don’t need to be told to calm down (that’s never a good idea) and I definitely don’t need to be preached on my behavior. I just need to be heard and to be guided. And a man that can guide me, has me. Real men know how to handle a woman having a meltdown. They understand women and they know how to take control of the situation, to calm it down and to guide his woman back to sanity. They are sexy in their firmness during the storm. They are not intimidated by my freakout, they are actually somewhat (and respectably) entertained by it.

But the ONE thing I cannot ever resist is a man who likes children and who loves being in a family environment. There is nothing hotter than a man who enjoys playing with children and who does it genuinely and not just to get your attention. And trust me, we women know the difference. It’s extremely sexy, It’s a turn-on. I literally feel my private parts tingling. It doesn’t make me want to have babies with them, but it definitely makes me want to practice making them.

In general real grown up men are just amazing. When I am in their presence, my entire being gives in. I become less defensive, more gracious, smarter and gentler. I am expressive without being reactive. I am a better version of me without being perfect.

I feel like a woman. With a man. And that’s just irresistible.

amorous Couple on grey background

amorous Couple on grey background


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The Dangers of Passion and Great Sex

Growing up I remember my mother talking to me about drugs and alcohol. She warned me repeatedly about the dangers of smoking and getting drunk at parties. She spoke, and spoke, and like a sermon I would hear her preaching every time I left the house.

But my mother failed to talk to me about the most dangerous drug known to mankind: Passion. 

When I was 23 years old I learned the dangers of passion for the first time, the destruction it can cause and the powerful addiction it can create. Passion will draw us in with its alluring high. It will consume every part of us and when we find ourselves addicted, it will spit us out and leave us to die under the hot sun. I know it might sound like an exaggeration, but anyone who has experienced such passion knows that this is exactly what it does.

Do not fool yourself. Passion is not love. Passion is its evil twin. The one who likes to fuck with our heart and play with our emotions. Passion is that intense irrational feeling we get that makes us act like complete lunatics just so we can secure another dose of its high. It makes us addicted to the most vile people because for some inexplicable fucked up reason they are the ones holding the last drop of what we think is life itself. Passion makes us addicted to the drug dealer.

So how does passion become such a powerful evil force in our lives? It comes down to biology and psychology. Science has proven the affect of sex on the human brain is like a drug. That cloud nine feeling we get during sex is the body flooding the brain with neurochemicals, which create emotions, feelings of attachment, and even… argh..love. And this is where things get fucked up: During an orgasm, the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (whatever that is) SHUTS DOWN. This region is considered to be the voice of reason and controls behavior. During an orgasm the brain of a woman is said to look much like the brain of a person taking heroin, according to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

How fucked up is that?

So this is how passion forces itself into us. Through really good sex.

Most of the time we know that charming person we met at the bar is not good for us. We’ve all heard their stories of bad luck, lack of money and crazy ex girlfriends. By the way, have you noticed how every asshole has a crazy ex girlfriend or/and 100 ex wives who monstrously keep his 100 kids from him? They are all unlucky victims of the world and mean women. Just poor souls with bad luck. We all know those men. They are charming, exciting, sexy and extremely complicated. They fit every characteristic of a sociopath but we don’t care. They are the famous bad on paper men. The ones we end up choosing over the boring good on paper men our mothers try to set us up with.  We know they are bad for us the moment we meet them, and our brain warns us to keep a safe distance because it knows attraction is not nearly as destructive as passion.

But most of us don’t listen to our brain, we listen to its slower friend: the heart. Most of us believe that the charming soulless wanderer is just a victim of society; a poor soul misunderstood by the world. And we decide to sleep with him. If only just to know what it feels like to sleep with someone so sexy and exciting. And that’s when all hell breaks loose. The passion will take over our mind like a San Francisco fog in the middle of July; leaving us completely blinded by its high. The sex will be so good that we will start to fantasize a relationship and start to project upon him all these great qualities that he never cultivated in himself.

Way too often, a person will find herself completely devoted to this poor soul who in reality is nothing more than a destructive self centered baby, not capable of loving anyone but himself. Passion will literally suck the rationale out of us, turning us into delusional beings who blindly believe that one day this baby will magically turn into an adult capable of leading and raising a family. We put them in a pedestal and we idolize them. Passion convinces us that they are good souls who just need to be rescued. Passion turns us into those rescuers. And once we officially became a rescuer, passion turns us into even bigger addicts. We start to believe we can fix them and we turn the challenge into a reflection of our own worth, which makes it even harder to quit. After all, by quitting we are admitting our defeat and our failure.

But passion is not all about the bad, otherwise it would be easy to set ourselves free. There needs to be good. A reward. A high. Because just like every other drug, passion’s addiction lies on the cycle of the ups and downs. The good and the horrible. The pain and the reward. Passion thrives on those rare moments of calmness and connection. It’s those rare moments that make the drug even more addicting than it is. Those rare compliments and those rare calls shoot you through a rocket trip through the solar system. You forget all the bad and you start to live for the good, like a junkie. And you crave that moment forever. Long enough for it to come crashing down on you for the hundredth time, leaving you even more depleted than the time before.

And that’s passion. It’s highly seductive and dangerous. And I know this because I am a recovering addict, struggling daily to overcome my addiction.


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Single Motherhood And The Drama of Having a Gifted Child

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while but I’ve been so busy with work and moving that I kept forgetting, so here it is.

I am constantly hearing from my mommy friends about how stressed they are because their kid are picky eaters, or are spoiled, or are mean to other kids. I have heard every complain one can hear about kids. And every time I hear mothers talk about how they feel their lives are over because they have a child or how they don’t feel like themselves anymore, I silently thank the universe I am not one of them.

People are constantly asking me how it is to be a single mother, and I think they are always surprised with my answer. To start, I don’t feel in ANY way that my life is over or that I am not myself anymore. Quite the contrary; I feel like my life is just starting and that I am finally starting to figure out who I really am. And that’s thanks to Kaio and his presence in my life.

Kaio is just all around awesome. I know most mothers are blindly in love with their bundle of joy that they fail to see what spoiled punks most of them really are. But I promise you I am not one of those mothers. I am harder on Kaio than I am on anyone else, but that’s because I want him to be the best version of himself. I love that kid to death and I refuse to become one of those mothers who enable their kids bad behavior. I congratulate him when he is great and I discipline him when he is bad. I am raising a man, not an entitled self absorbent being.

Every person who has met Kaio says the same thing about him and these people don’t even know each other. They all mention two things about Kaio: the way he stares at you as if he is looking into your soul and his soul itself. Now, I am not a christian or a spiritual being in any way so I can’t really tell you what they mean. As much as I try to read books on spirituality, meditate and sing kumbaya, this whole new age thing is not for me. I prefer world affairs and science. I like debating both to a fault. But everyone of my friends who do enjoy the whole soul enlightenment idea, they all say that Kaio has an “old soul”. That he is enlightened and evolved. Whatever that means.

What I do know is that he is bright. Extremely bright. Kaio said his first word (mamma) by 5 months, he started crawling at 6 months, and started walking at 9. His development hasn’t slowed down a bit. At 12 months he learned to ride his scooter and now at 15 months, he can tell the difference between all 10 numbers and primary colors. He has an ear for music applauded by one of my good friends who is a drummer, and he absolutely hates baby talk. In fact, he prefers adults over kids any time of the day. And this is just his professional resume.

He is so much more than that.

Kaio is sweet and extremely happy. He smiles more in one day than I probably have in my entire life and there are very few things in this world that will bother him. The kid is just all around chill. I have no idea where he got this personality from but I am glad he has it.

I am not trying to say he doesn’t have his moments. We all do. He will have grumpy days in which not even chocolate cookies will please him. He will have temper tantrums in which may look like the world is coming down upon humanity. And he will even have days in which he will spend hours just giving me the silent treatment, refusing to say a word no matter what the emergency. But those grumpy days, temper tantrums and silent treatments are rare for him. They are so rare I even enjoy them. As crazy as it may sound, its a breath of fresh air. Because honestly, sometimes the pressure of having a nearly perfect child gets to me. I am not even close to being the perfect mother, and the fear of potentially ruining him with my flaws is too much for me to handle sometimes. I call it “the drama of having a gifted child”. And I hope I don’t sound ungrateful by calling it that.

That’s Kaio. Sweet. Loving. Well centered. Mature. And extremely smart. He does in fact make my life so much greater and exciting. Yes, sometimes its hard and most of the times its also exhausting, but neither of those two things are bad necessarily. Every success story you hear involves hard work and sleep deprivation. No one has accomplished anything spectacular by drinking all night and sleeping in until noon. And that’s how I look at my situation as a single mother. I might not be solving cancer or fighting for world peace, but I am contributing to the world in a different way: by raising the best human I can possibly raise. And that’s a whole lot more than a lot of people can say.

No doubt things changed, but for the better. I still have a life and I am still myself, I just modified it a little to fit him in it. Instead of spending every weekend doing something crazy, I now take only one weekend out of the month to do that while Kaio stays with my mom. Either be Vegas or San Diego or whatever. Instead of going out every night, I now only go out 2-3 times a week after he is already asleep (to avoid taking his time with me away from him). Instead of spending every Sunday at a bar with friends, I spend it with him (and friends) exploring new museums or new hikes, which is much healthier anyways. In fact, Kaio is only 15 months and he has visited every museum in LA, including LACMA, MOCA, Getty, Natural History and the California Science Center. He has definitely enriched my life culturally, because I probably wouldn’t have gone so frequently if it wasn’t for him.

So this my new and improved life. The thrill of getting drunk every night was replaced with the joy of seeing him change. The excitement of being 100% free was replaced with the fulfillment of teaching him new things, cool tricks and the world in general. Children see the world through the eyes of their caregivers, so my hope is for Kaio to see the best the world has to offer. A friend’s father once told me: “Life offers a man no greater satisfaction than the raising of the next generation”. I think the same applies to women. Its fun. Its a gift. Its a privilege. And it’s inexplicably satisfying if you are brave enough to stick around and do it.

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