mac n cheese

Before you read…

This post may be triggering or difficult for some of you to read. If you are a biological mom or dad who has had great success in being a parent and an individual, or if you are a personal caregiver to my kiddos- who knows them and loves them… it may be hard to separate your feelings from mine.

I write when I am overwhelmed and overloaded, when I’ve tried all my coping and mindset shifts and asked for help and when those haven’t worked, when my bucket is so full the only thing left to do is let the water out… for me that is writing and regurgitating from my mind. I don’t plan on hiding any of my feelings or truths behind the life that I now lead as a full-time- 1/3rd of the time full-time single-parent, stepmom. It’s amazingly difficult. And that’s my reality. So this is me preparing you…

This post isn’t for you. This is for me… and for the other stepmoms, stepdads, fire spouses and burnt out adults and parents out there. It’s an anthem, a validation scream for my people. Because I need to let this water out to allow myself able to take in the good again.

Still, I highly encourage all the caregivers out there to read this for research purposes, for understanding, for a look inside your own self habits/thoughts and your understanding of the family system, or the way you may perpetuate the stigmas and stereotypes society places on us as step parents and first responder families. Hopefully it will allow you to re-evaluate… or to at least learn something new, and at the bare minimum to maybe care about something you don’t really know much about, for the 15 minutes or so it takes you to read this.

Macaroni and Cheese. There’s the box kind, and the homemade kind. Everybody enjoys macaroni and cheese, not much to argue there. But sitting down to a bowl of box brand vs. a homemade serving changes the macaroni eating game completely. Still gonna eat, still gonna have a level of enjoyment, but it’s simply not the same…

Being a step parent is a lot like box brand Mac n cheese. The noodle shapes and kinds are whatever the box gives you- sometimes it’s shells, sometimes it’s tubes, sometimes it’s cool dinosaurs and paw patrol characters, sometimes it’s 5 year old noodles that have been broken and begun flaking apart. It is the same with the powdered cheese flavors and consistency- you get what the box has in store- there’s no choice in it. You like white cheddar flavor with spirals? Too bad! Only thing left in the pantry is elbow macaroni, extra cheesy.

When you make the box you get to add some butter and some milk and you get to throw in some flare of your own if you’re so inclined, and sometimes that extra flare makes a bit of a difference, but even the slightest upgrade it can give your bowl doesn’t change the basic structure of the boxed ingredients you had to cook with. The process is short, and fast, and in 10 minutes you have a bowl. There’s like 3ish step directions, zero choices, you pour the water, it boils, you throw everything in the pot, stir it all together and it’s done. Not much chance to give it cooking love, or have a say in the 3 step process, if you fuck it up- you got overdone noodles or little burnt sticky cheese volcano puff balls. You do it. And Eat it. And everyone’s suppose to love Mac n Cheese right?

It’s a whole hell of a lot different than cooking your own homemade, scratch Mac. When you go to the store you get to prep for it, look up recipes, find the best noodles, your favorite cheese, maybe get some Kerrygold butter, add some bacon or some fancy gouda. You make up the rules… sure you know the simple basics of noodle and cheese making, but you get to do it however the hell you want. And most importantly, you get to CHOOSE. You get to own the choices, you get to cultivate the process, you get to give life to the kitchen and develop your Mac making process as you go. Mess up this time? Try again, make more cheese sauce, add some more flavor, cook some bacon, boil more noodles. Learn as you go. And when you are finally ready to sit down and eat it, it doesn’t even really matter how it actually tastes because YOU MADE IT, and you have pride in the process- its failure and successes. And that shit it yours- from start to finish. And you have the next years of your life to try cooking it and perfecting it some more.

Sure. If you want Mac n Cheese, its always your CHOICE to EAT Mac n Cheese. But if it’s a lifetime of boxed Mac, that’s truly the only choice you get to make in it. You make it or you don’t.

I’m not sure if you all can follow this analogy, but it’s actually quite spot on. Being a mother to children, grown human children 12 and 7, who have been noodles without you for basically their entire life, is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I love homemade Mac… my mom used to make it for me all the time when I was younger. Unfortunately there is nothing homemade about being a stepmom.

I’m trying. I wake up everyday hoping for a homemade bowl, and for the reality to somehow dis-exist.

I can’t tell you how many times I've heard the “Ohhh yeah I bet its hard for you. BUT, its your CHOICE to do this and be their mom.” Nothing actually infuriates me more than when people tell me this was my choice. Remind me though… when was it my “choice” to have children with the man that I love? Nope. Never. Not my choice. I can understand that it was my choice to marry Dave and to be in the family, 100% that is true. BUT what people fail to consider is that it is not a choice, but a sacrifice to make. If I “choose” to walk away from the love of my life, the best thing that’s ever happened to me because I don’t want to raise his children with him, that is a choice I have to make, but where are the options in that? Could you truly say that you would turn your back on love so special, so empowering to your being and your soul and that is simply a choice? I am not willing to sacrifice that. So sure, I chose Dave. But I did not choose his children, they are a requirement. A sacrifice.

Nobody gets to turn Kraft Mac n cheese into Paula Deans.

Now. Please don’t misread me. I am giving you reality, but I am not suggesting that I do not love my kids and that I am an evil stepmother. I am simply sharing the truth with readers, a truth that many humans never hear about because stepparents are too fricken scared to say it and because they have no platform to. We live isolated lives for a long period of adjustment time. A LONG ONE. Statistics show it takes blended families and stepparents at least six years to find a groove. And most of those years they are facing double standards and judgment. Not only from the outside, from extended family, but even unintentionally from the vary family members they are “choosing” to love and sacrifice their lives for. It’s pretty insane.

There’s no real need to go deep into my story, since most of you know it, but the sparks note version- my kids’ mother past away from addiction a few years ago and thus, the house I became a parent in has suffered extensive grief, loss, trauma, and pain. The boxed Mac that I was given was hidden in the back corner of the cupboard, the noodles were broken, flaky, the cheese was clumpy, and it was old as hell. Yet, I was enticed by the box’s aesthetics. My Freyta’s B.S. or “Before Sammy” as they like to call it, were indeed, a hurting box of Mac. But to describe my kids and husband’s resilience and grit is like imagining a mixture of the Energizer Bunny and Yoda. If the box’s logo was the Energizer Bunny and it’s brand name was Yoda, could you pass that box up on a shelf? I couldn’t. And now, I will sacrifice cooking and eating Yoda Bunny’s forever because I fell in love and I am proud of the kitchen we cook in.

Our kitchen is kind of crazy too. Not only am I now, overnight boxed Mac n cheese making stepmom with no ability to cultivate the process of being a homemade parent, I’m also single parenting them for 48 hours (2 days) at a time, every 4 days of my life. Dave is gone for 48 hour shifts for work. Leaving me, just mom, of children I didn’t birth or raise, 35% of the time. It’s so hard. I love the kids and I am raising the kids because that is what it takes to be Dave’s partner. I’ve learned to love them, and I parent the shit of out them, again don’t get me wrong… I’m a hard working mom, I work my ass off to better their lives… but I don’t love doing it. I love Dave, and I love them because they are Dave’s, but it wasn’t a choice I made. It was a sacrifice. And so, the four days in between Dave’s work sets, I typically feel comfortable in our family. I enjoy being a parent with Dave. BUT. I have yet to enjoy being a parent without him. And I’m pretty sure it’s because it’s like trying to LOVE a boxed mac n cheese that you didn’t even get to choose from the store.

What I still haven’t figured out is how to feel heard in the endless mindfuck it takes to be a stepparent and how to heal myself in those times I feel so lost and so angry I don’t know what to do with my body. I feel as though I have tried it all- I have 2 therapists, I have a husband who supports me, a best friend I can tell anything to, a family who loves me, I workout everyday, I take care of myself body, yoga, sleep routines, clients who I love, a stepmom group I can go to, tons of reading and literature on this lonely plight, and still I go through frequent dips of helplessness, rage, and sadness. None of which will change my mind on being a part of this team, but all of which I hate and suffer from. And maybe there isn’t a fix, and maybe it’s simply practicing patience and acceptance of the 6ish years of transition I’m in. But holy shit does that suck.

And herein lies my lesson in the midst of the waves of self pity I’ve had, along with the triumphant moments of parent victories I’ve had— such as advocating for Taryn and WINNING!! with her principal and health teacher, and hearing from their teachers that they would have never known what the kids have been through because of how well they show up now due to the hardwork we’ve put in with them, and when Marek tells me I’m the best mom he could ever ask for— that all moms must feel an extent of what I do. ALL moms must have moments of rage and resentment and despair. And if I feel that with children who aren’t mine which can make some logical sense, but if they do with their own despite their homemade Mac process, then how alone they must feel at times too?

In the same way that I’m given the double standard that I can’t feel moments of irrational hatred towards our little monsters because I’m a stepparent and that’s so mean to feel (even though WE stepparents gave up our lives for them DESPITE not having a primal connection), but bio parents are allowed to get mad and annoyed … there’s also a double standard that bio moms shouldn’t ask for as much time away from their kids as stepparents because it was their choice to have them. They chose homemade.

I was instagramming with an old friend a few days ago. She posted a picture of her two super mini kiddos and her hanging out solo for a few days while her husband was gone on a work trip. I reacted with a shocked faced emoji, feeling the instant pit in my stomach I feel every time Dave leaves for work in the morning before his shifts. Her response actually caught me off guard. She said “I don’t know how single moms do it. You’ve been single momming a lot too! It’s a lot!”. And holy shit those simple words made me feel SO seen and SO heard. That’s one of the first times someone outside this looked in and saw my struggle- without judgment, without reminding me it was my “choice”, with just simple acknowledgement that I don’t even get from Dave’s family. I was blown away.

She went on further to tell me that being a mom is hard no matter what shape or form the title comes in, and that she was there if I needed anything and she reminded me that I was doing my best. It honestly makes me cry just even typing it out again.

In many of my posts, I ask for people to stop judging, to stop living in their microcosms and echo chambers of the things they only know because they understand them, and the things they judge because they don’t. For awhile, I’ve felt pretty alone in my stepmom-ing world, but maybe it’s because I’m not surrounding myself with the right people. Or. Let me rephrase, maybe it’s because I’m putting expectation into people that I feel like need to understand my struggle, but who never really will or will never try to, instead of absorbing the energy of others who will, and finding solace in that. Instead of feeling alone because I cannot change the reality of a few, I will change my expectation and accept that they will continue to let me down if I believe otherwise. Redirect my energy- stopping filling sand into a bucket with holes.

People are going to continue to judge me. People are going to continue to hold me to higher and double standards. Because people will NEVER understand what this is like for me. There will be some who will understand what it means to be a stepparent. But they won’t understand what it means to be a full-time stepparent. There will be some who will understand what it means to be a full-time stepparent. But they won’t understand what its like to be a single stepparent for more than a quarter of the time. There will be some who will understand what its like to be a fire spouse, but they won’t understand what it’s like to be a trauma therapist. There will be someone who will understand what it’s like to be a mom and a trauma therapist. But they won’t know what it’s like to run their own business. There will be some who will understand what it’s like to be a trauma therapist and mom, running their own private practice, but they won’t know what its like to have trauma kids at home, and to be a fire spouse, a stepparent, full-time of the time. I have yet to find that other human on this Earth who knows all of those at once.

So it may just be me for now, on this weird ass island of my own… but when I need a fire spouse pick me up- I know where to direct my energy, and when I need a stepparent perspective I know where to direct my attention, and when I need a single parent lift me up I know where I can reach out… instead of always trying to explain my moments of rage and breakdown to people I FEEL I should and I FEEL need to hear me. I need to do better with my output of energy and stop letting people let me down. I know I’m doing my best. I know this shit is the hardest. I don’t need to prove that to anyone.

I’m good with having a tribe of people, a tribe of moms, a tribe of stepparents, a tribe of first responder families… because at the end of the day, and in my moments of utter insanity, you get me, you are ALL my people.

Can we please just stick together? Be empowering? Be good listeners? Be honest? Be humble in our pursuit of learning more? We all need help. Help out. Sometimes, just like me, all the help we need is people to hear us, to see us. To listen.

To ALL my parents out there, to ALL my shift workers out there, To ALL my boxed mac n cheese eaters, I SEE YOU.

Listen to “Damn It Feels Good to Be Me”, by Andy Grammar.

PS. My kids are the best things that ever happened to me. And Dave is my favorite person in the whole world. Thank you 3, for loving me. #teamfreyta for life.