The part of choosing yourself nobody talks about

I know I have been absent for a while.

A lot happened.

I wasn’t well. My kids weren’t well. And then I got a very intimate look at what it actually means to build a life as a single mother.

Not the Instagram version.

The real one.

I recently had to renew my passport and my children’s passports with our new names.

I knew there would be paperwork.

I just didn’t know how much of my life I would have to carry into that paperwork.

There were websites that weren’t updated. Phone numbers that didn’t work. Offices that sent me to other offices. People asking for documents I hadn’t been told about before. One instruction contradicting another.

Then there was the NOC.

Because their father has visitation rights, an NOC has to be sent to him. He has to agree. He has to sign.

Because my children’s names have changed, their birth certificates have to be changed too.

So something as ordinary as getting your children’s passports done starts carrying the weight of your entire family history.

And in the middle of all this, something else happened.

A few days earlier, someone new in our society had asked for help with address verification. People had readily offered to help.

So I asked too.

The response I got was:

“I can’t do this for you because no one would trust a single woman. God knows from where are you people.”

I read it.

And then I read it again.

What exactly did this person know about me?

Nothing.

Except that I was a woman.

And that I was single.

And somehow, that was enough.

That hurt.

Not because I need everyone to understand my choices.

But because there was something so casual about the judgement.

A single woman.

A single mother.

As if those words had already told them something about my character.

And I found myself thinking about all the things we say as a society.

We call ourselves progressive.

We talk about inclusion. Women’s rights. A woman’s right to choose. We talk about the economic value of homemakers. We talk about women being independent and making their own decisions.

But what happens when a woman actually makes a choice that takes her outside the structure everyone is familiar with?

What happens when she changes her name?

When she becomes a single mother?

When she makes decisions for her children?

When her family no longer fits neatly into the boxes a system was designed around?

I think that is the part nobody really talks about.

I thought the difficult part would be making the choice.

I knew leaving would be difficult. I knew there would be grief, fear, uncertainty, conversations, consequences.

What I didn’t know was that the choice would keep following me.

Into forms.

Into offices.

Into signatures.

Into NOCs.

Into birth certificates.

Into conversations with strangers.

Into moments where I would have to explain myself when the thing I was trying to do had absolutely nothing to do with my personal life.

That is what has exhausted me.

Not just running from one office to another.

Not just the broken websites or unanswered calls or the endless documents.

It is the accumulation of it.

The feeling that every time I try to simply move forward with my life, some part of the system asks me to stop and explain how I got here.

And sometimes it is not even the system.

Sometimes it is a person.

A stranger who decides whether you are trustworthy because you are a single woman.

A form that doesn’t quite know what to do with your family.

A process that assumes there is a husband somewhere who will sign, a father whose name will remain unchanged, a woman whose identity will follow the expected path.

And I think that is what I have been sitting with.

I don’t regret choosing myself.

I don’t regret choosing happiness.

I don’t regret wanting my children to see that a woman is allowed to make a difficult choice and still build a good life.

But I am also allowed to say- this has been exhausting.

Sometimes I am tired of being the strong woman who can handle everything.

Because there is a difference between being strong and constantly being put in situations that require you to prove your strength.

Sometimes I don’t want to be strong.

Sometimes I just want something to be simple.

I am just a woman who wants to get her and her children’s passports done so that we can travel.

So that my children can see places they have never seen.

So that we don’t miss out on the beauty this world has to offer while I am busy trying to prove that our life is legitimate.

Is that too much to ask?

I don’t want special treatment.

I don’t want anyone to bend rules for me.

I just want to be able to submit my documents, answer what needs to be answered, and go home.

I want my children’s names to match the names they carry in their lives.

I want to get on a plane with them someday and not have the journey begin with another explanation of why our family looks the way it does.

I want to travel with my children.

I want to show them the world.

I want us to laugh in places we have never been.

I want us to collect memories that have nothing to do with forms, signatures, NOCs, offices or explanations.

I chose my life.

I am willing to live with the difficulty of that choice.

But how many times do I have to keep proving that I deserve to live it?