It’s 5:10am and I’m sitting on the front steps, again. It’s a curious custom, yet I’ve grown fond of it, it’s how I prepare my mind for the day ahead. It’s also the only time I have for myself, the personal stuff, thinking through all these ‘what ifs’ that float around my head from time to time.

The sunrise seems more lovable today, colourful yet soft and warm with that independently confident, loneliness, the kind my minds eye finds enchantingly seductive. I lift my coffee to my mouth and gently caress the mug with lips that find a warm moist satisfying response, even though the porcelain offered is unresponsive and motionless, but I quickly block this from my mind to feel no longing, loneliness or pain.

I’m still wearing my nightie, one of those long tee shirts and while I know there is no one to spy upon me at this hour, I keep the tee shirts surplus length gathered and pushed down between my legs to compensate for the absence of underwear, and the casualness of my posture. A glance down to check the coverage of the tee shirt allows my eyes to pass across the lightly covered profile of naked breasts and a stomach, which I can modestly acknowledge have stood the ravages of my thirty something years and three children quite well.

It seems like yesterday, I was seventeen, fresh from school, proud of myself happily working in a new career, and like all teenagers full of ambitious (if not naive) ideas for the future. Romance didn’t go well, it was with my first taste of sex that I fell pregnant. Many of the dreams seemed to evaporate, as also did my boyfriend. He said he would love me forever yet within a month he was in bed with my best friend. I still hear clearly my Grandmother letting off steam telling my Mother in front of me, “Christine is a tramp; she will never amount to anything.” I guess she was still disappointed that my Mother’s marriage failed long ago, for me not having a Father around was normal, and to have another generation of single parentage in her tree must have played heavily on her mind. Still Grandmother was very supportive when I needed help; teenage motherhood is not easy and without a partner or family support it must be hellish. Most of my friends were too busy to bother to stay in touch perhaps they were just too young.

At eighteen, with the support of my Mother and Grandmother I became a single working Mum, a title I still hold. Somewhere along the way I had another child, to the same guy; who again promised he loved me and was now mature enough to always be there for us. I will never know why I listened to him, it didn’t work out. I managed to put a few business courses under my belt to get my feet off the bottom run of the corporate pecking order.

Eventually I found another guy who said he loved me, and would always be there. I fulfilled a dream, married, and quickly realised I wasn’t happy being bullied and threatened. Yet, for reasons I find impossible to express or understand we had a child before parting and dissolving our union.

So here I am, a self made single Mum with three beautiful Daughters a house two dogs and a satisfying well-paid job, which is the envy of many. I’m sitting on the step watching the sunshine upon the garden, and the coffee mug is empty which means it’s time to get myself ready for work. Then I’ll wake my youngest and help her prepare for her day at day-care, she’ll be coming with me in the car as I drop her off on the way to work. Before we find the car, we will wake my two teenagers and threaten them such that they get themselves off to school on time, after first feeding the dogs and doing their chores.

I’m busy, and happy and we want for nothing, yet I do have just one regret; I wish Grandma had lived a little longer, she died without seeing what I’ve achieved, how well we cope and how beautiful her Great Grandchildren have turned out.