My first reaction to her question was to smile and nod my head.  But I thought, “There’s no way I’m moving in with another single mom.”  Accepting the fact that I’m a single mom has been tough.  The idea of living together as two single moms just seemed ludicrous.  How did I get from my sweet bungalow in a small town where I lived with my outdoorsy husband and cat to living with another family in what amounts to the suburbs?

But the more I think about it, the better it sounds.  We are both spending a lot of money.  We both feel in over our heads at times with parenting alone.  We both dread the idea of tucking our kids in for the night and facing the quiet night stretching before us alone.  Why not save some money, cook dinner together, and generally create our own peaceful space in the world where we could begin to heal?

Well, to start with this other mom and I, we’ll call her Ms. Alas de Hadas (which is the Spanish translation for “fairy wings”) are quite different.  She’s a woman who knows what to do with a curling iron and a tube of mascara.  She can look smoking Latina hot in an apron and stilettos, all the while cooking the best Mexican food I’ve ever tasted.  On the weekends, she spends her free time shopping and going to the movies.  Her house is all steel, modern and clean, fully equipped with flat screen TVs in most rooms.

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Now me, I’m more of a lived-in bungalow sort of mama.  My house has always felt a bit messy and homey, with colorful art work from all of the places I’ve traveled to adorning the walls.  Never having owned a TV, remote controls bewilder me.  I’m lucky to run a brush through my hair before pulling it back in a clip most mornings.  I feel lost in the kitchen, but can set up a tent in the dark, and safely lead friends down a river or up a mountain.

While we’re different, we have the important stuff in common.  We are both lawyers, but we don’t currently practice law.  We both prefer cocktails on the deck to beers at the bar.  We love our kids more than anything else in the world.  We are both separated from our husbands, and we both moved thousands of miles from our homes to be with them in the first place.  And we both resented making the move.  Now we are separately navigating how to put the pieces of our respective lives back together.

The proposal is that I’ll move into Ms. Alas de Hadas’ house so she can afford to make her mortgage payments, and pay her about half of what I am currently paying for rent and utilities.  She will move stuff out of her downstairs, which is one large open room and one smaller area, along with a full bathroom. It’ll be cozy.  It will also be noisy as it’s a rather open set up with no door between the upstairs and the downstairs.

No plan is without downsides.   And this one has two big drawbacks– the house is in the suburbs (if one can actually say Asheville has suburbs) and my kitty can’t move with us.  The house is in South Asheville.  That means I have to leave beloved West Asheville, the funky very walk-able small mountain town.  This town has it all — small independently owned stores, plenty of hip cafes, bars and restaurants AND it’s all within stroller distance from river parks and trails.  The hardest part about leaving is that almost all of my friends live in West Asheville.

The second drawback is that Ms. Alas de Hadas is allergic to cats.  My fluffy black cat, Biscuit (originally Burnt Biscuit), can’t move with us.  She watched me give birth to Baby T in the living room and she is so gentle with him now.  She’s been the best company for those wee hours of the morning when I can’t fall back asleep after feeding Baby T.  My mom, who lives eight hours away, has offered to take Biscuit and promises I can have her back whenever I’m ready.

This sure isn’t where I expected to be a few months before my baby boy turns one, but this seems like the best option I have.

What do you think?  Would you consider living with another mom if you were a single mom?