Kristina Kuzmic - Hold On, But Dont Hold Still: Hope and Humor from My Seriously Flawed Life

Theres a name for when things dont work out the way you thought they would. Its called life.

Im known by my viewers as the funny mom, the mom who finds humor in every nook and cranny of motherhood while shoving brownies in her mouth and drinking coffee straight out of a coffeepot. I love humor. I need humor. Tackling life without it is like trying to eat soup with a fork. Sure, youll still get a tiny bit of nourishment from eating that way, but youll miss out on so much goodness. Before I could laugh about being a mom or embrace the mind-bending challenges of life, I needed something much more vital and basic: I needed hope.

Thirteen years ago, I was a single mom sharing a bedroom with my two rambunctious, wonderful, exhausting young children. I was juggling two jobs and taking every shortcut I could, including not being too proud to accept breakfast help from my friend who worked at Starbucks and let me have the leftover, stale pastries that were no longer fit for their display case.

On one particularly stressful morning a few years into my parenting gig and not long after my divorce, I was awoken by the loud clang of two human alarm clocksmy two- and three-year-olds. Sleep deprivation, plus a lack of personal space and time, can often make one feel like theyre having a hangovera parenting hangover. I hadnt had anything to drink the night before, but I had consumed so much of my anxiety and tears that I felt completely disoriented come morning. Id been up late, hunched over next to my kids bunk beds, gathering documents and filling out paperwork for a big adventure I had scheduled for the following day.

That morning, after buckling the kids in their car seats, I pleaded with them to please make sure at least 80 percent of their muffins (the previously mentioned Starbucks treat) ended up in their mouths and not on their clothes or the floor of my car. And off we went on our adventure.

Life tip: always refer to stress-inducing appointments as adventures.

Our adventure that morning was at the Department of Social Services. A few days prior, I had sold my old wedding ring to cover that months rent, and now I was hoping to be approved for food stamps. Other than my carwhich I needed in order to get to my jobsI was fresh out of valuable possessions I could sell in order to help pay the bills.

When my name was called, my lovely children were pinballing around the waiting area as if they were hooked up to an IV of pure sugar. I scooped them up, one kid in each arm, and walked to the window to turn over my paperwork. The woman working there curtly fired a string of questions at me, glanced over the documents Id painstakingly compiled, and didnt once even bother to lift her head to look me in the eye. Not being able to provide the basics for my children made me feel worthless. Not being treated like a human deserving of eye contact by the woman standing between me and the resources I needed only amplified my self-loathing. I wondered for a second what her life was like. Had she ever felt depressed and lonely and overwhelmed and broke and suicidal like I did? Did she have children she loved more than anything in the whole wide world? Did she feel they deserved so much better than what she could ever offer?

Hours later, flooded with relief but also reeling with shame, the kids and I were back in the little room we shared. I could barely hold in the surge of sadness that started to consume me as I wrestled Matea out of her shoes and coat while attempting to coax Luka to just try going potty before naptime. In the midst of this chaos, Matea gently grabbed my cheeks in her tiny hands. She looked deeply into my eyes with her big brown ones and said, Mommy, I wuv your cute widdle face. My heart burst. How did she know I needed that love right then, at that moment?

Baby girl, you are so sweet. My eyes filled with tears now. I love you and I love when you grab my face like that with your precious little hands.

And with her hands still planted firmly on my cheeks, she said with her cute lisp, I have boogers in my hands. (Before kids, that would have been gross. After kids? Just a normal Tuesday.)

Once the kids were finally down for their nap, I picked up one of the many books I had been reading. I wasnt a big reader growing up, much to the dismay of my scholarly parents. My father once risked his life in a plane crash because he refused to slide down the emergency exit without first grabbing his books. He was the last passenger to exit the plane, clinging to his bag of books. But I didnt inherit my fathers addiction to reading. I had always been too antsy to sit still with a book. Or to sit still at all. Until one day, I wasnt.

Im not sure if my eyes needed a break from crying or my mind craved distraction from the utter failure that had become my life, but I was suddenly captivated by reading. Hope was the common thread that kept me turning the pages of the books I foundbooks about other women whose lives looked nothing like mine but who were chasing down and finding the same solace I was after: hope.

I spent many nights on the floor next to my kids beds, counting my waitressing tips to make sure I had enough to cover bills that month, feeling like a worthless mom, escaping into my books when the days became too much, so cried out and screamed out that I was becoming numb to it all. The bad, the really bad, the occasional good, the status quo. It all felt the same. It all felt like nothing.