After my divorce, I dreaded any type of holiday alone. A group of friends changed that.

• I struggled with loneliness after my divorce, especially on holidays.
• I built a support system with other single moms who became like family.
• That community changed how I experience motherhood and connection.

After my divorce, I braced for loneliness on holidays, but it hit hardest on Mother's Day.

My first one alone, my best friend from college texted me a photo of her proudly wearing the necklace her son, the same age as my daughter, had cobbled together. Its colored pieces were dotted with pieces of torn felt.

"Isn't it cute?" She wrote.

I felt a lump in my throat instantly. No one was around anymore to remind my kids to acknowledge the day. That day I cried walking to the playground past what felt like swarms of brunching two-parent families drinking mimosas, flowers still in their wrapping nesting amidst gifts on tables.

I dreaded Mother's Day for years

For years after that, I continued to dread Mother's Day, even though within a short time, my children did acknowledge the day with sweet gifts and words. Still, the day always felt hollow for me, a reminder of the partner and family I didn't have. It was a day to get through rather than a celebration of motherhood — I resigned myself to that fact.

That is, until I became part of what my kids call my "single mom club."

It started when I struck up an online correspondence with a few other moms in a similar situation. Before long, our digital support group spilled over into real life. We got together frequently to share copious amounts of wine, comfort, advice, and laughter.

What they have helped me discover is that there are surprising benefits to being a single parent, which one rarely hears about. And now, more than a decade after my divorce, I can honestly say that I am grateful for the experience of parenting alone.

Single motherhood is hard

Don't get me wrong: single parenthood is hard. When one of my daughters is sick at 2 a.m., when both kids melt down simultaneously, when I'm depleted and desperate for a minute of silence, there's no partner to tag in. Every doctor's appointment, every permission slip, every birthday party is my responsibility alone.

Which is why, when married friends sometimes announce that they're "single parenting for the weekend," I bite my tongue.

What I've discovered, however, is that the four-alarm fire that is single parenthood can actually force a more thoughtful approach to building a family and the community around it.

I built a group of single moms

What began as a practical necessity and a hedge against loneliness, my single mom club has become the envy of my married friends. Anyone can ask their neighbor for a cup of sugar, but how many, on half an hour's notice, can ask them for a lesson in Excel or to weigh in on a legal document?

One time, one of our single moms had an impromptu meeting and couldn't find a sitter. Four of us took turns rotating in and out of her house so she could make it. When another mom was hospitalized and terrified, all seven of us showed up at her bedside, some with overnight bags.

I make the most of my free time

My kids both need to see their dad, and I'm fully supportive of that relationship. But it also means I get enforced, and therefore guilt-free, time off to nurture the parts of me that motherhood doesn't feed. Perhaps we should all be doing this.

Last weekend, I spent Saturday morning at a coffee shop working on an article while my kids were with their dad. That afternoon, I met my single mom club for drinks. We spent three hours laughing until we cried, sharing the kind of dark humor about parenting that only other people in the trenches can appreciate. Sunday, I took a yoga class, went to a museum, and read a book in bed without interruption.

I have a home without resentment

I grew up in a home suffused with smoldering resentment. My kids get focused time with both parents, rather than the distracted time I remember from my own childhood. They may not have both of us simultaneously, but they have each of us much closer to our best.

It's impossible to predict the twists and turns that parenthood will take. It's certainly not what I expected. Being a parent is the ultimate exercise in intermittent reinforcement: bursts of grace that feel so hard-won, so fragile and transient. Sometimes, when one of my daughters falls asleep on my lap while I'm reading to her, and I feel her body shift into heaviness, I stay there for a while, inhaling her smooth skin and passionfruit shampoo.

When these things happen, my single mom friends are my witnesses. They may text me hours later: "How did bedtime go?" They remember that my daughter had that big presentation in school and want to know all about it. They ask about the small things that make up my actual life.

If I had to do it all over again, would I choose this path? I'm not sure. I would miss a warm body in bed next to me, and the day-to-day presence of a partner. But I know that what I've built in its stead feels like mine in a way that my marriage never did.

Parenthood is still a wild ride; I still experience all the twists and turns. But I don't carry that hollow feeling anymore. Not because being a single parent has become less complicated (no one with a teenager would ever say that), but because the family I constructed, piece by deliberate piece, turned out to be more solid than all that I took for granted by saying "I do."