Last Saturday in Toronto, the Motherhood Movement was officially launched. Camera in hand, juggling cables and questions, I shot 30 hours of film and video, from the hip, as I tried to get answers from some of the world's foremost feminists. The subjects included mothering, violence, militarism, war, and social justice; mothers for equal rights; virtual mothering; feminists for a gift economy; maternal depression, and queer parenting.

"Wow," you say? Or, maybe "Why"?

Perhaps I'm trying to sort through my own confusion and ambivalence about terms like "feminist mother,"  "single mother," and "girlfriend," and to capture this unique moment in Herstory.

After three days at the conference, sponsored by the Association for Research on Mothering at York University in Toronto, I was inspired and exhausted.

Let me say, I was the only one there with pink hair.

Some 300 women met in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, to initiate the suffragist movement and win the right for women to vote, a right that did not come to be until 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment. This gathering was much larger, the first International Motherhood Movement meeting. Here were women who cared passionately about their roles as workers, wives, and mothers. What's amazing is that the subject of partnering was just as hot as the subject of parenting.

There wasn't one attendee who spoke of wanting to erase the entire male population. Generally speaking, participants had a warm spot for the opposite sex.

With 20 organizations and hundreds of individuals presenting papers, studies and speeches, there were, of course, bound to be differences.

I have finally reached the breaking point of this whole thing. The light at the end of the tunnel, that not too long ago seemed so unattainable, is upon me now. For once, I couldn't feel better.

I find myself waking up every day with a new found sense of excitement of adventure. Realizing finally, that my life is, in fact, MY life, and there are so many possibilities.

I've been trying new things. Ranging from minuscule to huge. From trying new recipes, to going on vacation by myself. (Something I recommend everyone try once.)

Now I understand what "finding myself" actually means.

I'm enjoying spending all of this time alone. Reveling in fact, in staying in, wearing comfy pajamas and reading a novel.

I'm making plans for my future now; plans that at one time I would have only dreamed of.

I'm loving that I'm not tied down to a man.

I think about Levi, and I know that even if he hadn't of left in the way that he had, that we probably wouldn't have worked out; and, if we had, I may very well have had a life riddled with regrets.

When we were together, I made my life very much about him. My world revolved around him so much that I didn't even know the most basic of things about myself.

If someone had asked me three years ago what my passions, aspirations, or goals were, I would have been hard pressed to tell them anything.

Ask me that same question now, and you'd be hard pressed to shut me up.

Here, now, as I am building a better life for myself and my son, I am filled with hope and excitement for the future.

Covered in dust, grime, and campaign buttons, I took a break from preparing for tomorrow's move to vote early. While I'm both concerned and excited about the presidential race, there was another issue on which I was eager to cast a ballot: the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment.

This proposal seeks to codify marriage as "the legal union of only one man and one woman."

I remember a conversation with a couple of coworkers shortly before I married Ed eight years ago. They congratulated me, and Osvaldo mentioned that another friend, Ernie, was married. I hadn't known that, so I congratulated him, finally noticing the plain gold band on his finger.

He shrugged, saying "As married as I can be." It was only then that I finally realized it wasn't possible for same-sex couples to marry. "That's bullshit!" I said.

I'd known gay men and lesbians all my life and had never considered their marital options. I guess I thought they just didn't want to marry. But Ernie and Justin had been together for years. They had the rings, but no spousal rights.

I was appalled.

I was raised Baptist, but a lot of church stuff didn't make sense to me, and I grew up to be a Buddhist. Like Sarah Palin, I tolerate a number of world views among those close to me.

I've asked devout Christians why Ernie and Justin can't get married and have yet to get an answer that I understand.

On the other hand, one of my conservative Christian friends surprised me by saying he opposes legal prohibitions against same-sex marriage. He thinks homosexuality is an abomination, but he also believes what happens in the bedrooms of consenting adults is not the business of government. 

I'm pretty sure that "protecting marriage" by forbidding it to Ernie and his boyfriend wouldn't do a thing to save my failed union with Ed or anybody else's. So it gave me great pleasure to vote against the proposal.

In my family learning disabilities are so widespread we joke that "typical" kids are "special." Needing special education services, that's "normal."

Three of my four nieces and nephews traveled, or are traveling, through public schools on IEPs (school speak for Individual Education Plans — the annual goals set by parents and school officials for kids with learning differences.)

We don't stop at your standard disorders either, oh no. Way too simple. These kids muck it up by being "twice exceptional" — meaning they qualify for both talented and gifted programs and special services.

Me, I'm about as ADD as they co... Look, something shiny!

And I have visual processing stuff I couldn't begin to explain within the space of this blog. Or to even understand in the space of the 39 years I've lived it.

Last week I read a new study on the higher rate of divorce among parents of kids with ADHD.

It says parents of ADHD kids are twice as likely to divorce by the kids' eighth birthday. Says higher stress from parenting these kids leaks into communication among the adults. Everyone is more stressed. And angry. Confrontational and ready to bolt.

Makes sense. But there's one glaring flaw in the study.

The risk factors in this study don't include the impact of mom and/or dad's ADD/ADHD on the marriage. And guess what? Turns out the apple really does not fall far from the tree. Show me an ADHD kid and nine times out ten, I'll show you the parent they inherited from.

I don't question the impact raising hard kids has on a family. But how much of it is truly the stress of managing a special needs child and how much of it is the stress of managing their own special needs?

My husband walks across the kitchen floor. I hear a crunching noise and look down, and he has tracked in big clumps of dried dirt on the bottom of his shoes. I say, "Hey, hang on, you're dragging dirt in here." He looks down and says, "Oh, sorry about that," and then picks up a couple of pieces. He then hightails it out of the kitchen, leaving me with several clumps to pick up for him.

Look out; here comes a metaphor.

One of the biggest problems I have with my marriage is the fact that it feels like my husband really did a number on the relationship and essentially screwed everything up, and then once he decided that he wanted to work on the marriage he did his little mea culpa and then left everything for me to clean up.

I'm the one who needs to get over the resentment I have from his behavior. I'm the one who needs to work toward healing my heart enough to trust him to be a loving husband again. As far as he's concerned, everything is peachy because he apologized and decided he wanted to make the marriage work.

But what about those clumps of dirt he dragged into the relationship?

I hate that I'm the one who is left to pick up the pieces. I'm the one who needs therapy to "reopen my heart" — which, by the way, is the phrase our therapist used — but as far as I can tell my husband doesn't have any problems with opening or closing his heart. For a while he didn't seem to care whether I lived or died as long as the kids were taken care of and there was food on the table.

Now he's Mr. Let's-Make-This-Marriage-Work. He wonders why I can't just rejoin the marriage with the full gusto that he displays now.

It's probably because I'm too busy picking up all the dirt he tracked in. 

So, this moving thing. It's causing me no end of worry. The logistics of it, how torn I am, how scared I am of starting over somewhere else, of this relationship ending when faced with the reality of proximity. I've been hoping for one of my A-Ha Dreams, so, even though it will still be hard, I'll feel resolved.

My brain's been letting me down on this one, though.

I had a moving dream, yes. It was clearly a Work This Through dream and not a Nightmare. But, instead of waking up with newfound clarity, I'm still not sure what it means.

I dreamed I moved to Texas (why Texas?). It was big, and it was empty, and I was lonely and sad. (Also, Jake had just died, I think. I was looking through boxes of his clothes and deciding what to keep. Bonus hidden message? Perhaps.)

There were dozens of people my new backyard and I was milling through the crowd. They were all very friendly, and many stopped to introduce themselves.

Suddenly, I was talking to God. He was bearded and wearing a Syracuse T-shirt. He told me to stop worrying, because he would let me know how I felt about moving in my dreams, like he always does. If I had a moving dream, he said, I should pay attention, because it would be him giving me a message.

Is the message that a message is forthcoming? Or did God (or my brain) just make a personal appearance because he's lost faith in my ability to recognize truth on my own? Isn't that all a little meta, even for me?

And if that was a Work It Out dream, why did I wake up still feeling unresolved? 

I, Debbie Nigro, Chief Executive Girlfriend of FWW, am devoted to an ongoing mission to explore for YOU, my faithful and devoted now-single-again girlfriends, all opportunities related to new men, mischief, and madness. This requires a load of continuous caffeine and an occasional gown.

My latest adventure even required a "wingman." Try finding one of those on the shelf at Walmart. Let me explain.

Some weeks ago the very famous matchmaker Janis Spindel contacted me to suggest I should attend her upcoming Elegant Affair. The invitation said attendees would be attractive, well-educated, upscale professionals age 40 and up personally selected by Janis and her cupids, and that every guest would be single and looking for love. I've had worse invitations.

Though intrigued to explore this rooftop black-tie soiree on your behalf, I didn't respond in time. When I did, I was told they had more women than men, thus I could only come if I could help keep the male/female ratio somewhat even, and bring a wingman.... Meaning, someone who I wasn't dating who is also eligible.

On a day's notice, Tony Dilluvio (pictured with me at the event, above) agreed to be my wingman. Tony has come to love his new "friendship for fame" trade-off relationship with me (also see last week's Today Show clip and my Debbie Does Divorce "He Said/She Said" segment with Tony).

We each hustled over the next 24 hours doing what you do when you're going to a black tie — finding something to wear. Difference is Tony drove to a tux place and emerged in 10 minutes with the perfect ensemble.