Separating the anger

A few months ago, I wrote a piece about how 15 miles was too far for my son's father to travel to spend time with him. At that point, it had been a year with no contact.

Today would have been 15 months and 5 days, except that I woke up to a text from him.

"I have made mistakes and I no I am wrong. I miss alex like crazy and it is killing me not seeing him. Can I please set up a time to see him. I will pick him up and bring him back and do what ever it takes so that I can see him again on a regular basis." 

I knew for a fact that I was dreaming so I rolled back over and went back to sleep for another 30 minutes or so. When I woke up again, I looked at my phone a second time. And then a third. I put it back down on the nightstand and stared at the ceiling for a while. Looked at it again. Got up and went to the bathroom to make sure that I was really awake and then looked at it again.

Then the anger started to build. It simmered for a while and I considered sending back an extremely nasty text including everything that I was really honestly feeling at that particular moment, but I held back. I knew I had to calm down. A lot. I texted The Dude and clued him in, and he was as angry as I was.

Finally, I responded a few hours later.

"I woke up to this and I've been trying to figure out how to respond ever since. I told you the last time you walked out of his life and then suddenly reappeared that it would never happen again - and that time was only 4 months. Now, it's been 15 months and 5 days.  There is no excuse. There is no way to make up for that. Being a parent is a 24/7 job to ALL of your kids, not just the ones who are convenient to you. Coming into town for softball games and to go to the pool and not contacting him is beyond despicable. Not calling him, or sending a text, or being at any of his school or sports events is unforgivable. Lying to your family and blaming all of this on me? Grow up. And you're not going to just waltz back in and pick up where you chose to leave off over a year ago."

(Yeah, I tend to get a little long-winded when I'm angry.)

Discussion (via text) ensued and lasted most of the day. I tried hard to contain my anger and sarcasm (except where I pointed out that even if one is working "out of town", there's a nifty invention called a 'phone' that can be used to maintain contact)  as much as I could, but it was hard.

Finally this evening, The Dude came over to take Daniel to baseball practice. The older 3 kids are still on vacation with Ex1, so Alex and I sat down to talk. I told him that I had gotten a text from his father this morning, and gave him the basic rundown of the discussion.

I did not say anything nasty about his father. I did not say anything hateful or mean or even snarky. I gave him the facts. We talked. We discussed. I listened.

And then I told him this:

"How I feel about your father is totally separate from how you feel about him. I'm upset with him for a lot of grown up stuff that has more to do with responsibility and obligations. But that's my problem with him, not yours. You can feel however you want to feel, and that's ok - if you want to see him, I will make it happen. And if you don't, you don't have to."

You know, I think this is the hardest part of this single parenting thing. And I don't think that I truly got it until today. And I think that there are a lot of parents out there who don't get it.

It doesn't matter how we feel about the other parent. It really doesn't. It's not about us.

It's about the kids.

Should Alex choose to see his father again (and he probably will), I have to completely put my anger and resentment aside and make it happen. His father is not a bad person in the grand scheme of things. Irresponsible, yes. Not good at setting priorities? You betcha'. Bad person? Not so much.

Alex is still at that age where no matter what, his father walks on water. He knows that his father hasn't been around, but he's still young enough that he just wants to see him. I know that as he gets older, he'll understand more about what's happened - but for now, he has his eye on the prize and as much as I hate it, I have to allow him to make the choice. My only consolation is that no matter what happens, I know for a fact that I'll never walk away from this kid. Ever.

After our talk, we got ice cream and went for a walk by the river.
Believe it or not, there's a dam under all of that water.
Stupid rain.

I thought I could let it go....

....but I can't.

To put it mildly, I'm pissed. I mean it. Absolutely livid.

A couple of months ago, I went off on a little tirade about the Boy Scouts' ban on gay members. I got it out of my system, and life was good. I made the decision at that point to keep Alex in Scouts until after the vote on whether or not to lift the ban happened. Anyway, it was delayed, and from what I understand from our meeting tonight it will be held on Wednesday.

We didn't have a regular Scout meeting tonight. Instead, we had our committee meeting - the grown ups sit around and talk about boring stuff like finances and planning outings and stuff like that. The subject of the vote was brought up, as apparently there had been some question as to whether the church who charters our pack and troop would continue to charter it if the ban was to be lifted. We were informed that regardless of the vote, the church would continue to charter the Scouts. I was happy to hear this.

Now, at this committee meeting there were 5 or 6 other adults, plus me. Our leader was trying to plan things out for the next few months, and was informed by several of the other adults that they would be leaving the organization if the ban were to be lifted - which left the leader in a bit of a bind, because he can't plan any outings for the boys until he knows if he has any adults left or not.

Seriously?

(For the record, as if you didn't guess already, I informed the leader right then and there that if the ban is lifted, he can count on me to be more involved than ever before.)

OK. I understand that the Scouts is a Christian-based organization. I understand that it is a private organization and can make its own rules. I understand that when people joined, they knew about those rules (except for me, the clueless one) and they were ok with them.

Now the rules might be changing. So they want to leave. Keep in mind that BSA is not looking to change the rules for adult leaders - only for the kids.

So these adults, who are supposed to be role models for these young boys, are going to bolt straight out of the organization because they might have to be in the same room with a kid who is gay??? Really?

News flash: There are gay people everywhere. They're in the grocery stores and the libraries and the public pools and in schools and hospitals and banks and post offices and shopping malls and *gasp* maybe even working IN THE SAME OFFICE WITH YOU!!!! If they haven't turned you gay yet, what makes you think that they're out to do that to your kid too? If you are so worried about your kid being exposed to someone who is gay, then you'd better not ever allow that child out of your house. Really.

Look at these two images. Read them. These are pictures that I just took of Alex's Cub Scout Tiger Cub Handbook.

Where exactly does it say that the purpose of Cub Scouting is to shun someone who does something that you don't like? Where does it say that someone who is different than you doesn't belong in Scouts? Where does it say that a boy who is gay is not worthy of being a Scout?

It doesn't.

Character Development. Is there a better way to develop your child's character than to show him that it's ok if someone does something that you don't necessarily like? What is so wrong with teaching your son that it's ok to agree to disagree? Doesn't that build character?

Respectful relationships. A relationship doesn't only have to be between a man and a woman. It can be the relationship between a group of kids. There is a group of kids that I see playing together after school on a regular basis - just judging by appearances, there are girls, boys, blacks, whites, Hispanics, and even a little Muslim girl who all play together - and they are great friends. They are all so amazingly different from each other, but they respect each other's differences and have a great relationship with each other.

Values? They want to preach about values? Look at that list: Compassion. Courage. Honesty. Respect.

RESPECT.

Right there, in black and white. The eleventh Core Value in Cub Scouting.

Respect.

How in the hell can we teach our kids respect if we don't show that same respect to ALL other people?

Respect for kids shouldn't be selective. They're KIDS. Show them respect. Show adults respect (unless they give you a damned good reason not to do so).

Seriously people. Get over it. Yes, you have a right to your beliefs, just as I have a right to mine. You're not right and I'm not either. But as adults, we have the responsibility to be positive role models for all kids today. Do you want to teach them that it's ok to be close-minded and exclusionary, or do you want to teach them that it's ok to accept someone who is different from you? You can accept the person without accepting their beliefs.

Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum.

St. Augustine originally said that around the year 424, give or take. 

Know what that means?

Love the sinner, but hate the sin.

You don't have to agree with everything that everyone does. But learn to respect the fact that everyone is different.

Craptastic day

I knew that it wasn't going to be a stellar day from the beginning...but wow, I was not expecting it to be quite as brutal as it turned out to be.

It started out with getting up late. Not terribly late, but late enough that we didn't have time to mess around for very long. Ms. Emily refused to get out of bed, and ended up finally getting up about 10 minutes before we had to leave. I was not impressed.

Somehow, I still managed to get all of the kids to their assorted schools on time, and at least had a pretty sunrise to look at, until I started heading the opposite direction and had it right in the face. But still....it was gorgeous.

I got Alex to his school before we realized that he had left his backpack at home - you know, the one that I reminded him to pick up on the way out of the house. He started to pitch a fit before he got out of the van and I gave him the look and sent him on his way.

Daniel and I came home and I did some cleaning and stuff around the house, but I just wasn't in the mood to do anything. Honestly, I was just in a crappy mood. Mother Nature is not being kind to me, and as I just explained to The Dude, I really have just been a stark raving lunatic all day today.

I got a bill from the hospital for my emergency room visit a couple of weeks ago, and I called them to work out payments and stuff - and it got ugly. Without going into details, they made an error, I told them to correct it, and they told me that I'd have to correct it. Uh, sorry - I don't correct other people's errors. You people made the mistake, you fix it. After getting into a rather heated discussion screaming match, she supposedly fixed it. But it was a stupid frustrating couple of phone calls and did absolutely nothing except make me extremely angry.

The kids have been all sorts of hyped-up ever since they got home from school. We had to go to the store to get some stuff, and while they weren't their usual psycho-selves in the store, they sure didn't act like angels. By this time, I didn't care. I was tired, cranky, sore, and more than a little bit irritable so I broke my No Fast Food rule and we stopped at Wendy's to grab food for supper. I just didn't care at that point.

There was drama over missing and horribly overdue library books - which were thankfully located at Ex1's house, after the offender insisted that (1) she never signed them out (2) someone must have stolen them (3) maybe she returned them to the wrong library (4) suddenly remembered exactly where they were.

An empty chocolate chip bag was found in the boys' room - that offender immediately confessed, knowing that lying at that point was futile. He went to bed at 6:30 and hasn't been heard from since.

Emily was sent to bed at 8:00 after her refusal to get up this morning - I told her on the way to school that she was going to bed early so she was prepared for it, but of course at 8:05 she came back out of her room to inform me that she had to study for a math test. *growl*

The rest of the kids have exactly 4 minutes to get to bed - and I swear at this point I had better not hear a single complaint because I am not in the mood. I'm not staying up late tonight - I'm going to bed and hopefully sleeping off this mood and waking up tomorrow all sorts of chipper and cheerful feeling somewhat rational again.

On the plus side, I did sign up for another race - I am determined to stick to my goal of doing one race per month for the year, so this will take care of February. It's a 5 mile race on February 11 - which is also the day that the girls have an honor band thing. Needless to say that's going to be a crazy day, but I wouldn't know what to do if I didn't have a crazy day.

On that note, I'm dangerously close to calling it a night. I will attempt to be nicer tomorrow. But I'm not promising anything.

I Took My Life Back

Today marked a very important anniversary for me. It is almost a birthday of sorts. Two years ago today, I took my life back and reclaimed it for myself.

It started out as a typical day, for the most part. I don't remember anything in particular about the day itself. My husband had been laid off about a month and a half before this and so he had just been pretty much hanging around the house and was drinking anytime he had the chance. I left to go pick up the 3 older kids after school, and I believe that we stopped at the grocery store on the way home, so we were a bit later than he expected us to be.

When I pulled into the driveway, I saw him in the garden. He had his back to us at first, but I could tell just by his posture that he had been drinking. He turned to look at us, and one look at his face confirmed it.

The next thing that I saw was the knife.

There, on his belt, was a sheath with a very large (to me) knife in it. I don't know a lot about types of knives, but I would say that it was similar to a buck knife with a blade that was about 8" long. I was immediately terrified, and tried desperately not to show it. Sarah saw it next, and in her 9-year old innocence asked me why he had it. I told her that I didn't know, and to just go into the house with the other kids.

We all made our way inside. The kids ran, he staggered, and I tried to walk as normally as I could with my knees knocking and my heart pounding. Once we got into the house, he became extremely agitated. The kids were wound up, which was never a good thing to be around him when he was intoxicated. He started yelling at them and at me. I tried to convince him to go back outside and calm down - all I wanted him to do was walk out the back door, give me a few minutes to get the kids to relax, and then he could come back in - but he refused to do so. Sarah started to get really scared and asked him to snap the knife sheath closed - it was hanging open and she was afraid that the knife was going to fall out and hurt someone.

Instead of him snapping the sheath shut, he pulled the knife out and started waving it around his head like a lunatic. The kids panicked and I looked at Sarah and yelled at her to call her father (Ex1) to come and get them - at that point, I knew that there was no turning back. He kept waving the knife around - never directly at anyone, but as agitated as he was it would have only taken a slight wrong move to seriously injure himself, the kids, or me. I kept telling him to put the knife away, and he refused. I told him to go outside and calm down, and he refused. At one point he walked toward the back door and I used that to my advantage - he was not a large guy at all (I outweighed him by about 20 pounds) and I used my body weight and every ounce of strength that I had to push him out of the back door of the house. I slammed the door shut and locked it, then ran to the front door and did the same.

Within minutes, the police were there - thankfully, Ex1 had called them as soon as he got Sarah's call. They questioned my husband, they questioned me, and as much as they wanted to, there wasn't enough to arrest him. I told them everything exactly as it happened - that he never made a direct threat or pointed the knife at anyone, but that I was still terrified that something could have happened. Keep in mind that this was not the first time that they had been called to our house - there had been several instances of violence when he was in a drunken rage, so the officers were familiar with the situation.

I told them that I understood that they couldn't arrest him - that time - but that I just wanted him to leave the house. With the house being in both of our names, they couldn't legally force either one of us to leave, but they did talk to him and strongly encouraged him to disappear for at least the night. The last I saw of him that night was his back as he rode his bike down the street. I found out later that he went to our pastor's house to talk to her, as she called me later and asked if I would pack some clothes and things for him and put it out on the porch so that she could get it for him.

Before the officers left, one of them looked at me and said, "How much longer are you going to put up with this?" He wasn't saying it to be nasty - the tone of his voice showed that he understood the position that I was in at that point. He had been to our house on numerous occasions so he saw the pattern that I had chosen to ignore up until that moment. I looked at him and said, "I'm done." And I meant it.

I was done. I was done with the lies, the drinking, the verbal abuse, the physical abuse, the threats, the name calling...everything. I was done with it. He never spent another night in our house again.

The past two years have been a rollercoaster. For the longest time, I stuck my head in the sand and ignored everything that was falling apart around me. I was in a deep depression, but very few people saw it or understood the depths of it. I look back now and I wonder how I made it through those times, because they were by far the darkest times of my life. There were times that I really questioned whether or not I could go on - but my kids kept me going.

When I was finally able to file for the divorce, it was a feeling of relief. I feel horrible saying that now, but it really was. I needed to take that next step in the reclaiming of my life. I celebrated when it was final, because I could finally feel the control coming back to me. When he died 20 days later, I went through every emotion in the book.

I still struggle. Life isn't easy - at all. But now, 2 years after I made the decision to take my life back, I truly feel that I am in control of what happens to me. This is MY life - and I can do what I want to do with it. I don't have to answer to him or anyone else. I can and will do what needs to be done to take care of myself and my kids.

I spent the day at my friends' house, working in the garden. My friend took the boys with him while he ran errands, so I had close to 5 hours of quality time to myself - I planted seeds and enjoyed the feel of the sun on my face and the wind on on my skin and just reflected on everything that has happened over the past two years. For the first time in a very long time, I can honestly say that I'm happy with where I am.

I took the kids out for supper tonight - mainly because I'm too tired and sunburned to cook - and caught this shot on the way home...

It just seemed peaceful - something that I am finally feeling for myself.

A whirlwind of emotions...

I don't even know what to think right now. I'm physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. Yet with the exhaustion, my mind is still going a billion miles a second.

I woke up this morning and had to get the kids up and dressed and fed and ready for school. As I was making pancakes, the strangeness of the situation hit me. My ex-husband just died, and I was making pancakes, like I always do. Regardless of my inner turmoil, I still have to go on living. Life goes on.

In between taking the three older kids to school and taking the two younger ones to playschool and then picking them up, and then getting the 5 year old on the bus for preschool, I was trying to clean and keep up with the almost constant phone calls and text messages and facebook posts that kept coming in. Thankfully I was able to talk to a friend who had been through this before - the death of an ex - and she assured me that the emotions are normal. I had no idea that I would hurt this much. I mean seriously, I divorced the guy. I didn't want to be with him anymore. I wanted him out of my life. But did I want this? Hell no! I still always had a tiny glimmer of hope that he would become a good father, and now that glimmer has been permanently extinguished. He is never coming back.

I got a call from one of his family members today, and suffice it to say that it wasn't pleasant. While informing me that she wasn't here to judge anyone, she made it damned clear that he had been in a severe depression because he wasn't able to see our son, and that ultimately contributed to his death. Really? He hasn't even been gone for 12 hours, and you want to blame me for it? Whatever lady - go ahead. Blame me if it makes you feel better. And now you want his family to have a "relationship" with my son? Now that his father is dead? Hello...what happened to the last 2 years, when you didn't acknowledge his existence? I got angry and said some things to her that I probably shouldn't have said, broke down crying, apologized, yelled at her some more and apologized some more. I have way too many emotions going through my head right now for some virtual stranger to inform me that a family that is 1700 miles away wants to have a relationship with my son. I'll make that decision eventually, but it's not going to happen today. Or even tomorrow.

I wish that I could just put everything that I'm feeling into words. I have so much going through my head right now and I just can't seem to make any sense of it. Why did this happen? How? How could someone who is 46 years old die of congestive heart failure? I know that there's a family history of heart problems, and I know that the alcohol and the smoking contributed to it, but still...46 years old?

I can't wrap my head around the enormity of this. I just can't do it. I have about 14 loads of laundry to do, bedrooms to clean, sidewalks to shovel, kids to pick up, supper to make, baths to give....and I can't even figure out how to do any of it right now.