Monday, October 22, 2018

Your actions speak louder than words...

I see your big brown doe eyes peering over the edge of my fleece comforter, questioning and yearning for the words you so desperately want to say. I'm sitting on the floor sorting laundry and I can still hear the voices coming from your iPad, discarded to the other side of the bed. You jump down with a remote in your fist, having only been able to turn the TV on and not knowing which buttons work the magic to get to your app. Your little hand clutches mine pulling me up towards the bed. Climbing up, the remote hits my palm and your eyes dart back and forth between my hand and the TV. "Do you want to watch the animals?" Your body tenses with excitement and you nod, "yes."

Your giggles erupt from your body from somewhere deep inside your little body. You leap up and zoom around the room, jumping from the bed, to the floor and up onto my reading chair just as the cats in the videos do. We have come so far, you and I. When we moved off the property, I had to leave nursing you full time and I felt like you began favoring your father over me. It was a selfish though that left me feeling dirty and guilty, but I did feel that way regardless. As the months passed, I saw your sweet fat baby thighs give way to meaty muscular little legs that ran and toddled from room to room. You advanced so fast from baby to toddler, from toddler to preschooler.

I still remember your father and I, sobbing in both relief and defeat. We had just got the documentation from the Marcus Autism Institute and didn't know which way was up, but we knew that everything changed for you and yet nothing changed ABOUT you. Some doors slammed so hard shut that you could almost hear others on the other side nailing them sealed. Other doors opened and their welcoming lights poured out onto you like answers to prayers we didn't know we had. Therapist after therapist came into our home offering their services and wisdom to you and you drank it up. Words didn't come, but your ways of communication did. And then you graduated from toddler to preschooler. I wasn't ready to put that enormous in comparison backpack on your tiny shoulders. I wasn't ready for 5:30 am wake up calls so I could create a rigid schedule with some semblance of comforting normalcy before getting you on the bus. Coffee made, lunch made, bag organized, zipped and ready to go, outfit with training pants, socks and shoes laid out on my bed. Every morning is the same with the exception of what "bee bee cat" you choose to bring to school with you. You love school, and they wrap you up in their arms while you wrap them around your fingers. I get notes about your curly surfer dude hair, or how you love to dance and sing, or even more recently how your belly laugh causes spontaneous giggles in them late at night as they remember you initiating tag with your peers on the playground. Outside of your siblings or myself, I never thought I'd see the day where I had to hold you down to swipe a kiss as you ran off to play with the babysitter's son. I never thought I'd hear how you used your words in class. I hear you screaming "NO!" to your siblings or to me when you just don't want to take orders. We've come SO far. I get to kiss your booboos now without getting shoved away, and you even smirk as you wipe my loving off as I gasp in horror. "How DARE you wipe my loving away!"

I feel your arms wrapped around my neck when you come back from Dad's weekend. I feel all the quietness and "alone" from the weekend. I feel how you had to rely on your siblings as nobody else spoke your "language." I love you sweet, boo. I love you I do and I HEAR YOU. I love everything about your loud silence and how your "voice" says loud and clear that you ARE capable, strong and independent. I love your spirit and your willingness to get creative to have yourself heard. You are my one and only boo-ba-Lou.

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Bouncing back.

Once the decision to file for divorce was complete and all the paperwork was turned in, an amazing metamorphosis began. I laid everything out at His feet and reminded myself that He tells us over and over again to not be afraid. And so I stopped being afraid. I even made it a mantra whenever he would throw a "man-trum" to turn and tell him that I wasn't afraid of him.

I was, and still currently am, not afraid of him.

Last night when looking for a particular text message thread from my aunt, I realized I still had text threads from before the divorce. The biggest reminder of why the best choice I could have made was leaving him was a video text of my youngest sobbing hysterically while his daddy did nothing in the recliner next to him. Following up with a text that I needed to come home and "deal with my child." I'd only been at work for an hour when I had to share that message with my boss when she asked why I needed to leave for the day. I kept scrolling through messages and seeing my words, begging him to get help for him, for us... begging him to stay and not hurt himself. Always begging and exclaiming my love for him. I worshiped him, and now I realize that when I replaced the image of him with God I am finally fulfilled. I am not afraid of him or Him, but I am in awe of my God.

When I stopped requiring my happiness to be a direct reflection of my ability to make my ex-happy or even comfortable, my load lightened exponentially. I can only be held responsible for my own actions, my own experiences... So now? Now I'm "happy" in a sense. I'm not perfect. I'm a work in progress. Everything, EVERYTHING, is temporary. No amount of setbacks, moments of grief, panic attacks, disappointments can take away the all fulfilling love of knowing I'm exactly who He made me to be. That this life is exactly how He'd planned for me. That every struggle is a test of my faith. My babies are the most important legacy and testament I'll leave behind. Their lives ARE a direct reflection of how they were nurtured and cultivated into the people they will become.

I can't truly say I've "bounced back" to who I was when I both am and are not that person. I am a better person that I was a few days, weeks, months, decades ago. I've learned and I'm wiser now. Do I know everything? FUCK. NO. I'll never stop learning. But mentally, yes... I have bounced back. I don't need anyone's approval to be 100% myself and if they don't like who I am, then that's a reflection of their own issues.

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Irreconcilable Differences

I'm in love with a man who would never vote for the same government officials as I would. I'm in love with a man who has worked hard to get the title he wants in his work place, but he's not paid to reflect that title while I've never wanted the title I have, and yet here I am... probably the highest paid assistant property manager in my company or maybe at least in our local market.

I'm in love with a man who smells delicious, tells me I'm beautiful in such a way I really and truly believe it, and yet... the "strong, independent woman" my mother raised me to be is being driven into a corner surrounded by "codependent instability" induced panic.

For the past week I've woken up determined to do what's best for me and my babies, to set him free to make his own decisions regarding work and moving without any more of my input. All of this is going somewhere, I promise.

I hate being alone. I love my children, but sometimes I need adult conversation. Face to face, hand in hand, the warmth of someone within reach. And I know that right now, that exact situation is an impossible "want." I know that to better my situation and to give me and the kids the advantages we need financially involve moving back onto the property I work for. Giving up my "mama" freedom by sharing a room with my daughter makes my stomach hurt and overwhelms me with the realization that my already threadbare "me time" will only happen for real when they are with their father.

It's already overwhelming knowing that the lawyer is paid off and now I've got a house to purge, downsize, pack and move. By myself. And while I ain't to proud to beg, I don't even know where to begin as far as what to box up first, hosting an estate sale or just donating the whole lot of "extras" we've accumulated, what should and shouldn't be cleaned since the landlord will be making repairs and detailing prior to placing the house on the market... I don't know which way is up right now and I honestly wish I could just get the keys to our next place and figure this all out after the fact. With three kids in the home, it's already so chaotic scheduling wise that I'm going to have to take a week off just to pack and then another week JUST to move. Where's a magic wand when you need it?

I don't want to be two grown ass adults with him living with his parents and me sharing a room with my daughter and then "playing house" during our down time. I don't want to be under a microscope by being back on the property either.

I feel so depleted by all these questions hanging over my head. I just want to get to the next part in this journey and be settled already.

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

I can't fit in your shoes.

I've been told that my concerns for others are often a waste of time. That these people wouldn't be concerned for me, so why should I worry for them?

I stayed up on the phone with 911 dispatch for hours when my ex brother in law threatened to kill himself and was out in the world waiting on a bottle's worth of tramadol to take over. He sent cryptic messages between me, the ex husband, and their parents all night while my insides ate me alive. His son, not much older than mine, lay sleeping mere feet from my own boys... at that time I couldn't imagine what their lives would be like without their fathers. As the sun crept over the horizon, my stomach was still in knots that morning after an unsuccessful search for my then brother in law. I watched the minutes pass with every glance at the screen of my phone. When I knew he should be walking into work to start prep for the days lunch crowd, I stepped outside, lit a cigarette, took a giant swig of my coffee and called the restaurant and asked for the morning manager. When I asked her if he showed up for work that day, she told me he looked like death but that he was present. I said, "good," and hung up on her... mad at myself for caring. I was mad at myself for caring, for knowing there's always that teeny tiny seed of truth in every argument or statement made in hate.

Today he's in prison. He's still a human, a father, a brother and a son. But he's also a felon convicted of terrible crimes against others. My heart hurts for his child and for the memories of good times, but also for the unimaginably scary memories that only time will soften and hopefully erase. I can't fit in my nephews shoes, and especially not the shoes of his father. But they're human and they bleed and hurt no less than I do.

I think about you. I think about what has brought you to this point. I think about how hurt your heart must have been for you to do what you did, at least twice from what I could see. I think about your children and what their lives have been like up until this point. I worry about them from a mother's point of view. I worry about you as a fellow woman, from ex wife to current wife. Has your need to help him, heal him, to see him happy... has it isolated you from family and friends yet? Have you turned off certain personal responses so you can sleep at night without questioning your own sanity? Has he broken your belongings or your heart yet, made your own beliefs and experiences seem petty and unimportant in comparison to what he wants? I worry he'll shove your babies, put them down "sarcastically" as if they are too ignorant to understand that regardless of sarcasm his words still cut deep. My heart BREAKS for your children because I prayed that his vicious cycle would stop with our children. I wanted so badly for it to stop at OUR children. I want you to research for yourself both of his ex wives, both me and her... I want you to know that he always said she was an amazing mother and he knew how to pick them. I want you to know that in the same breath he'd say he'd never hit a woman but if a woman wants to buck up to a man, she'll get what she deserves... that she would have been the first woman he'd hit. I want you to know I've heard both sides and now that he's yours, I hope you're already questioning... that you are already doing your own research on me and the lie we lived. And that wasn't a typo, it was all a lie according to him in his own words to me.

I want you to run, to not be another statistic, to get out before he breaks your babies or you. I want to also be angry with you, but now more than ever I don't want any woman to feel like she earned this or that she "begged" for it. I don't want to be bitter or a terrible person. I want to be the woman that's seen straitening the crowns of other women. I want you to know that I'd testify my truth to help you get out. I may not like you, I may never wish to be friends, but I also don't know you nor have I ever wanted to fit in your shoes.