Now

In my quest to post only the most bitter, angry, and depressing entries ever for the month of Holidailies, here is the next one.

Seriously though. I promise that’s not my goal but man. Tis the MotherFucking Season.

My Dad sends me a Christmas card each year. merry Christmas from WARREN.

Not “Dad”.

Warren.

Because he’s not my real dad and he makes no point in trying to be nice. Or cheery.

The topper on this sundae of love and goodness?

The card reads:

For you Daughter at Christmastime

With memories of happy times we’ve shared, with thanks for being a special daughter, with wishes for a beautiful holiday season…and most of all, with love.

Merry Christmas.

Warren & Darlene.

My “Dad” did not pick that out. Darlene must have.

What the fuck man. What the fuck. Merry Christmas. Thanks for the check.

Are you ready for the next train wreck?

Good. God forbid we get too comfy.

I broke up with Chris for many several hundred reasons.

I moved out and went on some dates.

I didn’t speak to him nor see him in several months. But I missed him.

Yes. I know. Queue up the chorus of “OH MY FUCKING GOD. ARE YOU SERIOUS>?????”

I know. And this still might not work out but he’s doing things right. He has a real job. One that he goes to every day, and get’s paid. He’s given up the idea of “his own business” and I’ve told him that I don’t want to hang out with him if he’s doing that again. So. I don’t know. He’s working. It’s only an hourly job but he’s got the option to get health benefits and paying his bills.

Also, he is looking for a place of his own instead of living at his Mom’s.

His Mom is elderly you know and he is an only child so it’s not that weird. I guess. Except he’s not really a MOM person.

I have all these rules and parameters in place: we don’t discuss politics. You have to stand on your own feet. You have to try to work at fixing things rather than ignoring things. You can’t come over and hang out if you are going to be bitchy and ill tempered.

A controlled environment. I can live with that. He still can’t live with me. I still am not committing to anything. Except we hang out. And we treat each other WELL and with KINDNESS.

He heard about my accident and I don’t know first hand how it affected him but second hand accounts were that he was white as a sheet and he was in a near panic when he tried to contact me after he heard.

I know that when the accident DID happen. The only two people that I wanted when I was scared and in pain was Alix and Chris.

That tells me a lot.

We’ll see. I have no great hopes you know. Not really. If it works and makes me happy for right now, that’s all I want. I’m not going to worry about a future.

My very first boyfriend, the first love of my life (at the elderly age of 9) was Joe Moore. I liked him because he was the only kid that could outride and outplay me. He was the first boy I ever kissed.

Died in a motorcycle accident last night.

I don’t even know what to say. I am sad, so sad. He didn’t end up having the easiest life and I don’t know a lot of details but we ran into each other one more time and just listening to him talk and seeing the kind of scene he was not conducive to good endings.

I’m so sad for my old friend Nicky and his family. Thoughts and prayers to them.

Standing at the door of the Pink Flamingo,

Crying in the rain
Here was a kind of so-so love and I’m gonna make sure it doesn’t happen again
You and I it, had to be the standing joke of the year
You were a run-around, a lost and found, then I found thee half healed

CHORUS

Take your hands off me
I don’t belong to you, you see
And take a look in my face for the last time
I never knew you,you never knew me,

say hello, goodbye
Say hello and wave goodbye
We tried to make it work, you in a cocktail skirt and me in a suit but it just wasn’t me
You’re used to wearing less and now your life’s a mess so insecure you see
Well I put up with all the scenes and this is one scene that’s going to be played my way

Take your hands off me
I don’t belong to you, you see
And take a look in my face for the last time
I never knew you,you never knew me, say hello, goodbye

say hello, goodbye
Say hello and wave goodbye

Under the deep red light, I can see the make-up sliding down
Well hey little girl, you will always make-up so take off that unbecoming frown
As for me well, I’ll find someone who’s not going cheap in the sales
A nice little house wife who’ll give me the steady life and not keep going off the rails.

Take your hands off me
I don’t belong to you, you see
And take a look in my face for the last time
I never knew you,you never knew me, say hello, goodbye
Say hello- wave goodbye
Say hello- wave goodbye
We were born before the wind, who are we to understand
We were born before the wind, say goodbye
Through the rain, sleet and snow, get on the train and say goodbye, say goodbye, in the wind and the rain my darling, say goodbye
In the wind and the rain my darling.

So Nay came in and assessed my teaching last night for bodyflow. It was mostly good and better than what I received last year.

Stated that I was the strongest instructor for BF that our gym has. That’s happy to hear.

My cat has been taught (bribed) with treats to “Sit”. My family is suitably impressed.

My social life is better than it’s ever been. I have stuff planned short term and longer term.

The only burr is the job and dental stuff. The job has more good things than bad right now. That’s good.

The dental stuff: i found a dentist that will do a payment plan (like payments to get something done, harder to find than you’d think) and also give me a 10% discount. Now, I need to get past my fear and make an APPOINTMENT.

I’m mostly pretty good though. How about that?

What is the value you would place on feeling completely safe with someone?

What is the value of complete trust knowing your partner is not going to cheat on you?

What is the value of a person who shows that they care in many small ways instead of using money?

How much value would a relationship like that have to you?

How do you write about the death of a marriage? This is something I’ve been contemplating for months now.

When I first started my journal, I wrote about everything including my marriage and the things that happened in it. That backfired on me when a large local paper did a story on me and the quote it pulled from the journal was one in which I said that S. wasn’t a good husband. He was devastated and angry and I felt so guilty that they would take an offhand comment (that I wrote) and present it in a way that was not true. So, from that point forward, I never really talked about our relationship in the journal.

And I didn’t talk about my marriage to my friends or family either. What was I supposed to say?

But I’d been unhappy for a long time.

I started really hashing out leaving in my head a few years ago. I wanted to wait until E. got a little bit older. I really, really planned on that. I wanted to finish up SOME type of degree before I left. That seems calculating and cold I’m sure but there it is. It’s hard (financially) being a single parent with no formal education and working at a job that’s not going to be much more lucrative than it already is.

Obviously though, I didn’t wait until E. was a little bit older.

A lot of it had to do with the fact that I felt I had three kids at home and no partner and also the money issues and how he chose to handle them (or not) handle them and just generally growing apart. I spent so much time by myself and at the end, that’s what I wanted. Moving out and living alone really wasn’t that big of an adjustment on that front.

By the time I told him, there was just no desire on my part to fix things or try to work them out. I’d been telling him for months and months that I was not happy and nothing changed. He kept doing the same things and I continued to want to get the hell out.

I told him I was leaving after getting in a big argument on Christmas Eve. Sitting through dinner at his mother’s about an hour after that declaration was probably the most difficult and stomach-churning thing I’ve had to do. Bad, bad timing on my part, I know.

**

So.

A lot of things have happened since then. I can’t believe it’s already March.

I ended up moving every single thing I owned (by myself) in numerous trips to a little place in the town I work in. Except my furniture, a friend from work and her husband helped me move that but otherwise, nobody (including my son) lifted a finger to help me.

That sounds angry and I didn’t think I was but maybe I am. I didn’t really expect my son to treat me the way he has since this all started. I didn’t expect S. to, you know, wish me good luck in leaving him and help me pack and shit but M.? I expected a little bit more support from him.

E. is adjusting. M. is not. S. and I are getting along okay now that all the chestbeating and questions and whatif’s are over with.

He said it was just such a shock that I was that unhappy which irritates the shit out of me because HELLO!? If someone is telling you they are unhappy and things need to change, how much of a shock IS IT REALLY? I told him that it’s only a shock because he thought he’d have more time to “change”.

The separation papers have been drawn up and signed. M. still lives with S. That’s what they both wanted. We have joint custody of E. which is sort of a non-issue at this point because S. has been out of town every week except one since Christmas. He gets her on the weekends.

***

I started seeing someone a few weeks ago. He is fucking incredible.

S. is fine with it and him, E. is fine with it and him, the dogs and cat are fine. M. of course, is not fine with anyfuckingthing.

I knew he wasn’t going to take it as easy (as E.) but I thought once S. adjusted and was okay with the whole leaving thing, he would be too but oh no. He wants to know when HE gets to be happy and if HE isn’t happy, then nobody else should be. Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled and self-centered. Teenagers suck.

S. says that he will eventually get over it…that I may have been done with our relationship for a long time but nobody else had any idea and it takes a little time for people to adjust.

****

My mother-in-law is still very upset about my leaving. This is shocking to me because to be quite honest, I didn’t think she liked me very well. Her and my father-in-law are actually the only people I didn’t want to tell because I hated that they were going to be disappointed. Even though they did a lot of things and said a lot of things that upset me or I didn’t agree with, the fact remains that they have always been there and done more for me than my own parents have and I am so grateful for it all.

I saw her yesterday when I had to drop E. off and when I left, I hugged her and told her that I missed her and loved her and she told me that she missed me and loved me too and that she didn’t want to say anything else or she’d start bawling. And then she did any way. And I truly hate that she’s so sad about it.

*****

In the meantime.

M. got his drivers license and has blown up the engines in not one but TWO vehicles in the past month and a half that he’s been driving. He drives like he thinks he’s Dale Earnhardt or something (or at least has his money). S. is the one footing the bill for those because if it had to be me paying? M. would be a walking fool. I pay for his monthly school tuition.

Speaking of which. He’s been out of public school since this past November. He just stopped going. And then decided that he would like to try a private school. I didn’t want to do that, mostly because of the money, but I felt I had to at least try. He only has to attend one day a week (which is sometimes just TOO MUCH for the princess and he can’t seem to make it in) and he does the work on his own time and takes the tests at the school. I don’t know if he’ll stick to it or not.

He’s just going down the wrong road in so many ways and I’ve done all I can to keep him from going in that direction but it is what it is. It’s not that he’s doing drugs or drinking ( I don’t know if he is but it’s a possibility) but who he’s hanging out with and what he’s doing and just his general attitude. I can’t make his decisions for him at this age and he’s not interested in hearing it regardless.

It makes me incredibly sad because he has so much potential and could do so much but instead he wants nothing to do with that. The way he is living is not how I wanted it for him. Not that kids do what you WANT them to but I just didn’t want him to do everything the hard way.

******

And that’s it in a nutshell.