PonderEthereal

Being a single parent means that all of the job stuff, all of the household stuff and all of the parenting stuff gets done by one person - me. And sure, kids are great for slave labor around the house but I can only beat him so much before he cries uncle - and the tub STILL isn’t really “clean”. And were I to delegate meal planning or cooking, we’d have Ramen every night with mac and cheese once in a while for good measure. And maybe some fruit loops.

I’m not a very good cook. I mean.. I AM when I try - but for me, it’s SO MUCH EFFORT and time. It’s not something I enjoy. When I am very organized, I use my gtd friendly meal planning system :
1) I have a list of all of the meals that my family likes. If we try something new…

My husband, someone I loved and trusted, intentionally harmed me. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have trusted him. Intentionally causing emotional and mental harm for however many years is definitely a precursor to physical harm and maybe I should have seen that. But I didnt. He was a fixture in my life for 14 years. My life was built around our relationship. And then suddenly, he was the thing that was putting me in danger. Suddenly, my the structure of my life was in peril… my home and my ability to take care of me and my son. And worst of all, suddenly, the thing that felt safest in my life meant danger.

For the first week or so, I was just in shock. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t remember, I couldn’t function. There was one day, Sexxyred1 took me to the doctor - maybe the day after it happened? And I…

Tomorrow is my 3rd wedding anniversary. My phone just reminded me.

I spent today packing a bunch of Ryan’s crap into boxes.

I haven’t thought about him in days.

Here’s to freedom from fourteen years of wondering, six years of abuse and three years of holding together a broken family.

I’m planning a Starting Over Party starting today. The whole intrawebs are invited. Just kidding. Really. Don’t show up at my house.

By Portia Nelson

Chapter 1
I walked down the street.
There was a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fell in.
I was lost.
I was helpless.
It took me a long time to get out.

Chapter 2
I walked down the same street.
There was a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretended I didn’t see it.
I fell in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
It wasn’t my fault.
Still took me a long time to get out.

Chapter 3
I walked down the same street.
There was a hole in the sidewalk.
I saw it was there.
I fell in again! It was a habit.
My eyes were wide open,
and I knew where I was.
It was my fault,
and I got out immediately.

Chapter 4
I walked down the same street.
There was a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walked around it.

Chapter 5
I walked down a different street.

…

I picked Ethan up today from school by myself for the first time since last week. My ‘body guards’, as a friend called them, waited anxiously at home for me. I wanted him to feel like today was getting back to normal. No trips to offices of official people who speak legaleze, no paperwork or talk of big things that make no sense. Just me picking him up after school to come home and do homework, eat dinner and laze around for the evening.

I brought him home. And then I cleaned. I scrubbed, I swept, I vacuumed. With one arm. Until I got heart palpitations and had to stop. And remember that I’m still traumatized. And that no matter how hard I scrub, I can’t make it normal again.

I’ve been whipped up into a storm of official paperwork, medical evaluations, legal terms and definitions, security precautions, case numbers, dates and long lists of things to do, take care of, wrap up and begin. Most of all, I’m in pain, recovering from trauma and still a wee bit in shock.

If it had not been for friends being here around the clock to make sure I remember to breathe, friends to go with me to remember the instructions babbled by one official or another, friends and family who called just to tell me they support me and love me, I would not be able to function at all right now.

Thank you all so very much, truly from the bottom of my heart. I promise, when I have use of both hands and all of my wits again, I’ll surface again with something to say. I’m bigger, badder, smarter and…

… goes the instant messenger. In gmail I can’t disappear to only one person so I leave it in the background and Ryan goes on and on and on while I work on the shop calender and find other things to waste my time on.

“You can’t stay up there forever.” “There’s really no point.”, he IMs me. I continue to ignore him.

He started in on me again and I told him I would leave if he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop. I left. So here I sit. It is ironic that the one place I can’t stand to be during the day any more is the one place I run to.

His lethargic, sedentary ass has started running.

He has started blogging. (my blog and the fact that I blog is the bane of his existence)

Suddenly he wants to actually converse about things.

He’s worried about who I’m chatting with.

He sits and OBVIOUSLY listens to sappy music on his headphones and sniffles.

He hasnt yelled at me in days.

He did his laundry. All 50 loads of it that has been collecting on the bedroom floor for the last 6 months. Ew.

He’s listening to jungle at a just barely obnoxious volume. Jungle has a very distinct bass line so I can hear it through the fucking wall when I go to bed and he’s “casually” listening to it in the office - and is also one of his -not so favorite- things that I dig.

I’m waiting for him to find religion, drink a cup of coffee and share advise over a dose of midol…

He started in with the yelling and I said ‘dont yell at me’.
He kept yelling.
I walked away.
He was still going on about it in the garage and I was on the other side of the house.
He fumed.

I wasn’t listening so he kept spitting things out and throwing things around and then he finally came over to where I was sitting and with the attitude of an insolent child that is relenting only under duress said “I’ve been thinking and the problem isn’t with Ethan, it’s with you.” and he prattled on about my shortcomings and I tuned him out.

I’ve heard it all before. I’m inconsistent, my discipline isn’t hard enough, I should just listen to him and he’ll show me how to do it. He came to a pause and I said “I don’t want to have this conversation right now.” If we had this conversation, I would…

Ethan comes home tomorrow after being at his dad’s for the summer. With some close examination, it has come to my attention that my emotional state over that is far more negative than positive and for that reason, other than the practical preparation, I haven’t really dwelled on it.

First of all, I’m dreading the discipline issues that are likely to come with him. He’s been at his dad’s where he hasn’t been held to the routine standards he will need to adhere to to successfully make it through a day in school without having an outburst. That means that we will be back at square one and he will have to re-learn how to monitor himself. That means a bumpy road. That’s aside from the obvious issues of readjusting to different rules and means of discipline which will be painful anyways. His dad did a really good job of…