sueeeus

A more apt title would be Gadget Sucks.

Christmas Eve – his time with the boys. We had agreed to a 7pm exchange. At the last minute he said something came up and asked that I come all the way to his house to get them. I have had a headache all day, and driving at all is hard. I offered to meet him later. A bunch of useless back and forth texting ensued with a final commitment to meet at 10:30 pm. At the last minute he said change it to 10 am. I thought he meant pm, but no, he meant am. I said no, I will be at the park&ride at 10:30pm as agreed.

So here I am. No response from any further messages. Apparently he’s not coming.

What of the Santa experience for the boys? He said he’d tell them I didn’t want to see them for Christmas. Such a blatant lie. I’m physically sick from this.

My work has family care resources. I’m going to call and ask for help, for some consultation regarding what I can do, whether a lawyer can help me. I have to do something.

He’s deliberately sabotaging my life, and the kids are caught in the crossfire.

~*~*~*~

Follow up

9:13pm last text received from him.  9:15, 9:56, 10:36pm – my texts with no reply. 1:34am he replies ‘just got your messages via text…thanks alot’

It’s asinine.  Somehow in his mind he thinks *I* am the unreasonable one.

8:00 am he texts to meet at 9 am at the park and ride.  I immediately told him to bring them all the way home, but I don’t want to see his face anywhere near my home today, so I then told him I will meet him there after all.

I’ve moved servers again.  Blah.  So.  Some things don’t behave quite the same.  My pretty permalinks don’t work on the new server.  Apache vs IIS yada yada.  Or something.  My character encoding is finicky, but seems to be stable at the present setting.  Funny, it uses UTF-8, but sometimes wants to be told explicitly and sometimes wants NOT to be told.  This time it wants to be explicit.  Last server it didn’t.  Nice.  Nothing like consistency.

Comments are supposed to reach me : sueeeus at sueeeus dot com.

RSS feeds probably have to be updated.  I had a slightly different folder structure two servers ago, and I think my feed has been broken since then.  I’d reuse the old folder structure, but it doesn’t work properly, and I can’t be bothered to dig through my settings code or fiddle inside my database.  Well, I did actually do all of that, but only enough to get it up and running, and not enough to put it back to the previous structure.

Yep.  A whole lotta words about nothing much at all.  Mostly I’m just testing.

I do have things to write about…

…one of these days.

I learned to juggle when I was eight years old.  We lived in Cambridge, England, that year, and some of the other kids would juggle two balls against the wall or in the air during recess.  I was intrigued, and gave it a go.  There’s a certain cadence, rhyme and reason to juggling.  It’s a learned skill, and some are naturally better at it than others.  I was fairly good at the two ball juggle.  I can even do it with one hand.  I’ve tried to add a third ball to the mix, off and on through the years, but never got the hang of it.  Once that ball was introduced, control was quickly lost, and the balls would tumble to the ground.

Sometimes it seems as though my life is like a juggling act.  Working and mothering.  These two things I can manage.  They are sustainable, and I can keep things going, more or less.  It’s not always smooth or with perfect rhythm, but I can generally keep it together.   A pattern seems to be emerging, in which the addition of a relationship is akin to trying to add that third ball.  I haven’t gotten the hang of how to adjust the rhythm, and sooner or later I get stressed out, start to compromise things, my mental and emotional states spin off into the ether, and everything falls apart until I can gather things together and get the rhythm going again.

I admire those kids you see playing that complicated jumping rope game in which two ropes are spun in opposite directions, one clockwise, one counterclockwise, and the kids line up, catch the rhythm, and jump in.  It’s so smooth, so perfect.  They blend, in what looks like effortless motion.  They skip and dance and sing.  It’s a beautiful thing to behold.  I wish relationships could blend so harmoniously, so smoothly.  For me, trying to have a relationship is about as successful as me trying to jump into one of those rope skipping games.  One step and I’m tangled completely, trip, and fall unceremoniously, possibly hurting others in the tumble, after which I have to pull myself together, apologize for the damage I’ve done and the trouble I’ve caused, scrape the dirt from my wounds, and hobble off to some safe place where I can regroup and heal.

I need to learn how to accept the limitations of time.  I find myself, over and again, succumbing to anxiety rooted in the inability to mold my life around the constructs of time.

The hyper awareness of time interferes with my rationale and affects some priorities that I set, decisions that I make, thoughts that I think, and emotions that I manifest.

This is already a broken record.  I can tell, even before I get the words out.

There is only so much time available.  Somehow I have to work, mother, keep my household, foster my friendships and tend to my budding relationship.  I would like to have some self-nurturing or at least recovery time.  I have to multi-task even that, and glean whatever pleasure I can wherever I can.  Rather than choke at yet another chore, I choose to savor the upkeep of my household and the shopping for groceries or other sundries.  It gives me a smidgen of peace.

And what of this budding relationship?  How does it fit in?  How does one have quality adult time and not compromise child time?  Beaten down by logistics.  There’s no time for seeing each other during the week, which leaves only the weekend.  Friday nights are nearly shot.  It’s late by the time any meeting can take place.  Saturday, and part of Sunday constitute the window of opportunity and the dynamics shift dramatically as a function of child visitation arrangements.  How to be relaxed and content when there’s no time for just plain living?

I don’t like juggling.  I don’t like the ‘hurry up and wait’ mentality.  I don’t like not knowing what time I will have with whom and when.  For all I know, I could be dead in five years.  Or tomorrow.  I’m grateful to make it home alive, each and every day that I have to traverse the freeways in the dark, when it’s raining.   It’s harrowing.  I don’t want a future life, I want a now life.

So I am confounded and frustrated.

I don’t know how not to be anxious about the time.  I don’t know how this life balancing act works.

Sometimes I find myself in thought, and realize that I’m not breathing.  Stress.  It’s a stress of some sort.  I have to remind myself to breathe.

Maybe I should ask myself what I want.  Why is the time or lack of it so stressful or so important?  Or did I not just write ad nauseum about it?

After I’ve put the kids to bed, there is a small window of time that I get for myself.  It’s all I have, and there are a thousand and one mentally, physically, spiritually, or emotionally productive or constructive things I could do with that time.   But for whatever reason, the need to decompress and refuel is amplified lately, and I find myself floundering and anguishing, at a loss for doing this with the faculties I have available.

Ideally (this is pure speculation) decompression and refueling could be a symbiotic process with one’s partner, given that there is regular contact.  But there isn’t regular contact, and there’s not likely to be regular contact in the foreseeable future.

So I am confounded and frustrated.  And feeling alone.

I said it was a broken record.

Matters regarding child support and parenting continue ad nauseum.  The latest kicker – Gadget informed me that he and a coworker were fired.  Because of this, he wants me to call off the child support order, and cancel the accumulation of arrears.  I was too emotionally and mentally exhausted to be able to talk or think about it, but I did tell him that his wages can’t be garnished if he’s not working.  It didn’t seem to appease him.

Again, it’s Wednesday, and I’ve been trying in vain to coordinate with him regarding the upcoming weekend.  He’s expressed that he wants the kids to visit, but he hasn’t confirmed any details.  No surprise, but it remains tedious, frustrating, and annoying.

Part of my communication attempts included an email to his work address, which bounced as undeliverable.  I know, it’s sad, but part of me questioned whether being fired was a lie, conjured as a means to coerce me into pity and calling off the order.

Greedy beeyotch that I am, and all.

Even so, things being what they are, I can’t help but think that this man is beyond neck deep in a mid life crisis.  His dad, his dearest brother, and his marriage all died within the past year and a half.  He took on a new wife and four new children, which must be very stressful.  How can one be married to someone without feeling some sort of responsibility to them (and the children), however small?  He’s now lost his job.  He’s on a downward spiral, and as much as I’m disappointed in the colors he’s shown for his responsibilities toward our children, I don’t wish any ill upon him.  I don’t know how he copes with stress, other than road rage, porn, and gadget acquisitions.  He doesn’t fall for the normal vices, like drugs and alcohol, which is good.  I just don’t know how he will rise above the mess that is his life.

The knowledge that he has a collection of firearms nags at the back of my mind and I hope beyond all hope that he doesn’t find himself in the place or state of mind that my brother found himself, five years ago.  And I don’t even dare think that he could possibly go postal toward me.  It does bother me tremendously that he has those damned guns, though.

I don’t like to see people anguish through life.  Granted, things in general do not happen without reason, and choices could have been made at many points that could have altered the course of events.  Even so, he is suffering.

I want him to be happy.  I want him to earn a good and respectable living.  I want him to pull himself out of the pit he’s gotten himself into.  Emphasis on him.  In retrospect I can see that what I’ve done in the past was enable him and as much as he kicks and screams and calls me an evil grasping greedy wench now, standing my ground and not giving in to him is my way of helping him.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say.  I’m sad for him.

my precious

My two year old seems to be regressing from his staunch independence, lately, or else he is just honing his manipulation skills.  He’s been sick, off and on, for months.  Cold  upon cold upon cold.  They morph together.  Once in a while his temperature is elevated and he becomes quiet or fussy.  Mostly he goes on about his normal two year old business, full of energy, bouncing off the walls, following me around like a velcro shadow.

He’s become addicted to his binky.  Where it used to be a convenient plug to keep his mouth otherwise engaged, hence safe from all manner of frightening and not- meant- for- ingestion foreign objects that lurk about my household, it is now a full blown addiction.  He has a specific one that he wants, and the collection is stored on a particular shelf in the kitchen.  I encourage him to put it away on the shelf, so that he knows where it is when next  he wants it.  So far, this works well; he understands and complies!  Alas, and not surprisingly, the favorite binky didn’t return from  his last visit with his father, so after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, he resorted to the next favorite.  He calls it his ‘cody’ and throws a holy fit if I don’t have it with me when I pick him up from daycare.  I usually don’t give it to him, though.  I’m so stubborn, and I don’t like him having an addiction.  Such a mean mama, me.

Along with the binky, he is also suddenly attached to a certain (few) blanket(s).  Generally, there is a specific red one that he likes, but occasionally he alternates with a tan one.  Luckily, I have two tan and two red blankies with the same texture, so if/when one gets misplaced or put through the wash, there are others standing by to avert meltdowns and things of that nature.

If I attempt to use my phone or laptop, he physically slaps my hands away from the keys.  My child is yearning for more of my attention, clearly.  Such a controlling little one, my Tiger Beat.

An adorable opportunist, too.  He likes to play with the rice cooker, opening and closing the lid, over and over and over again.  He purposefully pretends to get his fingers caught then comes to me with fingers outstretched, earnest look on his face, begging for make- me- all- better kisses.

my little super man

Since he’s been sick, he’s been waking in the night and coming to find me.  Granted, he’s had some justifiably bad nights with fever and vomiting on one occasion in particular.  But it seems to be dragging on and becoming a nightly pattern that I’d very much like to nip in the bud (even though a part of me would love to snuggle my children close — the same part of me who would very much like to be cuddled close, made to feel safe, loved and protected, all the night long).  If my door is closed, he kneels outside it and cries, or he knocks and cries.  If my door is open, he wants to climb into bed with me.  I take him back to his room to try and settle him, but it seems like he tries to keep himself awake, watching me to make sure I don’t leave.  Last night (early this morning) he came to my room, crying, at 2:38 am.  I took him to his room, changed his diaper, and lay down with him to settle him.  I would rest for a while, then open my eyes to look at him, and there he’d be, his little eyes open, shining in the dark, peering at me.  He was still awake at 4:30 am, looking at me.  Around 5 am I went to my room, and put on my cpap mask.  Pitter patter, the sound of little feet.  I watched him look for me, first in the bathroom, then in the other bedroom, then in my room.  He climbed onto my bed (I let him) then complained about the mask and wouldn’t settle.  I removed the mask and tried to make him cozy and comfortable and he finally fell asleep around 5:30 am.  Of course, 6:30 am rolled around and I had to get up.  He followed.  He’s in surprisingly good spirits for a little guy who got very little sleep.  Me, not so much.  I went to bed around midnight, so two and a half hours plus one more just doesn’t cut it well for me.

What to do, what to do.

the loves of my life