Whoo. The air’s kind of heavy around here, isn’t it?
Time to lighten up a bit. Like, by giving you prizes.
What kind?
How about the easiest, funniest book about food, diet and eating that you’ll ever read, that’s guaranteed to loosen your belt, lessen your spending and cleanse your karma.
Not good enough? There’s also a $150 gift card up for grabs from one of my sponsors, SkinCareRx. That’s to spend on, like, anything. Not that I think you need anything. You’re gorgeous.
Okay, fine. Want something else, then? How about you tell me what you want. Because you can choose between cash, a slice of my dignity, or something, say, Olympic (to a dollar value of $50) {the Olympic option costs me both money and dignity, so it’s like, twice the prize}.
For details, how tos and fine print, check out after the jump. Continue reading →
My daughter, she’s psychic.
I’ve joked about it in the past, but it really does rattle me how in tune she can be with my inner-most thoughts.
Emailing with a friend, without any speech or pictorial evidence, she will bust out that she misses the friend’s daughter. The phone rings and me, barely having said hello, will be accosted to talk to the person on the phone, by name. I’ll think, ‘hey, maybe we should go on an adventure. Get out of the ordinary and take the ferry to Bowen Island for the day and just walk around, exploring the beach,’ and despite that she was previously immersed in the word of saving baby animals with Diego, she will ask if we can go on a boat.
It’s trippy, in the least.
Two nights ago, I sat here and composed an email to her father that included a paragraph about her abrupt lack of interest in his activities while he was away from her. See, before, she’d asked for him nearly everyday, and then weeks ago, it just stopped. If she was angry with me previously, she asked for him, and she stopped doing that; if she woke up to a day where we had no plans set in stone, she asked if we would see him, and that stopped too. She’d gotten on his time-clock, where only weekends, when the buzzer announced his arrival, meant it was time for Daddy to be around.
Fucking murphy’s law.
Yesterday morning, I woke up earlier than I usually do, prepared to make what I assumed would be a tough day – likely with his reaction to the email – good. And she was so in tune, it seems, that she’s regressed to wanting him all the time, to every conversation including his name, and to excitement about all of the plans he’s apparently made with her.
A life of three-year-old fantasies, rubbed in my face, as the reality of this shitty situation crashes down on me. And I smile and say, “really? And what will you do at the farm/zoo/toy store/aquarium?” as I’m stuck with the thought that it’s not going to happen anytime soon, and that I can’t take that daydream away from her.
And then, the tantrums that started yesterday, as if she was punishing me. Yes, I know that I’m looking for proof of self-blamability, but, my god, yesterday was hard. Hard to hold her tight without squeezing her and asking pointedly ‘what the hell is the matter with you?‘, hard to accept the strikes toward me and the pinching and shrieking. There were time-outs for the first time in ages, and I felt guilty for that, too – for my lack of patience and my inability to completely give myself over to the granola side and see her acting out as what it is.
My daughter, she’s fucking psychic.
Then there was today, when I finally eased myself into bed to sleep at four am, she ran out, fast fast fast, from hers, asking to cuddle. I don’t know who needed it more, but I haven’t slept so well with her in the bed ever before, her fingers entwined in my hair, and her legs bent 90 degrees against the spot that ached most when she was being born.
She woke me up late, as if knowing that this day would be a sleep-deprived one – got herself breakfast and put together some puzzles in the silence of her own bedroom while I nightmared ten feet from her about poisonous tarantulas the size of my hand priming to bite her and me, with only a barren broom handle to kill them with.
And when she did wake me, it wasn’t with the usual demands for food and bathroom accompanyment, it was with three books for me to read as she climbed into the bed and told me that my hair was beautiful.
When it was nearly noon, and our plans cemented for the day, I lay there reading my own book, listless and feeling the talons of sleep creeping across my eyes again, and again, she crept into the bed to caress my back and ask for more love. She was giving it to me, 1000% more than she has, maybe ever.
After friends left, an afternoon snack was dispensed of and she had organized what she wanted to do for some quiet time, I returned to the bed, to my book, to the sleeping fingers and I nodded, once more waking when she crawled in with me again.
Today was filled with so much loving, as if she knew that yesterday I was so hurt by this mental connection she has with me. And for that I’m thankful.
But I’m also further guilted by it, because today, she attempted to take care of me, and really, isn’t that what this has all been about? Her getting to be a normal kid, with normal parents, and normal concerns and activities? She shouldn’t be taking care of me, at all. I should have a stronger spine, that doesn’t wilt so easily when staggering down the hard road.
I spent most of the weekend working, writing my way into carpel tunnel, so as to guarantee our financial success for another week or two, and I have more work to do, to definitely take care of weeks two and three, but week four is up in the air, and besides that, I’m stuck.
I’m so glued to knowing the logistics and feeling the guilt. I’m unwaveringly confident that something positive has to come out of this, in comparison to all of the negative that could have come out of continuing the way things were, but I can’t move from this place of grief.
I’ve lost a best friend, even if it was only for part of the time; a lover, even if it was never consistent or trustable; a future, even if the promises and maybes were always cast aside so easily; a father for my daughter, for at least as long as it takes him to fight to become one; a certain amount of self-respect, because I always felt good about myself for just rolling with the punches, instead of being one of those alienating women.
So much. Gone. In a day, it seems like.
And if this were me a year ago, I would starve, drink, fuck or spend my way out if it, but I’m not doing those things anymore. Instead, I’ve been left with these bullshit neurotic reactions called feelings that I can’t shut off. So pardon me, but I’d like to go back to bed, now.
Right this very moment, there’s an email sitting in my drafts folder that I’m afraid to send.
Once I send it, I can’t undo it, and it’s potential damage could be huge. It could mean financial disaster for us, this month. It could mean that my daughter never sees her father again. It could mean that he shows up at my door, angry, drunk and needing vilification. It could mean going to court, with a list of his offenses, dragging his name and self-esteem through the mud to get a judge to see that at this point in time, he’s unfit to be more of a parent than an alcoholic.
I’ve been putting off writing it all day, finally getting down to it when I knew not doing so would cost me more, in lost work time, in emotional pain.
Today, I sent her off for her last visit with him and didn’t tell either of them, and I carefully planned to have an email waiting for him tomorrow morning, stripping him of his visitation, as soon as he woke up.
By doing so, I will have given someone an extreme case of the Mondays.
I know that I shouldn’t feel guilty, and that I’m doing the right thing and I didn’t race into this decision whatsoever. It’s been all of her life that his drinking has been an issue, and that her well-being has been at risk. But, the guilt-feeling, extreme-moralist in me can’t help but feel like I’m about to ruin his life.
Note, I didn’t say that he has.
Why yes, I will be attending Al-Anon meetings. Why do you ask?
Ultimately, it comes down to this: I don’t want Zoë to grow up like me. I don’t want her to think that if someone’s nice to you part of the time, then they love you, and if when they’re drinking they’re nicer, you should just accept it. I don’t want her to not be able to trust people and lovers, to never give herself over to another person, because she’s aware all too well what happens when they decide not to be there, anymore. I don’t want her to pick up a bottle and see salvation, healing for every moment when she thought that she wasn’t enough, or for the anxiety she feels, or the abandonment she faces even when she’s not alone.
Basically, the goal is is preserve this for as long as I possibly can.
Even if it comes at a great cost to me, and to him. She doesn’t owe us anything, and we owe her the world. I have the clarity of that mantra – I know that without giving her everything that I can, she’ll miss out on something (and still might) – but he doesn’t. And I can’t try to teach him anymore, when it puts a tariff on her emotional well-being.
