Monday, December 20, 2010

Co-Parenting is Hard

How do I get the power back? How do I stop letting his criticisms and mean condescension slice me? Why do I give him so much power? Why do I care what he thinks of me?

Two weeks ago, he sent me a nasty text message about a gift that my son received for Hanukkah. It was to the effect of, "How dare you buy him something I said I was getting?" and truth be told, it was a mistake. But it was his tone that shredded my last nerve. This is why we got divorced. This is why I don't have to put up with his shit anymore. So, instead of flying off the handle like I usually do (bad, bad, bad..I need to learn to count to 10 or a trillion or something), I ignored the text. The next morning, he brought my son home and started in on me the moment the door opened.

"It's 20 degrees. Why isn't he wearing a hat? Why isn't he wearing gloves?"

I held up my hand which alternately meant, stop yelling at me, and go fuck yourself.

"Well, that's why he's sick!" He yelled and stormed off.

It's been sunshine and roses with him ever since. Every text is dripping with sarcasm. Every exchange is filled with barely-contained hate. I'm all about keeping the peace. But I refuse to be treated like a doormat --- I let that go on for eight years and I am not doing it one minute longer. He was civil and cordial for the last several months, but as always, when something in his life goes wrong, he remembers how vividly and viscerally he hates me.

Today, my son has had a resurgence of this sickness which pretty much felled his entire class. When the ex picked him up tonight, he started in on me again about the hat and gloves.

"I don't criticize your parenting choices. Don't criticize mine!" I yelled.
"What parenting choices?" He sniped.
"He's not sick because he doesn't wear a hat for the 15 seconds he is in the "elements" between his house and the car. It's viral. Have you read a medical journal in the last 50 years??"
"No kid goes outside without a hat and gloves."
"He HAS a hat and gloves!" I say, exasperated.
"Well he wasn't wearing them when I picked him up."
"Well, I can't control what he didn't have on when you picked him up!"
The ex rolls his eyes at this one. Yes, file that one under imperfect parenting #765-001.
"I know, I'm the worst mother ever...."
He looks at me and rolls his eyes. "THAT is a different story for another time..." He spits, the threat still hanging in the space between us.
"What is your problem?" I ask, tears starting to make their way front and center.
"Oh nothing."
"Well, if you can't take any time off to care for him tomorrow, then bring him home and I will take care of him."

I run inside and slam the door and my tears erupt violently. Racking, heaving, horrible sobs that I have let him get to me once again. Why do I let him do this? We have been divorced for almost two years. Yes, the divorce was my fault. Yes, I wronged him. Yes, I deserve his hatred for eternity plus 10. But how, really, are we supposed to parent this sweet, funny, wonderful little boy together if he won't at least dabble in courtesy and cooperation.

I'm very ashamed to say that for the first time, my son overheard this. It pains me to even write this. We have, somehow (thank god) kept this away from him thus far. Tonight, it was like a volcanic spewing of bitter, corrosive lava. I feel like I have let my son down. Worse, implicit in my ex's statements, was this sense that he is biding his time to tell my son, "Your mother cheated on me. She broke this marriage. She broke this family." Does he want to turn my child against me? Of course he does. Does he care that his son only has one mother and that a child needs a good relationship with both parents? No, sad to say, I am afraid he does not.

I am drained. But mostly, I am uncertain of the next step. Saying aloud that I will not let his hatred affect me any longer is clearly not working. I don't have time for therapy. I am a full-time working, single mother. But I cannot let this man, this jackass of a person, continue to elicit this response from me. I need to figure out how to move on.

How do I move on?

Monday, November 1, 2010

Restless

I'm restless. I can feel it. I hate the way the tide seems to spike and I find no joy in the things around me. It's not that I'm unhappy. They are two totally different and distinct emotions. It is the feeling that I am not living my best life. That I am somehow filled with unease about the current state. I know that I am not fulfilled at work. I know that if I could figure out what to do with my life that would combine some type of creativity and yet allow me to maintain the wall I cherish of not dealing with people on a daily basis (I would suck at retail), then I would move closer to an ideal of living a satisfying work life. But let's face it. The job market is horrid and I am lucky to be employed with benefits. That is the reality right now. This is not a time for frivolity. This is not a time for spiritual indulgence. It is a time of stark, often harsh realities that at times can seem quite dark. 


Midterm elections are tomorrow and I can tell you, I am frightened for America. I do not know where we are going. I only know it is the wrong way. We lost something real in the last forty to fifty years. We lost the gravitas of being America. Right now, we feel like the butt of a bad joke. How do we get back there? To that more noble time. I do not hold any illusions that things were easier or better in the <<insert decade here>>'s but I feel like we have lost common humanity. We don't even care about ourselves as a unifying body - Americans...it used to mean something...now all we are known for is crass reality television and impending political and socioeconomic doom.


I know that, on the whole, we have it so much better than many other places in this world. We have rights that are precious and not to be made light of. But we have to find our center again. We have to find the way to get along and to approach each other with something resembling humanity again. Otherwise, we are all doomed.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Peace Frog

I have a really unpleasant personality defect. I am jealous of others. It doesn't really matter who it is or what the subject. I find myself envious of virtually everyone. This one is a better cook than I am. This one has infinite patience with her children. She sings. He paints. She's naturally skinny. He can build a tree house in the backyard with peanut shells. They know how to tango (tango!). She can make a cornucopia from a paper towel. It goes on and on.

I know that at the root of all of this is one very common, very mundane item: insecurity. You would think that at this point in my life, I would not be insecure anymore. I have grown into myself for the most part, and even like myself most days. But there is this knee-jerk response of envy when I feel that others are doing better than I am. Which is ridiculous because hell, you never know what goes on behind one perfectly-decorated-for-Halloween-door.

I have this great quote that sits in front of me at work. I try to internalize it. Some days, this works better than others:

"Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about."

I can barely figure out what my journey is about. I'm hoping that this is one of those things that maturity naturally bestows upon you, like age and wisdom coming to sit gracefully on your shoulders, blanketing the unquiet inside with its regal silence.

A girl can hope, right?

Monday, October 11, 2010

10.10.10 ...(a day late)

I really would have loved to have begun this blog on 10.10.10 but as usual, I'm a day late and a --well, you know how the saying goes. 10 is my favorite number and in my brain, this soothes all manner of symmetry and rights the world.  Howevah....It is 10.11 (which will only be cool in 2012, but I digress)..and here I am...putting up my first post. This is my place to let it all go. I am not writing for anyone at all. Simply for me. I need an outlet to try to work things through. Words help me, like signposts on an unfamiliar road. Lining them up one by one, I can usually string together a coherent plan. And I have a bunch of them stored up. Words, that is. It's been an insane three years. Like a planet bursting in space, shards of, I don't know...interplanetary STUFF, scattered everywhere and like tiny beacons of shining, broken light, they live in all corners of the universe. My job has been to pick them up, deciding which were worthy of rescue and which were better off living in the poorly lit back alley of space. It's been a helluva ride. Some days, I am happy to be upright and walking. Others, I wonder if I have the capacity for happiness...you know, the actual DNA to achieve this mythical state. Who knows? But I am kind of curious to see how it all pans out.

Etiketler

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