Confession #12

My son gave my "baby" his old smart phone a month ago since he'd gotten a new one. He turned off the
internet connectivity but forgot, however, to turn off wifi and disconnect his skydrive. The other night he came to me and reminded me of all of this and then shows me pictures my daughter had taken of Ex and Warthog, without her makeup. The kind of pictures that are so close, the face is the only thing you see.
We laughed our heads off and I fantasized about printing off a hundred and placing them all over her community with some funny caption. Oh how I'd love to do that but...that's not taking me in the direction I want to go so I joke some more with my friend about it and move on, longingly.
I got the response from Ex's attorney yesterday regarding the suit I filed against him. He denied everything including the paragraph that states he has a DCFS case that found him guilty of the charges mentioned. My attorney assures this is normal and frankly I wouldn't expect anything else from him. He's a coward.
So why tell you about this? Because I'm freaking out. My experience in this community that we live in has taught me that women, especially mothers who've devoted their lives to staying at home to raise the children, are not valued and any claims of "protection/respect" are false. Women are not protected. Neither are the children for that matter and the police and protective agencies like DCFS have their hands tied.
So, I've tried to get help from the church, tried to get the district attorney to throw the book at him (he didn't), rejected by small claims court because it's a family court matter, and my last frontier...family court. I have no other recourse after this. I've waited for a year and the process has begun and I almost wished it hadn't because then I could still dream about justice and someone finally standing up and protecting my children and myself. Someone finally making him accountable and force him to do right by his children and the time I spent trying to be kind and generous to him. Being flexible so that our children could at least have divorced parents who could co-parent peacefully.
Honestly, I'm preparing myself to walk away with nothing. The flip side of that coin? If he "wins" in this as well, I don't know what I'll do. Just this process beginning has me so stressed and filled with anxiety it's affecting me in my studies, as a mother and I find myself silently seeking peoples eyes for reassurance. Trying to buoy myself with telepathic questions and searching for the answers in their eyes and finding none.
I miss my father. No one except for my therapist will ever know how horrifyingly exquisite the pain has been for me over the last year and I will never be able to describe it in words. Even these posts lack the ability to accurately share/describe the intensity of this past year.
One by one, on their own, these events, most of them, are no big deal. But pile them, one on top of the other, without rest, without sustenance, and they quickly become unbearable. Add to that trying to protect my children by not complaining about their father or his new wife. My crown of thorns and cross to bear, if you will. And to do it...I find I can relate to Christ, if he truly exists. I know the desire to bear the burdens of others and suffer their arrows in order to protect them. I don't claim to be perfect but I do claim to know the love that a mother has for her children and the willingness, even desire, to throw herself in front of a bullet, a train, arrows, and torture if it means protecting them. Even torture at their unknowing hands. Unfortunately my mother didn't have that for me. But being a child who wasn't protected and knowing how much that affected me, makes me even more committed to protect mine.
Why? Because it has to stop somewhere with someone. If we all act according to what was/wasn't provided for us we'll never make anything better. But if we can do that which we know would have made a difference in our lives, forgetting ourselves, then we can make a change for the better. And maybe in giving to someone what wasn't provided for us...maybe that can be a salve that will move our own healing along.
So...how will I survive this time? How will I not fall apart? One breath at a time. One moment at a time. With love and forgiveness for myself, and knowing that even if I don't win... I'm not down for the count. The judgement of a court will not define who I am or what I do next. It will only make me stronger and more resolved to try and make the way easier for the next person in line.