Confession #17

My day in court cannot come soon enough. I'm ready to "spit fire" and "damn the torpedos."
More catty emails from Ex and Ratface. How they can call themselves "Christian" is beyond me.
This last week was my babies spring concert at school. I kindly shared the information with Ex and he and Ratface showed! Imagine that.
Afterwards I went into the hallway to lather my daughter with praise and kisses only to be cut off by Ratface as Ex looked on. I wanted to grab her fat round body and kick her to the curb but love of my daughter curbed my desire and I stood by until "she" finished playing "mommy."
It's funny. They don't want to be there for any of the day in, day out requirements of parenting but they'll be there with bells on if it means they get to be in the spotlight and garner some good-time memories.
Now Ex, in his email, accuses me of undermining him and urges me to not punish our daughters.
I'm so tired of being under-estimated and treated like a low-life criminal.
I will never have my ending like the movies. The judge will not wave his gavel at Ex and shame him, ordering him to make restituion in full, plus 20 percent and give me all I asked for. He won't order Ratface to wear a sign for a month of every year that says, "BEWARE! I'm an abusive, jealous Bitch dressed in church clothing, and I'm a menace to society." And my children will not run up to me knowing all I've sacrificed for them.
My children will never know the pain I suffer keeping my mouth shut to protect them and the strength and courage it takes to say nice things about their father.
No, I won't have it. Honestly, I'm not sure what I'll have. The day of "mediation" looms near and court will follow, I'm sure.
What I do have seems insignificant but who can place a price on integrity, self-respect and virtue? Those are my traits, my gifts, my tools. They help me go another day hoping one day...One day maybe my children will realize in some part all I've endured for them.
Until then...Easter is coming. I believe resurrection is in the air. Maybe even mine.

Confession #16

I'm depressed.
I don't want to do anything.
It feels like things just keep getting worse for me.
I keep holding out for justice, karma, even the tides to turn and... nothing.
It just keeps getting worse.
At school I'm experiencing moderate success.
Moderate.
At home...
At home I'm experiencing defeat.
Or at least it feels like defeat.
I'm afraid and tired.
Tired.
Afraid that the seeds of my labor are not taking root.
Tired because I stand alone.
Sometimes I think, "Disappear."
Other times I just want to kill myself.
I think, "Then maybe,
then maybe Ex will be sorry for how horrid he is to me.
Maybe then he'll feel guilt."
But he wouldn't.
He would chalk my suicide up to leaving the church and being a heathen.
Of course she'd kill herself. 
He'd say to himself.
She no longer had the "gospel" in her life.
Gospel...
Ha!
More like brainwashing and foolery.
I asked a professor how I could do better.
He told me that I seem to always ask for permission.
That I need to be more confident in my work.
Confident.
How am I suppose to be confident?
And how do I explain myself without sounding like a whiney baby?
A pathetic, self-pitying woman?
I don't.
I can't.
So...
I keep moving forward.
Put one foot in front of the other.
Depressed I may be,
but even depression can't define me.
I'm more than this moment in time.
I'm more than anything Ex could tell himself about me.
I'm more than the need to have society tell me they're sorry.
I am more than even I believe.
And I know this for sure.
I know this because every time I push past the pain,
that I step outside of my comfort-zone,
that I dare to reach for more and reject old dialogue,
I see the reflection of a woman I've not seen before.
I feel courage that didn't exist before.
I no longer have to endure the pain that plagued me before
because it no longer confounds me.
So I continue to wander the Sahara of my today.
Put one foot in front of the other,
praying that the oasis ahead
is not a mirage.
And that soon I'll be drinking
cool, crisp water
from a jeweled goblet
amongst those who took this journey
and won.
Those who earned the title,
"Captain of my ship, Master of my soul."
Those who cheer me from beyond my sight
and that I will someday call, "friend."
Until that time...
I will not quit.

Confession #15

"Uncle!" I give.
I can't think of a time that my children have personally hurt me more than my two little girls do now. And if not my girls alone, then my boys along with them.
When I took my baby to school this week she asked me when I was going to get a new car. My car isn't even three years old but her father, who leased his car, traded it in for a new one. So DisneyDad gets to have new cars, new carpet, new furniture, new wife, new, new, new...he is also taking them to Disneyland for the second time this coming summer. I've not been able to take them once. I live in an apartment with used furniture that is torn, can't afford a trip to the movies for all of us let alone a vacation to Disneyland.
The big blow; my baby referred to Warthog as "mom" when she was talking to me. You would think my girls to be expert swords-women what with the accuracy of their "strikes." Straight into the heart every time. Ev-ver-ry time.
You know, if Warthog was a decent woman who treated me with respect it wouldn't hurt so much. But she isn't and doesn't. She is an evil and spiteful subhuman form that has charmed my daughters. The same daughters that I suffered greatly to bring into this world and would die for want to be like her.
Then my #3 son, who said he no longer had a father, decided to invite Ex to his surgery this week. Fortunately he asked him to come alone and while I'm glad he is reaching out to his father, I'd rather not deal with him.
Our oldest daughter has had some health problems requiring physical therapy and Ex refused to help pay. I got an email telling me to read paragraph 15, section 3. I wanted to reply with, "Read the contract you signed and had notorized promising to pay for the medical needs of the children," or "You prove, on an increasing basis, that your word, spoken or written, holds as little value to you as it does to everyone else," and then my last response which was deleted with the others was, "Shame on you."
Instead I wrote to my attorney. "I need for this to be over. I've no tongue left to bite and my soul dies a little bit every time I have to deal with him."

Confession #14

"Valour and Cowardice" -Alfred Stevens
1817-1876

Over the weekend I got a call from Ex, (He used my daughters phone as I had blocked his). He proceeded to tell me that "something" told him to look at our daughters phone history and low and behold, he finds a number from across the country. He reports that he's been up all night, finally went for a walk at 6 a.m. for an hour and a half because he was so upset.
He and Warthog researched the phone number and have ID'd the owner of the phone who is a registered sex-offender and the wife is incarcerated. He has spoken to our daughter several times and she's denied it every time. He proceeds to give me a long list of misbehavior on her part and informs me that if she wants to continue coming to his home she can't behave this way. As if her behavior determines the level of father-hood he will commit to.
"What if I were dead?" I ask him.
"Well, you're not." he replies.
"Ex, this is your daughter and she is a teenager. Yes, she's going to push against you and disappoint you but that is when you need to be there for her the most," I plead.
"Well she is not the sweet little girl she was and she has to know she can't behave this way," he insists.
I'm frustrated and can't believe my ears. He has no loyalty to his children if they don't fall in step with his ideology and expectations.
"No Ex, she isn't," I confirm. "But that is when she needs you the most. She needs to know you are her rock. That no matter how she behaves you are there for her. She needs to know that in your eyes, she is and always will be your little girl,"
He goes on, cutting me off and insisting he knows what I'm going to say so I needn't say it.
I get all the information he has found on the number he gave me and end the call.
I get onto the internet and can't find anything. Not the names he's given me, nothing he claimed. I search the state for the registered sex-offender and can't find what he said he found.
I call Ex back and ask him to repeat the number. He gives me a slightly different number. I repeat it back to him. He gives me excuses as to why he made the mistake and I let it go.
Again I research the names, locations and nothing is matching up. On a whim, I ask my boys if they've used their sisters phone and son #2 say's he did when he ran an errand for me earlier in the week because his phone was dead. I tell him the number and he confirms that it's his friends but his last name is not the one Ex gave me.
Long story short, Ex and Ratface researched the wrong number that happened to be that of a female sex-offender who is incarcerated.
I call Ex and he's not answering my ten attempts to contact him. He finally calls me back and I inform him of his error. That our daughter didn't even make the calls and was telling the truth. He was relieved, made excuses for his error and admitted that he had, in his words, "some crow to eat."
Mind you, my Sunday was shot to hell but I rested easy knowing that my daughter was "safe" and that I took the higher road. If the tables were reversed, Ex and Ratface would have raked me through the coals but I took the higher road and didn't add to the drama of the day.
I hate what he said about our daughter and the conditions he placed on whether she'd be able to go to his home. What decent parent does that? Children, no matter how ill behaved, are not disposable.
I will never tell my daughter of his words. I will not be the one to break her heart. I wish, as a mother, I could instill in her how valuable she is but unfortunately a girl needs her father for that. Even if he's a craven knight.

Confession #13

Know thyself.

I'm enrolled in a class, writing persuasively, that I was really looking forward to. That is until it became a tool for my "nemesis."
The semester started out easy enough, I loved what I was learning. The professor wanted us to keep a daily journal and write about what angers us. Easy enough for me, I have Ex and Warthog to write about. Easy enough until three weeks ago. We had turned in our first essay which was based on our journal entries. She then "flipped the coin" and instructed us that we are now to write from the other perspective. In short, I was to argue Ex's side. Thus began the unraveling.
Anxiety, stress, emotion on the cusp of spilling over...I quickly felt the emotional turmoil this assignment was causing. I don't want to be weak, I want to face my dragons and make them impotent. But how many battles do I take on at the same time? I deal daily with Ex, even if only through my children. I am in the process of going to court with Ex. I've no one in my corner, literally, who will pick up my "sword" and let me rest. I've stress 24/7 regarding my children, school and group assignments with partners that want to benefit/coast on my efforts, figuring out how I'll pay my bills, billing departments calling and demanding payment for what Ex is supposed to be paying for, children's doctor appointments, children's other appointments, having to report appointments to Ex, children who'd rather be with their father or brother (father and brother who don't really want them) and no one who wants to be with me. Add to that, family members who don't know what "loyalty" means, a mother who doesn't check on me, sisters who don't connect with me, (is it because I left the church?). I'm a woman in a community that doesn't protect me, without a church that never protected me and I am without a father who would have chuckled before reminding me not to sweat the small stuff and that it's all small stuff. Only, however, after he reminded me that people don't care so take care of yourself.
Add to the fact that I have to write from Ex's perspective that I intuitively don't trust the professor, that I don't feel "safe" in their class, I've decided this weekend to drop it and take a "W."
Now my battle is internal. Have I let myself down? Did I chicken out? Am I a coward?
I tell myself that the answer to all of those questions is, "No." Part of being a strong woman is knowing which battles to fight and how to take care of yourself. This class is not the battle that I'm fighting. It is, however, a potential source of self-mutilation, to which I don't subscribe, and a weapon to benefit Ex. This class was elective and not part of my degree. I'd rather take the three credit setback than to weaken my emotional health to prove I'm strong. Sometimes being strong means walking away. And in the words of an unknown person, "You don't have to attend every argument you're invited to."