I’m scattered right now, kind of depressed and prone to crying. I really wouldn’t want you to see the state of my kitchen. There’s still food in it and it’s not a superfund site, but you know. I’m keeping local take out and delivery places in business, because fuck cooking sideways with a wrench. I’m kind of out of it. I know I’m not the one who really matters in this, because I’m the adult. I’m okay with this. My job is to answer the phone when she calls; send supportive texts so she doesn’t feel like she’s all JANE EYRE’D out in the hinterlands. To keep answering my lawyers’ questions and to keep showing up to court.

I tend to not to want to write when I’m feeling terrible, in part because for many years the idea was to look tough and to keep things from affecting me. I used to just kind of collapse inward or go on autopilot. I’m kind of happy/sad to say I don’t really need those kind of walls anymore, because, simply put, my life is a lot better than it used to be. It’s hard to write or think about anything else right now. It used to be when I was feeling like this I was good for two or three cracking good stories about the time I shoplifted a home enema kit and then turned it into a Schnapps bong or SOMETHING involving the wrong hole and a rodeo clown.

Anyway, I really am aware that what has happened this week is only the tiniest little microcosm of misery–a mere drop in the bucket of what other people experience on a daily basis, but this is one of the hardest battles for me to fight, when one side is for love and the other is for money.

She looked so tired all week. When she called me, she sounded tired. I would see her after school when I picked up Strudel, in strange clothes and with sad eyes. I felt like we were both holding our breaths like the dog with the cookie on the end of its nose, desperately waiting to hear the “okay.” She would cling to me and I had nothing to say. I got emails from her teachers expressing concern and telling me that she was crying in class. I get sad texts about how she misses us at home and loves us and is thinking of us. This feels wrong to almost everyone.

I keep thinking about something that happened before the divorce was final, years ago, right after Strudel was born. One of his arguments in court was how bonded she was to him and how she was a “daddy’s girl.” She was four and at that stage where kids often become enamored with their opposite-sex parent, which I knew, and anyone who has ever paid any attention to parenting literature or has raised kids knows. This argument was frustrating and empty, like many of his arguments in court.

I remember him dropping her off for some time with me at my house with his future wife in tow, before she had her three kids with him. Frannie climbed out of the car and immediately burst into tears. He kind of hesitated, watching us from his car. We walked around the corner towards the door of the apartment building and she continued to weep. I knew he was unemployed that summer and I thought about what his schedule might be like.

I knelt down next to her, holding her, while her little body shook with sobs. It always slays me when she cries like that, when she is truly at the end of her rope. She sounded like that last week when I told her about the temporary custody change as well.

“You really like being with your dad right now, huh?” I said, and she nodded. “Do you want to spend this weekend with him too? Do you want a couple more days with him?” She nodded again, sniffling. I called him and he looped back, and she went off with him again. As much as I wanted to see her, I knew she was happy this way, for that weekend. She was much calmer when she came back and was ready to settle in and see me.

I will tell you I have thought about letting her go like that this time. What if he gets 50/50? Where do we go from there? If he “wins” and we return to the 2005 parenting plan, that’s a crappy life for a kid. She could have a life way far away at his house and be a visitor in my home, I know. I think about how all that “daddy’s girl” goodwill has expired. I thought about her hanging up after he called her last week and finding me. “He said X, and I knew it was a lie,” she said, rolling her eyes. I just listen. I think it would be a double betrayal now if he won and I let her go.

Strudel and I were in the car earlier this week. “You know, mom, this is not a fair thing with Franny.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, because even though the time is even, it is still not fair to her. OR US.”

“I think so too, honey.”

“I miss my sister,” she said.

I can’t fix everything for her forever, nor should I. I know the point is for her to grow up, develop her own set of coping skills. But I do feel like I let her down in this, because she expects me to help her, and I’ve failed somehow.

“Certainly not!” replied Toad emphatically. “On the contrary, I faithfully promise that the very first motor-car I see, poop- poop! off I go in it!”
—The Wind in the Willows

I went to court this morning. I didn’t realize how much I’d forgotten about the whole thing, since it’s been something like seven years. There was the very large digital clock up front with GIANT red numerals ticking off the time down to the second. There was a crackling in the air of anticipation and adrenaline.

Three cases were heard before me, and then it was our turn. As promised, SeaFed’s lawyer spoke for five minutes, and then my lawyer replied. My lawyer told me the judge was a substitute and she had seen him before, but she wasn’t thrilled about it, since he wasn’t a regular family law commissioner.

The judge opined that it spoke poorly for the father that this matter was being opened three years in to the current residential schedule and shortly after I had filed for child support, and that it did not seem to be in her best interest to commute for school daily. He also said that what the courts like to maintain is the status quo in these cases, which is what we expected. Then he said that he would be ruling for the father, and on a temporary basis until our next hearing we will go back to the parenting plan of 2005.

I got the feeling that it looked dodgy to the judge, but that his hands were tied. My lawyer said she thought that a regular family law judge would have not caused this “upheaval” in Franny’s schedule, but it’s really impossible to say what anyone else would have done.

Our next hearing to determine if there is adequate cause to change the parenting plan is in early December. In the meanwhile Franny will be commuting to his house 30 miles away, through traffic and on a ferry, 5 days a week on his weeks twice daily, and we are going to be exchanging her on Sundays in accordance with the 2005 plan from when we lived three miles apart.

I don’t think she’s going to love this, to say the least. But, optimistically speaking, at least she will really get a taste of what 50/50 is really like with him that way and can speak to the guardian ad litem with that knowledge.

Ultimately it’s up to the courts, now, of course, if we go back to 50/50 like in 2005 or if the schedule will look like it has for the past three years. I’m not upset, really. Court does not feel like the salt in my wounds that it did seven years ago. I don’t feel like I “lost” anything in this. I feel secure in my relationship with her. She trusts me and knows I am pulling for her. I mostly feel sad about any stress this will cause her and I’m fervently hoping her grades don’t slip in the meantime.

Do I regret filing for child support? No, I do not. The situation changed and evolved over time and it seemed like the right thing to do last spring.

Thank you for all the kind words you have left in comments, in Twitter DMs (all of which I hope I have replied to), and emails. And to my close friends here who have called me and emailed. This is one of those mini-tragedies that we all experience every day, I think. But I have learned one thing from this…there will always be forks in the road. When I ran out of money in 2005 and settled, it looked like he won, but then he moved away, which has been a really good thing on balance. My fear is that we will have an outcome where everyone loses.

Anyway…I am on a ramble at this point. I will get Halloween pictures up this weekend. Trick-or-treating went very well.

Your humble sherbet,
I, Asshole

The gaoler nodded grimly, laying his withered hand on the shoulder of the miserable Toad. The rusty key creaked in the lock, the great door clanged behind them; and Toad was a helpless prisoner in the remotest dungeon of the best-guarded keep of the stoutest castle in all the length and breadth of Merry England.

Edit 5 p.m.: Well, I didn’t cry until I told Franny how the next month was going to go and she started bawling. My heart feels smooshed.

Sooo I’m being sued right now. By GUESS WHO.

Hi there. Thank you everyone who has had a three-hour conversation with me recently.

“I am Strudel and I do not like this pie.”

This pie has apples, cayenne, white pepper, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg. Because fuck yes. I picked these apples myself. I think she was just kidding about the pie. What the fuck.

Badger badger MUSHROOM MUSHROOM.

I HAVE a prescription for Lexapro but I cannot make myself fill it. I have had too many friends who have sleep-capoeira’d or have drunk a wine cellar each night. Sometimes you have flight or flight and it’s for a reason, right? I feel like I SHOULD have flight or flight right now, when another person is arguing for a 60-mile round trip to school for Franny. I am doing a lot of yoga at home and am breathing deeply and am enjoying the occasional glass of Original Gangster Xanax, scotch. I would not be fussing with any of this if she wanted the mass commute. She wants things to stay the same, only probably with more candy and pwnys.

Building the guinea pig cage.

Did I choose this as my eternal nemesis fight? I did not. This does not go away. I feel like I’m still not divorced.

So I have a court date November 4.

Which really. He is having girl child #4 on the 19th of this month in the tradition of his babygun only makes girls. I want to say to him, relax, be in love, and you will be happy.

But I filed for child support, sooo. I broke the imaginary compact that says I pay for everything. You know what. YOU KNOW WHAT? No.

Thank you to everyone who has asked or emailed. I have been doing this for ten years and am a motherfucking hofessional. I’m ok, no matter what. Are we ready for court? Yes, we are. Stop, high kick, live blog.

Eleven.

Sooo the outcome of the dental appointment, as I mentioned in my previous post’s comments, was that I was advised to cancel it and reschedule it for my own time with Franny. I don’t really have anymore outrage for the outrage pile, except to say it’s kind of ridiculous that when he was trying to force me back to 50/50 last month he insisted I forward on all of her commitments so he could fulfill them, and now…I need to reschedule. I dunno.

I feel like we’re all in a terrible trap here. In an ideal situation, you have a co-parent who you can work with reasonably. I think it happens–my neighbor Moonpants seems to be working things out pretty well with his babymama. What do you do if you divorce someone because you don’t trust them to be married to you properly–how do you then let this person look after your kids?

It’s hard to know what to do when neither party wants to give any ground. I come out of the gate really fast and hard every time and I admit I make her and my family the first priority FULL STOP, especially in the wake of me assuming most of her care.

It turns into a vicious circle because trust was already broken years ago, so when one person wants to do something different the urge is to dig in, and no one wants to explain themselves in the course of communication–it gets nowhere and results in me constantly trying to map out and cost/benefit every scenario four steps ahead based on previous actions. I ask “why do you want this” of him at every turn, regardless of the fact that I will get no answer and it will end in a stalemate followed by a strained detente again. (I see both sides of that as well–if you don’t have a good reason, then why do you want to do it, on the other hand, why would he want to explain himself to me?)

I what-if myself like crazy, and I know a lot of it’s about me and my upbringing. Since I felt like I had no adult advocacy or really serious adult protection as a kid, I tend to be hyperaware of when the girls may be feeling like their butts are dangling in the breeze. I try to avoid helicoptering the girls so they see both that they are capable of doing things themselves, and also that there are consequences for letting the team down.

Earlier this spring Franny called me from school to ask me to bring a permission slip that I had signed the day before in front of her and that she had forgotten on the counter. “No, I’m sorry, I cannot run the form you forgot to school. I’m too busy working,” I said. I was mildly irritated that some adult had let her call me, based on the notion that it’s reasonable for a parent to drop everything to bring a permission slip for a minor on-site school activity.

“But, if I don’t have it, I can’t do the activity!”

“Sorry, honey, next time you’ll have to remember,” I said, firmly, but I hoped not harshly.

I could hear the tears in her voice as she rung off and since I am a secret baby about the girls being in any pain, self-inflicted or otherwise, I hung up and felt teary-eyed myself, and very mean. Next time she won’t wait until the last minute and forget, though, I hope. Life is learning you have to bail yourself out, most of the time.

I guess I’ve been thinking a lot about finding balance with how I deal with the girls and in particular how I approach Franny and her dad since I read this article recently–I liked what Gottlieb wrote about letting kids realize they can fix themselves sometimes:

Consider a toddler who’s running in the park and trips on a rock, Bohn says. Some parents swoop in immediately, pick up the toddler, and comfort her in that moment of shock, before she even starts crying. But, Bohn explains, this actually prevents her from feeling secure—not just on the playground, but in life. If you don’t let her experience that momentary confusion, give her the space to figure out what just happened (Oh, I tripped), and then briefly let her grapple with the frustration of having fallen and perhaps even try to pick herself up, she has no idea what discomfort feels like, and will have no framework for how to recover when she feels discomfort later in life. These toddlers become the college kids who text their parents with an SOS if the slightest thing goes wrong, instead of attempting to figure out how to deal with it themselves. If, on the other hand, the child trips on the rock, and the parents let her try to reorient for a second before going over to comfort her, the child learns: That was scary for a second, but I’m okay now. If something unpleasant happens, I can get through it. In many cases, Bohn says, the child recovers fine on her own—but parents never learn this, because they’re too busy protecting their kid when she doesn’t need protection.

To a certain extent, I think letting Franny deal with her dad and his household and other people and situations (within reason) is exactly what she needs–some strife, and some variety. Not all ways of life are the same. I know that some parts of her relationship with her dad are satisfying, and some need work, same as with me. I’m trying to strike that balance of “I trust you to be out in the world, but I am here if you get in over your head.” And to be respectful, always respectful.

Sometimes she vents to me about him lying to her or doing things she doesn’t want that I think are a stupid idea too, like visiting my unmedicated mother, and I force myself to say, “It’s okay to see his limitations and to love him anyway.” Only she can choose what ENOUGH is with him like I did with my mother, and she may never get there–I hope she doesn’t need to. It’s such a fine line being respectful of her and her relationship with her dad, when I have no respect for him.