Strange that I should be beginning this with what appears to be the beginning of the end. Forgive me if this all comes out in a crazy jumble of words and conflicting emotions. I need to write this like nobody will ever read it, because it's very personal, and what we have been going through as a family for the past three years is very raw and scary and frustrating and confusing. Even living in it, took my mind a while to wrap around.
I had never been involved in a family court situation before we became a family.... my mom never took my biodad to court for anything, and I never took E's bio dad to court for anything. My dad payed my mom a minimal amount and I happily went to visit my dad every summer for 2 weeks. We always had a great time, horseback riding, hiking etc. Now E's bio dad really didn't want in from the beginning. He sent me the same minimal amount for a few months and was never a prescense in E's life, because 1. he didn't really want to be and 2. I moved over a thousand miles away.
I could rehash all of the gory details but it might take a while and truthfully it's really painful to write out. I'll just say this, about a week or two after meeting C (he was 4) he would come up to my and say things like "We are safe here right?" to which i would respond "Of course we are. Why do you ask" and he'd look up at me and say "Because Mommy isn't here to start trouble"
Or the time last year when he was sitting in the back of the car and said "I wish my mom would be like a normal mom. She's always on the couch with a stomach ache and never pays attention to me"
Or the time after he was with her for 4 months and I went to give him a much needed bath and I noticed that his toenails had grown so long that one had curled under to the other side of the toe. I can't imagine him walking around like that. It's like he kind of just accepted the fact that she wasn't going to take good care of him and walked through the pain.
These things are only a few examples of what has festered into anger, frustration and resentment, and to me that is like being repeatedly punched in the stomach. It's only recently that I have started praying for her and to have empathy. Trust me that is hard. I was going to write her a letter to send to the mediator but it came up sounding fake, because I really wanted to write, "How dare you? How dare you go stick needles into your arm, leave your son with druggies, pretend to go to work and really go to drug houses. What the fuck are you keeping him from his family for? YOU don't spend any time with him! You don't take him to cub scouts, you bring him to your abusive boyfriends house where in front of him you argue and swear about God knows what."
I'm looking forward to finally getting to pick up BOTH boys from school, take them both to whatever activity they decide on doing, reading at night, and even getting annoyed at them fighting. I drive E to school every morning thinking about the piece of the puzzle that seems to be missing. I picture C in everyday activities that we do and take for granted. He deserves to have the carefree life of running around with his friends until they drop, to teach his brother things, and to fight with his brother. I want him to have the concerns of only his math homework getting done and not of whether or not his mom will come home from whatever to take care of him.
You know, maybe this was the plan all along. When we met, it fit together like it was something that was planned the whole time. I wasnt' looking and he certainly wasn't looking. Our boys fell in brotherhood instantly, like they were born to support and love each other. We have fought tooth and nail for what so many families take as a normal everyday mundane things. I draw my strength from the everyday things that C deserves... friends coming over, sleepovers, going to the park. I find it embarrasing and appauling that the children in his mother's neighborhood openly admit that they are not allowed to go over to his house.. He can go over there, but some families are wary because it's known in the neighborhood that if he ends up at your house, then she won't pick him up until late.
Eh, I am so frustrated. The update from mediation is that she's not budging. Still denying a drug problem despite 3 arrest in the past year. I don't know who this bitch thinks she's fooling.
Hopefully someone can talk some sense into her... I know they made my husband leave the room because he wasn't 'mediating' so well. 8 years of her lies and munipulation is hard to swallow, and listening to her try to bullshit the mediator was getting the best of him.
PRAYING FOR SOME LIGHT!!!
