a laborer's hand

Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand.  
Kahlil Gibran

exploding dragons!!!

exploding dragons
mood: amused

so yeah. exploding dog aka sam brown has done it again.

i swear to you that this man must have me bugged to be able to illustrate my life, struggles, people who make up my existence so very well. again with the dragon series and i am absolutely in love with these two in particular. these are getting printed and hung in my house as soon as this whole debacle is over. 

Last Man Standing

In our old house we had a kitchen faucet that leaked. When I say leaked, I mean that the pipe under the sink would fill a regular size bucket in roughly a week’s time. It started after we had lived in the house about 2 years. I discovered it one day, with a 1 year old on my hip, and immediately told the man of the house. This was my first mistake. Second mistake was thinking that anything would be done to alleviate the problem.  Fast forward 8 years…the pipe was still leaking and every week the supposed “man” of the house would dump out the bucket. On and on and on it went until I finally got so damn tired of it that I called a plumber, didn’t tell Mr. Know It All and $35 later, the pipe was fixed. I was scolded. I was demeaned and so on and so on and so on. 

Yes, this was my reality. For 14 years I stayed with a man who was so completely irrational, so ridiculously stubborn that he would rather empty a bucket every week for 8 years than call a repair man and spend what he believed could have been an enormous amount of money. Yeah, a whopping $35…how does the saying go again? He cut off his nose to spite his face? Yep, that’s the one.

And this is what I find myself faced with yet again. I am at the tail end of what should have been an easy divorce agreement. We don’t have enormous assets or large bank accounts. We don’t have complicated bills or agreements or investments. We have very little in the grand scheme of things. Yet here I am 9 months after finally starting the divorce process, 11 months after leaving him and over a year into my wake up call for a better life. It’s a fucking three ring circus. But I’m not the ring master on this one. No sir, not me. This is all about fucktard and his need, his drive to punish me, control me and make everyone’s lives that much harder. 

We have gone back and forth, back and forth, and then, back and forth again. I feel like I’m chasing my tail. One day I have a firm grasp of things, issues, negotiating points and then less than 24 hours later, it is all turned upside down. Why? Who the fuck knows. I certainly don’t know anymore. This should have been signed, sealed and delivered long ago but time and time again he comes back with another stall tactic, another failed attempt at controlling me, another excuse as to why we can’t settle this entire matter once and for all.

What’s a smart woman to do? I’ll tell you what I did. I had my attorney finally schedule a trial date. I had my attorney send back the agreement for the millionth time and tell him that we were done negotiating. Either sign it or go to trial, end of discussion. Unfortunately, that’s the direction it seems to be heading. Off to trial to let a judge decide what we should and should not do. Granted, I am confident, as is my incredibly badass attorney, that the law is on my side and that I will get what I need from this divorce. Unfortunately for fucktard he is putting himself in a position to lose more custodial rights, visitation time with his children, required to give me significantly more spousal and child support, lose his right to overnight visits and lose his precious house.

All of this could have been avoided. All of it, all the pain he has caused his own flesh and blood, all the struggling and fighting and arguing and name calling. I’m not a perfect example of the proper way to handle a divorce, if there even is a right way, but each and every time I put our differences aside and try to do the right thing. It gets other people upset at me for not being tougher or meaner and I understand their frustration with me. But it’s my nature, my overly naïve nature, to put my anger to the side and try to move through it to a compromise or a middle ground.

That’s over. I’ve been pushed one too many times. I can honestly say that it’s a double edged sword having given him this ultimatum to either shit or get off the pot. If he signs it, I move onward and upward quickly and on the terms I have agreed upon. I’ve been craving this final piece of the puzzle for such a long time and I want it so badly. On the other hand I want to see him exposed for the man he is behind closed doors, away from this picture he has painted of himself as the victim. I want to expose the terrible things he has said to me, the way he has treated me, the way he has mistreated and disrespected his own children, refused to pay for their medical care, made bad decisions time and time again. And all of it, every last bit of it can and will be proven in court. But it delays my process of moving forward that much more. Caught between my desire for a fresh new start and my desire to make his life a living hell and take away everything he has taken away from me. That vengeful part of me is an ugly part and I rarely look her square in the mirror but right now, she’s shining back clear as day.

I never know what will happen next but it appears that I will know soon enough. All of this will be over soon, one way or another. All because he doesn’t want to pay the plumber to come take a look at the pipes, fix them properly and put everything back into working order. This may be the bucket that overflows on his ass and finally floods the kitchen. But that’s his choice, not mine.

knit me this

knit me this
Current mood:  bummed 

 

 

i recently took up a hobby that i find therapeutic. keeps my hands occupied, my mind calm and i get to make shit that looks purty. i have taught myself the art of crochet. yes, my nerdy undercoating is beginning to show. but fuck, it helps me get through some of the shenanigan's that go on around here.

as i was diligently working on a project this morning, in an effort to avoid my shitty ass day, i remembered something my mother told me a while ago. she has also been hit by the fiber bug and has been knitting like a fool lately so the metaphor is fresh in both of our minds.

the damage that i have done to myself over the years is not going to be undone overnight. like pulling a yarn on a sweater, it will not unravel immediately but row by meticulous row. each stitch is an individualized part of something larger. every single stitch was made and now needs to be unmade. so as much as we want that sweater to become undone and no longer be a sweater, it doesn't happen overnight. it takes just as long to unfuck it as it did to fuck it up. takes a while to wind that ball of yarn back up.

for me i don't want to remake that sweater. i want a new, individualized version of that sweater. something brighter, sweeter, prettier. it was way too heavy to begin with, never fit properly and didn't show off my voluptuous figure. i do however find a great deal of value in the yarn. my fibers are still sturdy and perfectly good. a little tattered, yes. i am definitely tattered and worn. on the inside and out. the inside is starting to come back together, or apart however the case may be. i'm already well on my way to rebuilding myself from deep down thanks to some serious love and support from so many that i hold so dear. the rebuilding of the exterior is another blog in and of itself but in due time.

however, the more and more that i unravel this shitty ass sweater, the more and more knots and tattered edges i find. it surprises me, really. it definitely wasn't stitched with care or love but was fucked up from the very first loop. i get to the end of the yarn and think, what more? what now? and then poof, there's more and it's even worse than the last row of stitches. fuck me! took me off guard just a few days ago when i was hit below the belt yet again. every time i think i'm at the end of the yarn, there's another ball waiting to be unfucked. i'm exhausted trying to unfuck my life and trying to handle all that it involves, including that piece of shit excuse of a man who did a good amount of the damage.

days like today make me feel like i should have left the sweater alone. i know that's not the real way that i feel but goddamn, give me a fucking break already! i would love just one small piece of stability or normalcy or a long uninterrupted pity party. maybe that's what i need. to hermit myself in my dark little hole and wallow for a while. i haven't done it in a while and perhaps it's just another part of the process. another unwinding, untangling, pulling out the stitches.

Master of My Domain

Master of My Domain

Mood: Frisky!

There are advantages and disadvantages to every lifestyle choice. For me, being married to a shitty ass man wasn’t working anymore. Go figure. So I jumped in feet first and now 10 months later (yes 10 months) I am living as a semi-single bachelorette. 

I say semi-single for a couple of reasons. The first being that I’m still not divorce from said shitty ass man and am frustrated with the legalities. If I let it, it would eat me alive! The second reason is that the kids are with me nearly 70% of the time. That means that when I have time to myself, I take full advantage. It’s actually kind of cool getting a scheduled break from being a mom. I’ve never had that before and although I miss the kids desperately sometimes it is a welcome break from being a full time, stay at home mom. And no, it’s not nearly as easy as it looks!

When I do have some “me” time I have learned to use it in several different ways. On occasion I turn off the phone, computer, TV, everything and just meditate. Sometime I spend time with my stud. As much time as I possibly can when he’s available. Occasionally I just get caught up on bullshit tasks that go uncared for during the times when the kids are around.

I have found one very interesting advantage to my semi-single status...I get to be “intimate” with myself in a way I never have before. 14 years of being in a non-sexual relationship with an emotionally unavailable man left a void. A really deep void! Granted, that void is well cared for by a wonderfully skilled lover but I needed something more. I needed to figure out what I liked. Before my marriage I experimented and was open to new and different experiences. But once I met fucktard, all of that went out the window, including exploring my own likes and dislikes.

Now I feel like I’m rediscovering my body. I’ve talked about it before but this whole process has been somewhat of a sexual reawakening for me. What I didn’t anticipate was that I didn’t just reawaken but I am discovering new and wonderful possibilities in the realm of carnal pleasure. It’s wild to suddenly discover that you like to be touched in a new way, in a new place. I can literally wake up in the middle of the night from some wild sex-capade dream and take advantage of myself. It’s fucking kick-ass and a hell of a lot of fun exploring this almost 38 year old body.

What’s even better is that I can take that knowledge into the bedroom and explore it with my sweet man. He’s a quick study. And I’m discovering that my pleasure is much deeper and more satisfying than in my 20’s. I am really, really enjoying this process and plan to play it out as long as possible. I am indeed “master of my domain” in my own way.

Staying married=zero. Being semi-single=priceless!!!