FINISH IT!!!

So that's is not a song title, at least not to my knowledge, anyway. It's kind of from Mortal Kombat. But I have an idea...you know all the older blog posts that are kinda short, they feel like there might be more to the story!?! Well...there definitely is more!! And I'm gonna give it to ya! 

Look forward to new blog posts that relate to the old ones by being titled with another song from the same bands and/or albums the original post's songs are from--it's gonna be so rad! I am excited to share so many cool things with everyone who comes here! There are a lot of things that I would like to write and I feel that I have released a lot of negative emotions here that had been souring my soul and I would like to keep going! This is a true purge of all the bad shit that I don't want to hold onto anymore!

Do you want to know what I am doing this morning? I am singing and dancing in my kitchen while I bake gluten-free (yes, I'm back on my bullshit) blueberry muffins. I made a giant muffin, by the way, and it is spectacular and cooked all the way through! the muffin pan I have only holds six muffins and it's hot so I made a blueberry loaf as well. They're delicious, just in case you're wondering. 

It seems like a good time to put a song in here so just go listen to a whole album or something. I recommend Afterglow by Saint Motel. It just dropped this month. Check it out. 

Father of Mine -- Everclear & Come To Mama -- Lady Gaga

People talk of true love as if it is something only found in a fairy tale. Too many fairy tales talk of romantic love, not nearly enough about the other types of love that are true and steadfast in our lives. Maleficent taught us all that true love is the love of a parent and child, that unbreakable bond that is forged through selflessly loving another being, caring for them when they are so small and vulnerable, and raising them to be safe and loved as themselves. 

I wish I could convey this feeling to others who...just can't seem to "get' it. I wish a lot of things. 

Tonight I was woken up by the sound of the bedroom door opening followed immediately by the sound of loud sobbing. Addison. She began rattling off a tale that only made me angrier the longer I listened. Jamie was telling her (two days before the money is due) that he can't afford to pay his half of the money for her senior graduation cap & gown and club dues. Half asleep and incensed at every word, I tried to understand the next part, but I still don't really understand, but he proceeded to tell her that she should have thought about all these things before she wrecked her car? All I know for sure is that I told her that she has to stop talking to that motherfucker. Like right now. And tell him that I fucking said so! 

New boundaries are being set. As I write this, I am still processing. 

It was the second time that she came in sobbing that made me get all the way up. "Jesus Fucking Christ," I was cursing the summoning-Jesus-curse as I was climbing out of the bed and as many times as I have said it, he just doesn't show in these tough moments!

Who is this fucking monster trying to hurt these children like this? Their father? NO. This is the man who donated his sperm, nothing more. If he can't do anything but hurt everyone around him all the time then he just doesn't get the opportunity with us anymore. I set my own boundary about this long ago and have been reinforcing it. But here is the new one. 

No more of this. No more phone calls or texts from him after bedtime. It's just not allowed anymore. And whatever way we have to, we will work out the costs of their care on our own, because asking him for anything always comes with strings attached. No more cars or phones. No more guilt trips and put-me-downs. 

The best (perspective, Perspective!) part of this whole scenario is that this is the same guy who encouraged us to move back down here and then--like a father probably should--he (mostly) paid the rent where we were living in the once-a-trap-house-but-always-a-trailer that he rented from his dumbass landlord for $350 each month. The times that he consistently paid for the rent at that place--well, that's about as much child support as I ever have or will receive from this motherfucker. And when it came to the point that he didn't want to pay the rent anymore, he kept telling me that I was going to have to move. He kept saying it like it should be my idea, only it never was, and it wasn't until he and the landlord--at least this is what I think happened--that they decided to tell me that the landlord was selling the place to get me to move out. The landlord came over with a piece of paper that said I would move out immediately and tried to get me to sign it. And then he looked absolutely flabbergasted when I said that I wasn't signing anything like a contract without my lawyer looking at it first and the dumbass was actually like you have a lawyer!?! Anyway, long story short, I told the guy that I would try to be out in about 30 days but that I would never sign any paper saying so...I think it was a whole convoluted mess to try to get me out of there because Jamie didn't want to have to fork over $350 dollars every month. So we moved out without a place to go lined up. 

So the kids went to stay with their dad temporarily and suddenly he got to understand just how much it actually costs to raise children. They would complain to me that he would come home from work, stinking, and sit at the kitchen table and drink beer until he passed out in his dirty work clothes. He never bought dawn--they couldn't wash the dishes like he was asking them to do. He would send Addison to the store for him or demand that she take him wherever, whenever. In the summer, he was waking her up in the middle of the night to take him to the motel to meet people. Who does that? Was it for sex or drugs? Was he dealing and or using again?! So many questions?! There was so much I only found out in retrospect and so much more that they probably haven't even told me!! In the last weeks that they were there they called me in the middle of the night because he wanted them to use rags to wipe their asses with because he could go by the store every day after work to get beer but not toilet paper. I took one roll to them and then took them to buy a pack with his money. I think that was the last time that I ever did anything like that for him. Never gonna help that piece of shit again. 

When he found out that I had gotten an apartment big enough for all of us and we would move in at the beginning of October, his behavior turned from bad to worse. They said he constantly found ways to pick at them or put them down or complain about what they were doing or weren't doing. He told Addison that if she moved out of living with him and back to living with me that she could never come back!!! This was so upsetting to her! I told her, assured her, that as long as I have a roof over my head, my children are always welcome to stay with me. Who says that to a child???

Silver had looked at living with their dad as an opportunity for Jamie to really show them that he could be a good dad, provide for them, spend quality time with them, and really step up in the father department. It was an opportunity for Jamie to do just that, but it was an opportunity that he squandered being drunk, irresponsible, and childish. Imagine your own children thinking of you as nothing more than an overgrown teenager in temperament and attitude--and imagine them NOT BEING WRONG ABOUT IT!?!?! I had to go pick Silver up on several occasions that Jamie was screaming at him so much and he was so upset that he couldn't calm down and couldn't even eat because of not wanting to be in the same room as Jamie. 

Fast forward a whole month of me living here at the apartment and Addison has recently had a car accident and can't drive the car that her dad was letting her drive because it was totaled in the wreck--don't even get me started on how this asshole picked a fight with the very kind police officer who was at the accident scene before the call even went out and helped our daughter out of the overturned vehicle. I was out of town at a pre-planned concert event with Sarah and couldn't make it back for like 3.5-4 hours when I got the call, but I told her that I was coming and sending my Dad to meet Addison at the hospital because we were so far away. They made the mistake of going to Jamie's house and informing him of the accident. He was passed out drunk when they got there and woke him up to tell him. He made his way over to the hospital and proceeded to make a fool out of himself by being drunken and disorderly and very disrespectful to the kind officer who was there simply doing her job. Family and friends who saw his unhinged Facebook posts about the incident were left scratching their heads--yeah, he was unnecessarily angry about the cop and even more so about the car being towed and the phone being lost (or, as he accused the tow staff, "stolen") somewhere along the way, but what about Addison, how was she? Crickets. Addison has a concussion that has gone undocumented and untreated because, when I went to her primary care office to follow up after the accident, they asked for an insurance claim number and when we called Jamie to ask about it, he started yelling at us so I just hung up the phone. The kind receptionist told me that her doctor would likely just send her right back to the ER that she had just been to, and they still might want a car insurance claim number or whatever. I told her that Jamie would need to take her and sign paperwork with the necessary insurance information. Of course it never happened. After about a week or so her dizziness and nausea went away. She's much better physically now, but, emotionally this whole ordeal has taken a toll. Her dad keeps asking her to call about getting new car insurance so he can "help" buy "her" a new car. Wanna know why he can't have a car? Because he got another DUI recently and lost his driver's license FOR TEN YEARS. Wanna know why he wants these kids to have a car so badly?!?!? So he can order them to drive him around in it simply because he bought it "for them" and "pays for everything."

I feel like their father is the Kevin Federline of bumfuck Kentucky. 

When we moved in here, first Silver and I, and then after a few weeks, Addison moved all the rest of her things in, and it was immediately better for everyone. The kids were resting better and felt less anxious. Everyone thought that things would get better and they did. And things will continue to get better. I don't think their dad is gonna get any better, but I can't fix him or that situation. But, what I can do, is try not to have to depend on him for anything too important. Isn't that really sad? 

My heart breaks for my children. All I ever wanted was for them to have a family that loves them. 

All I want is for them to be treated better by their father. 

You know who's a good Dad? Mine. Even my kids know that. On more than one occasion they have told me that they wished they had a dad like mine. 

I wish that they did too. 

I talked it over a bit with my confidant and feel much better because, despite the fact that their father will never be a good father to them, there are so many other people in their lives who can show them true love. 

I will continue to give my love unconditionally. To the children I say, 

"...Come To Mama

Tell me who hurt ya

There's gonna be no future

If we don't figure this out

Oh, come tomorrow

Who are you gonna follow?

There's gonna be no future

If we don't figure this out..."

If you can just go ahead and read If by Rudyard Kipling again, that'd be great. But, like, really read it. Like analyze it and shit--ruminate, if you will. Please, for the love of god, learn something!

...a lot of people ask me about writing things, and I know I keep saying this, but I can't do any of the writing that I want to do for fun until I finish with some of this shit. so, while this is for me, when you ask me to write, just be careful what you're asking for, because the things that were omitted from the blog before were omitted because they SUCKED SO BAD and I wasn't ready to unleash the horrors

Alien — Britney Spears

 

Just something pleasant to see. 

Slowly Spilling Out — Saint Motel & Learn To Let Go -- Kesha

oh god!

earlier it was easier for me, I think, to talk about who I love. I don't give a fuck about the spelling grammar or the capitalization so bear with me because I gotta get it out and let it all go.

I am not going to be afraid anymore. I am so happy and I gotta stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

It's not easy for me to talk about the things that hurt so deeply and for so long. Things that I have thus far chosen not to share here but I'm finished with being ashamed of what happened to me and I am tired of waiting for the other person in this fucked up equation to just snap because that's what I have come to expect. And I'm not talking about the man that I will love until the end of my days, no, never. I am speaking of Jamie. The dreaded ex. And I have to learn to let it go. 

So I have something to say to him.

I have something to say to you, Jamie:

Fuck you! You suck! Stop drinking and remember who you were trying to be before you gave up!

I gotta let go of all the times you hurt me. I can't list them all here now, but I'm gonna try to hit the top ten, OKAY?

I'm mad and hurt that you made me stop talking to my friends when we got together! I'm mad that you made me make a list of everyone I had ever fucked. GUESS WHAT, BUDDY, for twelve goddamn years the only stupid motherfucker that I fucked WAS YOU!!! Can you say the same about the time we were together? Did you really fuck my best friend and think that having her tell me that you didn't was gonna win me back?!?! I reiterate: YOU CAN HAVE HIM, I DON'T WANT HIM!!! And when I had your son and our daughter in the car at that music place on dry ridge and I came inside to find you because you wouldn't answer your phone, and found you with your arm around another woman,  AT THE TIME, THAT HURT ME SO BADLY. I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!!! AND I WENT RIGHT HOME AND TOLD MY MOTHER ALL ABOUT IT. MOM MAY HAVE TOLD YOU TO YOUR FACE THAT SHE LOVED YOU BUT SHE KNEW HOW FUCKED UP YOU REALLY WERE BECAUSE SHE MADE ANDY SWEAR TO GET ME AWAY FROM YOU ON HER DEATHBED!! AND SHE PROBABLY WASNT THE ONLY ONE!!

And what about all the times that you called me a slut and a whore!? Just to tear me down and make me feel bad?!?! On the camping trip in front of my entire family just because I was hanging out with my brother and his buddies instead of you!! YOU'RE SUCH A GODDAMN DRUNKEN LOSER THAT YOU PROBABLY DONT EVEN REMEMBER THAT HAPPENING!?! You embarrassed me so many times in front of my family. 

I couldn't watch A Star Is Born more than once even though I love Lady Gaga so fucking much. Maybe YOU should watch that movie, Jamie, because I bet it could be a revelation to you!! you probably gotta be sober to really absorb it though. 

On vacation Jeremy woke me up in the middle of the night while I was sleeping with TWO TODDLERS WHILE PREGNANT and had me to come downstairs because you had pulled out your small-ass dick and pissed all over the floor in the kitchen/dining area. I don't know how many times that I woke up to find you pissing in a corner and having to clean up after you because you were so goddamn incoherent that you couldn't do anything but like pee and stumble back toward a horizontal surface. I hate you for the way that I felt back then, so ashamed of you and your behavior when you drank "too much" or any hard liquor at all.

I try to let it go but I gotta get it all out. 

I'm mad that you were so addicted to porn that you would fall asleep with porn videos playing on the phone or television. One night, when Anna Lee was really small and around the time I got pregnant with Addison, you went out and stayed out at a bar or with someone else most of the night and came home with the Paris Hilton porn movie and when I woke up in the middle of the night--after many frustrating phone calls to my mother and father before I finally went to bed--I walked into the living room to find you on the white sofa naked, you had shit and pissed yourself and masturbated until you fell asleep to the Paris video. I was so mad that I took it out of the DVD player and broke that motherfucker in half with my bare hands and threw it at you and you never even moved. And then when you woke up and I confronted you about it you made me swear to never masturbate again!!! WELL GUESS WHAT YOU SMALL DICKED MOTHERFUCKER!?!? I WENT RIGHT INTO THE SHOWER THE SAME DAY AND MASTURBATED TO SPITE YOU AND THEN EVERY FUCKING DAY THEREAFTER WHENEVER THE MOOD STRUCK AND LAUGHED ABOUT YOU BEING SO STUPID. Really you're a fucking monster. Don't even get me started about the video cameras, you disgusting prick. Thank god you aren't good with technology!!!

And what about every time we went out to eat!!?!?! You are a terrible person and a terrible person to have to wait on! It's people like you who make the movie Waiting and what they do to that guy's steak so fucking satisfying. I can only hope that every steak that you sent back to a kitchen was treated the same way because YOU FUCKING DESERVE IT!!!!

Oh yeah....here's how fucked up it ended. it was uk u of l game day and my brother and his kid came over everybody drank and had a good time, they went on home, we drank some more, your brother was there too. he lived there--I will spare you both what I know about you and your family and everything that goes along with that but DO NOT FUCKING TRY ME, OKAY!!?!?! Silver woke up and was fussing, wanted me to go to bed with him, so I did. 

And you want to know how I woke up?

I was being dragged out of the bed by my arm and down the hallway and Jamie--you were screaming at me about fucking our neighbor, who had become my bestie, all because I went over to her house and hung out with her by myself for a little while and YOU HAD TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR OWN FUCKING KIDS WHILE I WAS NEXT DOOR FOR LIKE MAYBE AN HOUR OR SO MAX!!? 

I kept insisting to you at first that I wasn't fucking her, because like, we were sitting on the kitchen stairs talking when you came over to tell me that Silver was fussing and you just couldn't comprehend that I wasn't fucking anyone but your sorry ass!!! Believe me, if you hadn't gone down on me so frequently, it would have never worked out, but I guess you must have known that you couldn't satisfy a woman any other way. But like, I had never done that to anyone else and that night was definitely not the time for me to be trying it out! We were in the bedroom Anna Lee was lingering in her doorway directly across, witnessing the whole thing. I wanted to pee so badly and you wouldn't get out of my face so I pushed past you and into the bathroom to relieve myself and had no more than pulled my pants back up when you burst in and I told you to get the fuck out and let me be and tried to push you back out but the look on your face told me that you were enjoying pushing me to the edge. Ok. I slapped you with each hand repeatedly and kept saying get the fuck away from me! And then you pushed me. Hard. And I fell, The shower there by the toilet had this small ledge you had to step over and you pushed me over it into the hard tile wall and I had no sooner hit the cold wet floor of the shower when he grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and hair and yanked me back up insisting that it was an accident, a mistake, and I was screaming at you that you had put his hands on me. he still insisted that I had fucked the neighbor, screaming at me about why was I changing my pants if I hadn't fucked her!?!? And I yelled back that I was all wet WHERE YOU PUSHED ME DOWN IN THE SHOWER and that I was gonna fucking call the cops. I had my phone and was heading down the hallway, dialing 911 when she started to come at me again. all the kids were there and crying, he body checked me into the wall and I was rattling off the address and telling them that he had pushed me down and he was hurting me then and to come now. Jamie took off in the truck he had at the time and was in Anderson county before the cops caught him. ANOTHER DUI. 

MAN FUCK YOU. 

fourteen months you were sober and I hid the DVO paperwork in my dresser drawer under my favorite jeans for those fourteen months and only took them out again when I was really ready for it to be over. 

you jerked my iPod out of my hands and crumpled it in front of me when I didn't want to fight and scream with you anymore. when I told you NAMASTE, MOTHERFUCKER and it made you so mad that you broke my magic music machine!!! I took your stupid change jar and told the apple store employees what you had done and got a new one. It cost me $75 and it wasn't engraved with Laura Beth Desinas Ineptire anymore--but I still have it. Because fuck you. 

I told you that I was done with our marriage and that I didn't want to be with you anymore. You told me that you didn't even like me anymore. I wanted it to be over but you were never gonna let me go.

there was only one way you would let me go and you had told me that from the beginning. and that was if I cheated on you.

fuck all the expensive lingerie you bought me after I cheated on you and told you about it and then destroyed not only a shit ton of clothing and lingerie but also the leather gloves that were Evelyn's. It hurts to this day because I can't replace them. FUCK YOU FOR THAT

fuck you for not actually letting me go even after I fucked an old boyfriend and told you about it. (also sorry bout that, dude and his girl, that was not the greatest moment in my life BUT IT WAS EFFECTIVE)

It took me a long time to get a divorce because you sucked so much. You were out selling drugs and I guess doing some of them too. You went on a downward spiral and ended up in jail but you haven't ever hit the real rock bottom have you, dude???

There was a time when all of these things that you have done to me hurt me so badly. But you want to know what hurts so much worse???

WHY CANT YOU BE SOBER JAMIE? WHY CAN'T YOU BE A DECENT MAN AND A GOOD FATHER?!?!  

What hurts me more than the few bumps and bruises I physically endured and all the mental, emotional, sexual, and financial abuse I suffered, what is so much worse, is not being able to change who the children's father is so that they can have a decent one. I, of course, have chosen the best possible life mate to stand by my side now, but I can't replace their father in their lives with anyone else. They will suffer because of you, Jamie, and your poor life choices and that hurts more than anything because I don't think that you will ever be the man your mother expected you to be--Yeah, JAMIE, I DON'T THINK YOU ARE MAKING YOUR MOTHER VERY HAPPY. But if shaming you for your behavior worked, you would have made improvements ages ago. 

So I gotta let it out and let it go. I don't know if this is just the tip of an iceberg or if this is truly the end. I want so much for it to finally be over and for Jamie to leave me alone once and for all. 

just leave me alone. this is my most polite request. 

Slow Dance — Saint Motel

When I met him, I just knew.

I always just kinda thought that love at first sight was just something that people said—it only happens in stories and on film. But I met a man, quite unexpectedly, who handed me a crystal and told me that my aura or vibe or whatever was very weird. 

I knew it in that very first moment we met. I knew that this was the person that I was supposed to meet—he was why I came here!?! It was such a strange thought to me at the time, because, of course, how could I know that I would meet him? It was a whirlwind, sudden and intense and, in the beginning I was naive and had a very unhealthy idea of what love might entail—the person who had consumed my life before had done just that—consumed who I was and swallowed down in great gasping gulps all the love and support that I had to offer until my cup was cracked so badly I had feared it may never overflow again! Never would I have to endure such draining attention masquerading as love, not now that I had met someone who was capable of loving me like I had always deserved! And what a revelation to my soul and how healing it was to have a mate who is complimentary and uplifting rather than impetuous and degrading! How very different it is to come to expect tenderness where there was once ridicule, laughter instead of shouting, and how strange to be told, “No!” and that perhaps I can’t have everything that I want! 

The path I had chosen back then wasn’t easy, and I had known that the day I decided to really be happy again. I would have to learn, grow, and figure out who I was as a human, independent person, mother, and woman. It’s a journey that I am still on today. It’s been over ten years since I had met the man who would be there with me through all the amazing, unbelievable, terrible, and awesome events that life can bring. Living inside of the sprawling suburban-utopian-lie of a house had been my comfort zone simply because my prison cell had become so familiar to me. Steven came into my life, took one look around, and promptly sent me to “relax” by myself outside the house for the first time in years (I wasn’t very good at it at first)! And, when the divorce was final and I had lost it all—that suburban dream home and all it’s promises—while we snuggled together in bed searching apartment listings, instead of telling me what I wanted to hear when I was so very sad in that moment, Steven told me what I needed to hear first and then comforted me when I found the truth upsetting! 

Is it real? Could it be true? Who was this person in my life showing me a new and altogether different way of living that made things better for our family—more enjoyable, fun, and, most importantly, safe!?!? Wasn’t that what I had been missing? Wasn’t this the life partner that I had wanted all along? Maybe true love isn’t being told everything you want to hear when you want to hear it and, instead, is something more akin to telling the ones you love the truth when they need to hear it the most, even if it’s painful or unpleasant. 

A decade ago, before I had grown and changed so much more than I could have ever dreamed, I was struggling with a great loss. My mother had passed and the grief had caused me to suffer greatly with depression. When I met Steven, my whole life was changing and I decided then and there that I wanted him to be a part of it always. So much has happened in those ten years and we have been through so many different challenges in our lives, both as individuals and as partners in this life. For a whole year, a little more than a year, I suppose, we were apart. I enforced a boundary that I think did us both some good. It took nearly the whole year for me to stop being so upset at being apart. After a while there would be days that I didn’t think about him. After months I could listen to songs and not have to change the music because it reminded me of him. I emailed him to tell him of my little victories in not being so upset about us being apart.

And then I made a phone call. One call and it was…like the time had never passed. I came here and wrote. It took more than one conversation but I finally found a way to communicate clearly with him and let him know how I felt, not only about the past year, but also about how things had ended and how I never really wanted to have to go through that again. And, we don’t have to—because love is a conscious effort.

And so I have decided. I will choose love every day. And I choose to share it with all who participate in this life with me.