Dru Blood - I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings: I forced myself to sleep until 10.

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I forced myself to sleep until 10.

July 3, 2005

Because lately I've been getting up at 7 or 8.

I'm having a wonderful kid-free, human-contact-free weekend this weekend. And it's a long weekend, too. I have some work to do, and lots of work around the house, but mainly I'm just kicking back and going along at my own pace. Listening to loud music, going through boxes of old stuff, cleaning the house, making plans. Reading.

I had a run-in with L when he came to pick up the children on Friday. He was trying to pull his own "up is down" routine on me, and then tried to pull his "You Are The Origin Of All Arguments And Other Bad Things" routine. This kind of thing usually distresses me for hours, particularly when he does it right before he takes the children, leaving me here alone to deal with the psychic aftermath. Today, I was laughing about it within an hour.

I was laughing because if I didn't laugh, I would feel sorry for him. And pity really isn't a productive way of looking at the situation. However, that doesn't stop me from feeling pity through the laughter. Because it *is* sad. He has no idea...or refuses to know...how much empathy I have for him. How gently I treat his image with the children. OUR children. How very important I feel it is to make sure they know that he and I DID love each other at one time, and the fact that we don't now has nothing to do with them, or even with HIM. Sure, in my mind I place much of the blame of the failure of our relationship on L, but the reasons for that blame are too complex for ME to understand, much less the children. I have been more than fair about him with the children, and I have been sincere in my expressions. I do not understand why he insists on making things worse by telling the children that I am the one who starts all of the arguments, by implying I am a liar while holding the youngest child in his arms. There are so many names I could call him.

But the humor in this is that he goes to such lengths to make me out to be the bad person. The humor is that after years of being told by him that I am an irrational person, I recognize now that I am actually a very logical person. Maddeningly logical. The humor is that the more distance he puts between us with the friction, the more I dislike him, the more I love myself. The less I have to deal with him, the more I appreciate who I am and what I have made of all of this. I walk away from these clashes with him now with a brief period of stumbling through the old questions "What if up really IS down? What if no one likes me? What if it IS all my fault? What if I really AM a horrible parent? And sometimes I have to call someone to right myself. This time, however, I just thought back on my week. I thought about all of the laughter and joy and fun we all had all week long. I thought about the conversations I have had with my children, the progress that Monk is making, the independence Cole is taking on. I thought about the hugs and kisses and sweetness, and I realized that I no longer need HIM to validate the love my children have for me. I no longer need to hear HIS voice judging the job I am doing. Little by little, I hear his voice less and less while I'm making decisions that I know provide a healthy amount of independence for my children.

I know that at the same time this might be driving him crazy, I am finally being driven sane.

Posted at July 3, 2005 10:22 AM

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