Return to Sender

The Today Show today had an interview with the father who got on his daughter's bus and let loose on a bunch of kids that had been bullying her.  He knows he crossed a line - I know it too, though as a parent I can't help but applaud.  This is a father who loves his daughter - who hurts right down to his core at the reality that there are people out there who are willing to cause her pain for the sake of a few minutes worth of entertainment.

I honestly hope they spent the day in school with wet pants.

I didn't sleep well last night and today I indentified why... today is the day I'm due child support - and for the last six months or so, it's been getting very haphazard... either short, or late, or not coming at all.   And it's leading to heart palpitations due to stress every couple of weeks.

 Worse - and that's bad, but its just the money part - he's totally dropped communication with her and with all the other kids. I think they're connected... if he relates to her as a person, it's not going to b so easy to pretend that its ok to regard he as an optional expense he can take or leave.

So..she's lost her dad, who made a whole lot of promises about that not ever happening when he left.  She's lost the ability to enjoy her last year of high school because finances are so tight that everything is regarded through a filter of 'can we afford this' and the answer is always 'no' or 'depends on if the money comes through as it should.

Even when it does get paid on time, in full, I'm afraid to spend it beyond  absolute immediate necessity because there is no safe guarantee that the next payment will happen on time.

So anyway.. not so much a complaint as a basic look at how things are.  I deal with the money, occasionally panic, mainly try to use what we have as wisely as possible... it's when he makes clear that he doesn't care what it does to her... when he rejects her attempts to start a conversation, or promises something he doesn't deliver on and then suggests to her that it's HER fault she's not getting it because she 'nagged' (because she asked if he was still going to do X...)... that's when I get mad.

That's when I'd love to get on the metaphorical bus and put the fear of goddess in him and make him feel what she feels - make him live the shaky life he thinks its fine for her to live when he's got a BMW that cost him well over $60,000 and the last time he saw her - over two years ago now - all he did was brag about it while she asked in vain if he might take her shopping for a pair of jeans.

I hate feeling this kind of anger.. makes my throat close over in pain... makes me shake... makes my heart start pumping so hard I am afraid it might literally burst right out of my chest.

I try very hard not to wish him harm... and that is hard, hard, hard when he is causing my daughter harm. But I do want him to feel and live with the harm he makes her live with.  I do want him to know, down deep in his core, what doing without feels like.. what having those who should love him show him neglect and disdain.
I want to just send what he offers back to him, where it belongs.

A couple years ago - when I was dealing with an earlier set of conflict with him, I came across this protection spell and stored it away.  I have actually used it in modified form many times -  I modified it because I was... and remain ... hopeful that the harm being done might stop.. that rather than offering harm, good might also be offered.  Hopeful that maybe a connection could be learned that when you treat others appropriately, that good comes back to you too.

So this is my modified chant - and I say it to keep myself from frankly cursing him, as once again, he tried to short us by nearly three hundred dollars.  I'm speaking this chant to remind myself that his well being is also my will if he remembers to value the well being of his daughter.

(Note.. this is not a money issue for him.. he makes 6 figures; we live under the poverty level.  This is because he is a very greedy man with a taste for expensive toys and has racked up his credit debt so high that he ends up with little cash left over after bills.  If he looks after her first, I welcome him being showered with abundance - I simply object to the imbalance he's fine with.)

Return to Sender

All acts of good or negativity

will now return threefold to thee

All harm or help you send my way

upon your own self will hold sway

All acts and words of love or hate

become your own decided fate

By all that's good and true and wise

by oceans wide and deep blue skies

by day and night, and powers three

as I will it, so mote it be!

I promise, this sort of woe-is-me post will not be the norm here.  I am very blessed... his bailing on parenthood and health problems are the only negatives in my life. My children are lovely people, my grandchildren and a joy, the man in my life is kind and compassionate to a fault.   I don't want all the stuff my ex has - it always was a chase to try to buy happiness that has never worked for him.  I am surrounded by love, and am ridiculously happy when I'm not panicked over trying to make the edges of living meet.  I have no credit debt so am far less immediately impacted by the current economy than many.

I just want to stop having me and mine being the recipients of the spewing negativity he fills himself up with.  I spent a long time trying to help him find a way to happiness... that's not my job anymore, but I do believe the only hope he has is looking after the people in his life he's been blessed with and doesn't appreciate.

*whew* Ok rant over.