Long sigh...

It’s been a little busy around here lately. It has been a long emotionally draining week already and today is only Wednesday. Monday was a staff development day as I said before, so that day was pretty easy. We did a whole poverty simulation at school, so we could understand how hard it was to be poor-I am pretty sure I have a good idea-what I haven’t experienced personally I have heard in great detail from students that have come through my office. It was really interesting though, I was surprised how many of coworkers were surprised at the reality of the situation. My mom was in town on Monday so she got to stay home and play with Hadley all day.

Tuesday was one of the most emotional days of my life, and I wasn’t even expecting that. This day brought me into contact with my ex-husband. It was the first time I had heard his voice or saw his face in two months. The grounds of this meeting were necessarily bad, but where necessary to make arrangements to do what was best for Hadley. I wish that I could make that point CRYSTAL CLEAR to him. I don’t understand why he has so much anger towards me; why he feels like I am trying to ruin his life. In reality I am the one that should harbor all the anger (and to be fair, I do have a fair amount of anger that I am working on with him), but instead I have HOPE. Hope that SOMETHING will happen to make things better for Hadley. Hope that one day we can have a civil conversation, rather than him looking right at me and walking away, without even acknowledging me. Hope that someday it won’t be so hard, or so awful, or so HOSTILE. I had to hear things yesterday that truly broke my heart, I think heartbreaking in a lot of ways is the best way to describe it. Perhaps one day, it will become clear that I am only trying to do what is best for my child, to provide her with the life that WE had planned for her. Clearly that plan has changed as we are no longer married, but I think we both owe it to Hadley to go above and beyond to provide her with the best life possible, because she already is, for lack of a better word, at a disadvantage for not ever having her parents together. She will never know what a traditional nuclear family looks like. Don’t misunderstand the hurt and anger I feel has little if nothing at all to do with how this divorce and the events after have affected me; but literally typing that sentence brings tears to my eyes. It makes me feel like a failure, worse than that it makes me feel like I have failed my daughter. To add insult to injury, I am not sure when and how I will ever find time to fit a dating relationship into my life. I am adamant about not bringing significant others around my child for a long period of time, I do not want Hadley to get attached to someone only for them to be gone in less than a year and then replaced by someone else. I am a counselor of high school students, and I hear how much that affects them and they are 16 and 17, I can only imagine what that must be like to a 2, 3, or even 10 year old. So again, I come to the same struggle I always have it is possible that I will not be able to raise Hadley in an environment in which a healthy marriage is modeled. Then I fear she will be one of those girls with daddy issues, always searching for love and acceptance from males, possibly rushing into a marriage with someone she hopes she can fix. I don’t want that for her. That doesn’t end well…

Even this morning, I am still just a mess. I don’t know the right answer, and I know there are those reading this that think I am just a spiteful person acting on selfish impulses, and to that I reply then you really don’t know me at all. I just have to go to bed every night and wake every morning, knowing in my heart I did the best I could for my child, because that is my job.

Moving on….

On top of all of the emotional turmoil of yesterday, when I go to daycare to pick Hadley up; they told me she had the hand foot mouth virus going around her class. She has blisters all over her chin, mouth, nose, and hands. It looks like it hurts. Upon doing some research, she most likely has blisters all over her throat as well- this could explain her inability to sleep well at night. In addition, there is no medication that they can give; you just have to wait the virus out for 5-7 days. They can’t tell me not to bring her to daycare, but she is contagious and could spread it to the others, so it would be pretty irresponsible for me to bring her back. It is the worst thing, knowing that she is pain and not being able to do anything about it. Luckily, she seems to be feeling okay, nights are the only time that seem to give her trouble, so I suppose that is a blessing…