1. My ex is a good guy.

2. He’s smart

3. He loves our kids.

4. I will go to no end, to make sure my kids are safe and loved.

The woman that is now his fiance has been in jail since late July, charged in a home-invasion-gone-wrong-killing from 10 years ago. She says she was attacked and did what she had to in order to defended herself and her three kids. Recently, they’ve found “evidence” that says she may have planned this “home invasion”/ murder. I don’t know what to think about that, and without the evidence, I just try to imagine being attacked in my own home with my kids there.  I’m sure I’d do almost anything to protect them. (I’m WAY afraid of guns, so my anything and her anything are vastly different, however. )

The scary part for me, lies less in the details of that night, but more in the details of her life that have been dredged up because of this trial.

She shot this man 9 times with two guns,  3 times in the back of the head while he was laying face down on the floor. (presumably dead) YIKES.

She’s been divorced twice.  Not in and of itself wrong, because who am I to judge divorces…but each time, she’s accused her former husband of awful, awful allegations that have never come to be proven. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, attempted murder.

She’s accused her dentist of assaulting her while she was under his care.

She’s changed her name and maybe even her children’s names to hide them from their father.

MY kids know all kinds of things about her divorces, her exes, and her emotions.

She’s used her children as pawns in her divorces.

She’s blamed a lack of child support payments on subpar necessities for her children, all the while carrying expensive handbags and driving a Lexus.

She has multiple passports, under multiple names.

I don’t like to judge people. I wonder, even worry to some extent, that all her stories and allegations might be true.  If they are, she’s had a HARD life…and I’d want all the right things for her. I’d want the insanity to stop. And if she’s really been treated this poorly her entire life,  she deserves someone as gentle and supportive as my ex husband.

But, I can’t help but wonder…what if he vexes her? What horrible thing will she try to pin on him?And what if after hearing all the evidence, what if I can no longer give her the benefit of the doubt? What if I become the person in her cross hairs in trying to protect my children? And what has she already done, that my ex is not asking himself these same questions?  I care about him, as the father of my children, he  NEEDS to be safe and sane. I don’t want to take my kids away from their father.

This woman they know as their future-step-mother is important to my kids. They want her to be safe and freed.  They have heard her side from their dad. This weekend, they asked me a lot of questions, many I couldn’t or wouldn’t answer.  I just stressed to them that their dad needed our support, to be there to lift him up during this time that would be really stressful to him.  I emphasized to them that there are two sides to every story…and just as the story they’ve heard from her, via their dad, was not 100% correct, neither would the prosecutions story be 100% correct.  I explained to them that it was merely a case of he said, she said…and he was dead.  And the trial would be similar to when I walk in to break up their fights, two very different stories would be told and the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I’m trying SO hard to be open minded. I’m trying so hard to be patient, kind and supportive of their father, because that’s been the way we’ve dealt with this divorce from day one.  I’m trying to give this woman the benefit of the doubt.  But, I’m tired…tired of being nice, tired of being patient, tired of not screaming “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?”, tired of worrying that in the future I’ll have a very scary “Now, what?” type of decision.

I’ve been sailing through these crap infested waters for months now, I just wish I had the paddle to get us all out of here safely.

Mike’s been gone for a couple of days now and with the kids sick, it’s felt like a week.  He’s traveled before. I travel for work.  The being apart thing stinks, but we are used to it. But this time it was different. This time the kids felt his absense. This time, we made decisions to not do our “typical” thing because he wasn’t here. The kids decided we should watch a movie because Mike isn’t here to watch Big Bang Theory with us. We just made a big plate of nachos to share because we couldn’t have chicken taco night without it’s inventor. 

And with that I realized, that all these worries about the wedding…meh! Who cares?!?!? Our family is strong and established already.  Mike and I, we…are already committed, forever. The kids and I are no longer a family without Mike. The three of us are incomplete without him.  What used to be my kids and I…always together….just the three of us…a complete little lopsided family…is now no longer lopsided, because of him. I’ve known him for 18 years, I know for a fact NO ONE has ever referred to Mike as the one to bring balance.  We’re lucky, this dynamic works for all of us.

And so tonight, a mere 77 wake ups before the wedding day, I know that our marriage will be strong, because it’s foundation is solid.  The land we’re building forever on is firm.  Sure there will some heaving with the changes in seasons, however, I know that should we develop cracks along the way, we’ve learned not to mask them with a little putty and paint…but to resolve the issue.  Just like drywall, we’ll take all the right steps to fix the problem. It will be a hell of a mess, but so worth it in the long run. Consequently, since our Sunday morning routine (when it’s not football season) is to watch Holmes Inspection…we know how to do it right.

When my kids began to reach school age, it was important for me to find a good, safe school district. I moved back to Omaha to for this reason.  The Millard Public School district is the school district that I grew up in.  It’s a good school district, in middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods. It felt safe.  I grew up here. I was always safe, or felt that way. I was fortunate.

Today, both of my kids’ schools went on Code Red lock down.  They were in the situation where they had to lock the door to their school room, hide in cabinets or by cubbys and remain quiet. Read that again. My children who are 11 and 8, hid from unknown dangers in their school rooms. I am weepy and in disbelief as I type that. The schools reacted appropriately and my children knew exactly what they needed to do. It absolutely BREAKS.MY.HEART. that both the schools and my children NEED to know this. I got an email from my best friend asking if I knew that my kids schools were on lock down.  I immediately quit working and started searching the internet.  I got a call from the school on both my work and cell numbers apprising me of the situation. I should say, the school system handled this in a VERY VERY responsible and appropriate manner.

As I dug into the details, I found out that the principal of Millard South was shot. His name is Dr. Curtis Case. He is the father of my son’s best friend. I hurried home to meet my son at the house, once I knew the lock down had been lifted. I didn’t know what he knew, but I knew enough that if he HAD heard the news, he would need reassurance. This is where parenting gets hard.

I can’t explain school shootings. I can’t explain wanting to kill another person. I can’t explain life being so hard that drastic measures must be taken.  All I can tell my kids is that no matter what happens in their lives, I’m here and I will listen to them.  I can tell them that I will advocate for them, if they think they are being treated unfairly and I will expect them to always do their best and give their all. I can tell them suicide is NEVER an answer, nor is taking innocent people with you, no matter how fairly you feel you’ve been mistreated. But, I can’t tell that this will never happen again.  I can’t tell them that they will be safe when I’m not around.

It’s an unsettling feeling when your children’s schools are put on lock down, even when you know their safe.  It’s so much worse, once you learn that things have hit even closer to home.

I do not shelter my children from EVERYTHING. They were there when we had to put our beloved lab down. But, I allowed them to chose when and how they wanted to participate.  Life is hard, but children are innocent and I believe they should be allowed to be that way as long as they’re willing.In my house, for now, my middle schooler still believes in the tooth fairy, the easter bunny and santa claus. I know that he knows better, but he wants these things to still be magical and real and he’s 11, I’m not ready to tell him he can’t have that.  He has lots of years left for life to real, non-magical and, quite frankly, hard. My daughter is a natural worrier. If there are storm clouds in the sky, she’s concerned about tornados. She tells herself that if the clouds are in certain areas of the sky, that means the storm is not going to come our way. I don’t always correct her, if I know it’s just going to rain after she goes to bed, what’s the harm in letting her feel comfort.

But at his house, my son is allowed to play Call of Duty and see Resident Evil, because her son does. In my house, this is a no-go. Who needs to see the digital representation of war or truly horror filled moments when you can play baseball with guys with no arms. At his house, my daughter was told that she will get breast cancer some day because my maternal grandmother had it and eventually died from it.  In my house, they know that Grandma Birdie taught me how to quilt and sew, made them so many things in their infancy, and loved them more than they will ever remember.  At his house, my children were told that nothing “Australian” could come into the house, because her ex is from there…and they hate that. In my house, we love and embrace truly Australian things, like koala bears, kangaroos, and Crocodile Dundee. At his house, they know that their dad and his girlfriend met on Match.com and that they will likely never get married again, because that just ends in divorce and divorce is ugly. In my house, they learn that Mike loves them as if they were his own children and that he is committed to both them and me. They know that we will plan the wedding together and that we will all go into this relationship knowing that divorce is not an option.

It breaks my heart to hear some things that my children hear or know or do when they are not with me.  And it’s so hard to choose which battles are worth fighting and which are better left alone. All I know how to do is love them fiercely when they’re with me and do everything I can to let them be little.  I regret that I cannot protect them as often as my heart desperately wants to.

I don’t know what it is, but the last couple of weeks have been really hard for me.  People ask me what’s wrong, why I’m crabby or upset and I try to tell them.  But putting it in words, just makes me feel selfish and petty.  Little things bug me lately.  I can’t seem to not sweat the small stuff.  I read the comments and the quotes about choosing happiness…and I do in small increments of time, but right now…it’s so hard. 

I was mowing my lawn last week…and with all that “alone time”, all I could do was, literally, seethe about all the things currently irritating me (one being the fact that I was mowing the lawn.)  Suddenly, I became aware that my whole thought process was about how angry I was…about stupid little things.  I looked up in the sky and directly above me was a dark black cloud that was churning and moving.  My first thought was…rain.  And then I noticed that nowhere else in the sky were there even clouds.  That this little black rain cloud had developed right over my yard, me….and my very negative thoughts.  It was a haunting awareness of my thoughts and my state of  mind. I worked hard for the remainder of time that I was mowing to think of other happier things…and the little black rain cloud slowly broke itself up, without ever truly raining.

 I’ve tried in recent days to remove myself from this place.  I have a lot of people that are relying on me heavily right now…and that prevents me from being able to really address what I need to with me.  More notably, I’m aware that there are people that want to help, but my inability to feel secure about what’s really bugging me prevents me from asking or allowing for help.  I’m hopeful that as the stresses of this week draw to a close, I’ll be allowed a little time for me…to work on me, to build me up again…to really hear what is bugging me, so I can work it out and move beyond this. 

I really don’t like to think of myself as sad, depressed or unhappy.  In general, I’m not.  But every once in awhile, a little black rain cloud parks itself, beligerantly, over my head.  Somedays, it’s all I can do to look up at that little cloud and pray for it not to rain down on me.

Weathering the Storm,

Angi

Re-building a habit,

Angi

Next month, I have a similar type meeting with my employees.  I will make a mental note now, that they will leave the meeting energized, fired up and ready to make something happen.  Middle management sucks, but that doesn’t mean I can’t light my own fire and hope that we can fan the flames enough to turn morale around. 

Because, I’m good enough.

I’m smart enough.

And doggone it, people like me.

Furiously fire starting,

Stewart Smalley (Angi)

How do you alleviate stress?

Bow-legged, but blithe,

Angi