The New Normal

At one point in this last year, my lawyer told me “You’re going to have to realize that this is something you’re always going to have to live with.” This was her response to my pointing out her incompetence which was wasting my time as I wait for my divorce. My pushing her had nothing to do with psychology and everything to do with getting his name off the title of the house so I could refinance and hopefully not lose my home. Hmmm….still hasn’t happened yet.

This last year has been one long experience in perpetually slipping on the ice and trying to find my feet.

It comes down to the fact of finding “the new normal”.

The “new normal” is the daily struggle of not thinking about what happened right off the bat in the morning. I’m not asking to be oblivious; I’m not asking to forget. I’m just asking my brain to let me get to at least ten am before I feel the weight of it all.

The “new normal” involves watching every single parent-child interaction in public with suspicion.

The “new normal” involves walking through my neighborhood and thinking about all the awful things that are probably going on behind all those closed doors.

The “new normal” involves not speaking his name. A name gives a person power. That is what I have learned over the past year. That is why he has fought our name change so vehemently. Even as a convicted pedophile, he thought he still had power over us by denying our name change. By forcing the kids to keep his name, he was exercising his power over them, even after doing everything, by his choices, to destroy them. One day, when our name change actually happens, we will exercise our power, the power to say “no”. In the mean time, he will remain nameless.

This has caused some interesting verbal exchanges: sentences are left hanging, the air thick with pain and discomfort. “Well, we did it that way because your f…….well, we did it differently back then…we’re going to do it this way now…” It’s a dance. A dance around the center which is filled with so much darkness.

The “new normal” involves scribbling my still legal last name illegibly every time I am forced to write it. It involves repeating it in quiet tones when forced to say it.

The “new normal” involves seeing the humor in my kids as they combine their last names to be “Sharkness”. It’s the one gray area that I can appreciate.

The “new normal” involves seeing a lot of empty cupboard space. Mother Hubbard had nothing on us. I think I could develop a career on the food network sort of like Rachel Ray except my tag line will be “how to pull dinner for two out of your ass when you only have three food-like ingredients in the house.”

The “new normal” means that when I am feeling unsure if I am up to a certain task, I look back on the last year and say to myself “If I could make it through that, I can do anything.”

The "new normal" is at times terrifying, heart wrenching, and wonderful.

Again and Again

I have an appointment in late October to talk to a guidance counselor and sign up for my January classes. Right now I'm just consolidating my credits and getting my AA. It should take a couple semesters.

Then...I have a choice. Or should I say, many choices.

I've been going along with the assumption of getting a private sector job in a non human service profession. I'm tired of human services and being poor and working 60 hours a week and never having it be enough. I'm tired of feeling like the Dutch boy with his finger in the dam as I watch cracks form in a million different places. I'm tired of wearing my heart for the world to see and having it torn to shreds and calling it a job.

So, yeah. Having a job that involves inanimate widgets has its appeal.

But then there's my experiences over the past few months. And I realize that I am raw and the pain is so incredibly close to the surface that to make a decision at this exact point in life might not be smart but another part of me wants to do for others what was done for us. I want to be the person amidst the horrible experience that a victim can depend on. A person that can make the road a little less rocky.

If I were to go into criminology, I would be surrounded by criminals. If I were to go into the justice system, I would be surrounded by injustice. But if I were to go into child abuse victim advocacy I could be where I needed to be: standing behind and sometimes in front of those that need the most representation and assistance and so very often get it the least.

There is always a danger though. A danger in flying to close to the sun when your wings are held together by gossamer strands of wax. There is a danger of living in the pain everyday until one day, it swallows you. Pain is filled with hungry ghosts.

And you have to start all over again.

How many "agains" can one person have?

Weird Things

It's amazing how much trees grow in fifteen or so years.

Driving down the road that I grew up on, I'm stupidly confounded by how tall the trees have grown.

And the house that I grew up in? Apparently it went into foreclosure earlier this year and it's now abandoned and in dire disrepair. Now that's a smack in the face.

No matter what happened when we were growing up, the house was always tidy and the lawn was always mowed. It was never spectacular but it was clean and cared for.

Now, it even makes my house in Duluth look classy. That's just sad.

Another weird thing? Reading the local paper and seeing a picture of all the teachers that recently retired. Not only do I know many of them, one of them was a student teacher when I was in high school.

The other ones look like escapees from a retirement home.

I also went into a local haunt for breakfast and I found myself carefully studying all the old faces to see if I recognized any one's parents. Then I started looking to see if any of the teenagers looked like people I might know. (I recently saw a photo of an old friend who apparently had his son cloned because he looked IDENTICAL to his father. Quite creepy.) All the folks my age were at work or at home or passed out drunk in a ditch.

There are now a ton of new businesses on the outskirts of town, all chains, all businesses that make this town just as generic as any other faceless place across the country.

Wal-Mart is booming and downtown is dying.

I feel like the only one who cares. Thankfully, I only need to care for a few more days...

I needed to come back here. For some strange reason, I needed to see where I came from before I started my new life. I guess I needed to make sure that I didn't want to come back here permanently.

I'm feeling more resolute about my decisions now. I don't know where I'm going but I know where I'm not going.

I guess that's a start...

Flaming Neural Pathways

Ever had one of those early evenings when you were alone and verrrrry tired and as hard as you tried, you just couldn't attain the absolute historic orgasm that PBS was trying to sell you?

Seriously, I love me some PBS. It is mainly what I watch on tv but I cannot wrap my head around this show. It appears to be an American version of a British show and last night they were digging up Jamestown and then they must have had a British episode and they were digging up the grounds of Buckingham Palace.

That's all well and fine but these folks are entirely too excited. Knowing a smidge about how many takes a director will do of a particular scene, I can't imagine keeping up that level of pre-coital energy over a frickin shard of pottery.

Maybe that's why I fell asleep.

Hey, they could advertise their show as curing insomnia! It could even be marketed on the evening news with Brian Williams as the only "natural" drug advertised in the 5,000 pharmaceutical ads that they manage to squeeze into a 30 minute broadcast.

Seriously, I'm waiting for someone to point out the obvious fact in this deteriorating healthcare debate that the evening news is sponsored by big pharma and watched by the very grannies that Rush Limbaugh says Barack is going to pull the plug on.

AND THEY VOTE PEOPLE...

Where was I before this post spiraled right up my own ass?

Oh yeah! I was feeling suspiciously unwell...11.5 hours of sleep later and now I actually feel like a human being. Of course, that state is augmented by the eight cups of coffee I've consumed in the past 30 minutes. I don't know what I've got going on but swollen lymph nodes and a slight fever have me worried that if I go into the doctor's office, there will be a posse of elderly people with poisonous blow darts, ready to take me down.

For I am among the 40 million uninsured, grandma...unlike you I don't qualify for any governmental program simply because I've existed on this planet for many many decades.

Don't want government run health insurance? Oh ok! Let's take away all those health benefits that you've got already through Uncle Sam...

Oh my...I seem to be going there...The healthcare debate that I can't listen to for more than two minutes without wanting to pull out a dirty syringe and go on a poking rampage...Don't look me in the eye...I might feel cornered and spring on you when you least expect it.

Let's change this subject. It's getting fussy and I think its wet itself.

If there has been progress nowhere else in my life, two things are looking up: I know what I want to do interior decorating wise someday...when I have money...AND I received enough financial aid to start school in January.

The interior decorating thing...it is a BIG thing that I finally have a vision in my head. I believe I have stated this before but THAT part of my brain doesn't work. I love to go into other people's houses where they are all smart and classy and have their decorative shit together. I'm sort of like the boy that escapes the bubble...I go around touching things like walls and baseboards and being AMAZED at things like texture and color. Then I go home and my brain starts making those sparking sounds and my eyes cross and there is a distinct smell of burning wires.

And then I forget.

When I get back from vacation, I will start the final purging of S.H.I.T.

And then the painting will begin.

I have three years to pull it all together.

Painting...schooling...decorating.

And once I get this place all happy and beautiful, I will leave it behind.

And start all over again.

Do you smell something burning????

The Beginning Stages of Wonderful Can Suck

Mothers are the most judgemental lot on the face of the planet. When Jane Goodall watches her primates in the wild, you just know that the group of females who are picking nits off each other are chattering about how so-and-so is raising her child and isn't it ridiculous?

Whenever I hear of a mom discouraging her child from doing something because it would take the child far from home and the mom would then be lonely, I think "You self centered so-and-so" and then I continue to pick nits off my girlfriends and cluck my tongue and shake my head.

My daughter has a wonderful opportunity to go far away. To start fresh at a new school with great programs where no one knows her name, where no stalker chicks are driving her crazy, and where she can blossom, surrounded by creative, artsy fartsy types.

And not within driving distance either. We're talking several plane rides away.

She is sooooo excited. I am sooooo excited.

And then I stop. And I go take a shower. And I turn on the water. And I cry.

Yes, part of it is the idea is missing her.

But most of the idea is being left behind.

Their school year starts in August and she might need to wait and start school here for a couple weeks. I'm sure STBX will bring the name change to a hearing so she needs to be around for that.

But then, she will be free. Free to be called Ms. Harkness in a new place where all she will be is a "new girl".

The hardest part of all of this is trying to arrange it while school is out for the summer.

Welcome to a new list with at least 20 steps and 15 forms.

Filling out forms is a good distraction though. It makes me feel useful, if only for a little while.

Maybe I'll Even Carry A Scooby Doo Lunchbox On Campus!

It's amazing what a little forward momentum can do for mental health.

I had tried to tell myself, before the sentencing, that it was out of my control and all we could do was read our statements and accept whatever the verdict happened to be.

Yeah, that's what I TOLD myself. I don't know if I ever really accepted it or not.

But now, the whole divorce thing and name change is so much sound and fury, signifying nothing. If he thinks that his little grip on the last straw of our lives will throw us for a loop, he's sadly mistaken. It will not change where he is. It will not change the fact that the kids will change their names when they are 18 should they need to, it will not change the fact that, should he actually give a damn about his kids and their mental health, he wouldn't be doing this in the first place.

So we change our names in every respect but in the courts until the Gods of Law and Justice prevail. They are temporarily out back huffing gold paint. They will be returning soon, full of fumes and fury, and we will eventually prevail.

IN THE MEAN TIME, the stickiest of wickets has fallen as I went ahead and applied for college and will start taking online classes in January. The whole "holding up the divorce" thing was just frying my brain and I thought that being married still would screw everything up for financial aid.

Guess what? There was actually an option on the financial aid application for "Still married to an imprisoned pedophile who is being an utter dickhead but I will soon be leaving that loser in the dust".

Well, actually it just said "separated" but I kinda read my own life into that one word answer.

I spoke with the University that I hope to go to one day and they gave me great advice on taking classes elsewhere that are cheaper and online and totally transferable. After I take every single transferable class, I can then start looking into what classes I need to take on their campus. The guy was totally supportive of my nervousness at having been out of school for so long and told me that taking the transferable classes will let me get back into the swing of things at a cheaper rate and a bit of a gentler pace.

He then mentioned that I will need to take calculus and stats for the degree that I want.

I waited until I got off the phone to start laughing hysterically.

Thank God my son is Poindexter! He thought teaching me to program the DVD player was a pain in the ass, just wait till I ask him to be my math tutor!

The Perfect Man

I don't rest well.

Even when I feel like crap, I find myself lying down for awhile and then getting up to do "stuff".

And then lying back down again when the room gets a little too squiffy.

This morning was spent on the phone with the phone company. The last great bastion that I had yet to conquer. The account was still in STBX's name. Technically, I shouldn't have been able to make changes in it, although I did get our number changed when his bill collectors came a calling.

But to add services or change them, I had to get his "permission".

And although I told them exactly where they could find him, (and what part of my anatomy they could kiss in the mean time), the only way to change or close the account would be if I got an attorney involved.

Ummm. Yeah....about that? It'll be a cold day in hell when I'm getting a lawyer to do anything as trivial as this.

So instead of closing "his" account, I had to open my own account. With my new name, THANK YOU! They didn't seem to care that it wasn't "official" yet and putting it in my new name felt pretty damn good.

And the old account? With "his" name on it? Well, that will just keep getting billed to him...and when it doesn't get paid, it will just go to collections.

Moving things over to the new name has been my way of maintaining my sanity. I have never felt so "owned" by another individual as I have since he contested the name change and tried to get it taken out of the divorce. Until I can go forward legally, I'm investigating getting our social security numbers changed so that when we move, we will be able to really disappear.

Do you realize how many things your social security number is tied to? Everyday, it hits me anew. Shit! That means I have to do this... or that... or the other...

Taxes, college transcripts, medical information, social security payments which will kick in when I'm 70 and six days from death, banking, credit, mortgages, and two hundred and eleventy other things.

For some reason though, having something to DO while I wait for the next shoe to drop makes me feel a little less powerless.

And if nothing else, the kids will be able to legally change their names before he leaves prison.

My daughter did get me one thing while we were at Convergence that I will be putting in my office at work...















We refer to him as their "new daddy".

Let's face it, he's perfect! He can sing, he can dance, and I'll bet he can even cook!

And if he ever annoys me, I can just rip his fucking little head off and no one will have to suffer...

This Elephant Ain't Gonna Eat Itself

I'm realizing that I've been living off a list for six months, or perhaps an outline. Large, overarching goals with a million and one different tasks below each, every goal contingent upon the completion of the one above it.

It's been this list that's kept my head on straight. Whenever I stand back and look at the big picture, I collapse to my knees. I have to stay focused on the next goal, the next rung on the ladder.

Tuesday is another divorce hearing. As much as I am rolling my eyes at the stupidity of it all now, the fact is, I need this to be finalized before I can investigate going back to school and applying for financial aid.

And I need to be able to go back to school in order to have any hope of being marketable on a nation wide job search.

And I need to get a decent job in order to get away from here.

And I need to get far away from here in order to wipe the slate clean; in order to disappear into the crowd without even looking back.

Today has been me, trying to reign in the horses. Trying to convince myself that sticking to the plan of staying in town for three more years and allowing the kids to graduate and me to finish my degree is the wisest decision. Trying to convince myself that living low to the earth, trying to pay off debt and bills, trying to stay focused and move forward is the way to go.

And then I listen to my daughter, blasting this from upstairs and all I want to do is find that crowd, far away from here, and disappear into it without even looking back.

If You Can't Say Something Nice...

In the comments a couple of posts ago, I mentioned our American quick fix ideas when it came to weight loss. If it's bright, shiny and costs a shit load of money, it must work! It will make me lose 50 pounds in two weeks! Whooo hooo! Sign me up!

People are free to be as stupid as they wish. They are free to waste their money. They are free to think swinging from one diet to the next will get them what they want. Frankly, I don't care.

The thing is, we have the same mentality for so many other things as well. Quick fix, get on with it, life is all shiny and happy again. Hey loser, why are you still crying????

I fell into that trap this week. No, things aren't all done with but I certainly hope the worst is over.

So, I asked myself, why am I hit by the sudden need to deflate and cry. Yes, I have my victim impact statement rolling around in my head 24-7. Yes, I see the effects of this life in my kid's eyes. Yes, I feel horribly alone and exposed.

But hey, the worst is over, right?

It didn't hit me until I was out and about and I happened to overhear a conversation while looking for fabric for my tablecloth. While browsing at the quilt store, one of the older employees was discussing how people are treating her, one month after losing her husband of several decades.

They're telling her to get out and start dating.

They're telling her that it's time to get over it.

They are taking whatever she tells them, from the bottom of her heart, and stomping on it.

She was absolutely beside herself. "How can people say that? How can they be so cruel?"

I wanted to give this woman a hug while she cried. I wanted to tell her that I had a shitty marriage for a measly 17 years that ended with infidelity and pedophilia and it's been five months and I'm still not over it. Check back in a year, or two, or more.

People have a right to mourn their sadness.

I actually caught myself humming the other day and it made me stop in my tracks. When was the last time I hummed a tune while cooking dinner? Months.

The realization of moving on made me smile, for a minute. Then I stopped and burst into tears.

It is such a long road to travel.

Obviously, There Is Something You Don't Understand

There is a distinct possibility that I won't have to go to another session of Divorce Court on Monday.

Since I let my lawyer know that there is already a provision in the Order For Protection for STBX to get his personal affects, the fact that he is using that as the last "straw" in the divorce is nonsense.

Just set up a time and bring a uniformed police officer with you and you can look for your stuff.

As a matter of fact, you can look REALLY HARD for your stuff.

And then you can realize that it doesn't exist anymore.

I find it mind blowing that, had he actually read the Order For Protection, he could have gotten his stuff five months ago. In the two or three days before I got the OFP, he called and said "I need to come over and get my stuff. You probably don't want to be there when I do."

Oh yeah, just let me step out of the house while you rummage around for any incriminating evidence or kiddie porn or whatever else you don't want me to find.

Not happening.

But when I got the OFP, I had the choice to say that he could never come back so long as the OFP was in play, or else he could come back at a prearranged time with a uniformed police officer. I actually vacillated on this point for awhile, standing there at the courthouse administrators window. I didn't want him to come back but I also didn't want to deal with his shit. Hmmmm. OK, let him come back and get it.

But he didn't. At first, I cleared him out of my bedroom and our living room. Any family photo with him in it went into our fire pit. It gave a lovely glow.

We then pulled apart our computer desk and got rid of anything that had to do with him. We threw it all in a box downstairs.

Then we cleaned downstairs.

The last to go? The initial box with his shit in it. The one that was waiting around all this time but was never claimed.

All I can say is that instead of coming here for his shit, perhaps he should visit Goodwill or CHUM.

It sincerely amazes me that after all he has done to us, he would actually think we have some sort of pile of his shit laying around. "Please, visit our home. That large stack in the corner? That is our shrine to a pedophile. What? You don't have one at your house?"

There are no clothes here. There are no photos. There are no gadgets or bobbles or wobbles or woodgets.

There are no pedos in Whoville.

You obviously still don't understand that once you stick your willy where it doesn't belong, you are escorted to the city limits and your shit is stacked in a pile and set on fire. All the little whos hold hands and we sing a little who song.

Get over it.

A Clean Sweep

Just need to let you know something that perhaps, just perhaps, you haven't figured out yet.

My kids are amazing.

I don't know where they have gotten their spidey sense from, but they seem to intuit when I really need a hand at something but don't feel comfortable asking.

Unfortunately, there won't be any before and after photos here because I would have never taken a before photo. STBX had a space in the basement that I always likened to his mind, completely haphazard, a mess, bordering on a clinical diagnosis, like a pauper in a shack.

It was where he kept his computer equipment, his papers of all kinds, oh, and his porn.

There were boxes and stacks and piles EVERYWHERE. Now, this might just sound like someone with organizational problems but there were also the food containers from YEARS ago. Our basement is leaky (of course) and a few months ago when I told him that a vast amount of the papers all over the floor were moldy and needed to be picked up (as I am allergic to mold and walking downstairs made my skin itch, my eyes water, and I would begin to cough). Of course I got the typical response, an exasperated sigh as he continued to play online (with his girlfriend, no doubt. I'll bet SHE never asks him to behave like an adult.)

Well, I started to do what I always did. I started to clean it myself. If I waited around for for him to do it, it would never happen. That is what 17 years taught me. It was then that he got all pissy that I forced the matter to a head and actually went downstairs to pick the wet paper off the floor.

Of course, everything else that wasn't wet got left behind.

Thus, after life hit the fan in December, this part of the basement has been his mocking testimonial, an artistic rendering of the awful, shitty mess that he left us.

It wasn't until last week that I was searching for something and actually started to poke around in that area. It took about five minutes before I sat down and just wanted to cry. There wasn't even a foot path through the mountains of crap. It was all so fucking overwhelming.

But then the kids stepped in. They were off school and didn't have to worry about getting up the next day. I went off to bed and they helped themselves to the heavy duty contractor bags that the handyman has been using.

I woke up to this.














and this















It was like being a shoemaker with elves.

There were banking slips from 1994, printed out emails from 2003, every single kind of ridiculous clutter and disgusting dirty Chinese food container that you could imagine.


Oh yeah, and there were about seven of these






It was therapy for all involved. I can now walk into my basement without visiting the "shrine to the seventeen years of your wasted life with a goddamn loser", and the kids got to do something that they have been wanting to do all along.

They got to throw the bastard out.

Spring? Spring?

What the hell is Mother Nature thinking? Having a mini blizzard on the first day of spring was bad enough but I nearly froze my ass off this morning walking the dogs.

Normally this is the time of year when people get a little crazy. One more snowflake and it's 29 people gunned down at a local McDonald's. People have had it with winter. They crave the consummate mess that is the mud of spring.

My need for spring is compounded by the fact that I want to get out to my garage and start sorting things to sell. My stuff, of course. It wouldn't be FAIR to sell stbx's stuff. That would be MEAN and UNCARING.

No,I'm just in the mood to pare things down to the bone. I have a three year timeline. After three years, the kids will be out of high school and I will be moving on. It might take another year to get them settled in their next adventure and myself employed far,far away but the need to live life to the bone is strong right now. The less shit you have, the easier it is to move through life. I have gypsy in my blood, always have, always will.

And I wouldn't sell stbx's stuff anyway. I would put it by the side of the road with a large photo of him next to it and a sign that says "Pedophile fire sale-FREE FREE FREE"

However, Mother Nature is bumming me out as I really don't want to price items when I'm freezing my keister off in the garage.

You'd think she's be a little more understanding.