One Year

For a year, I've gotten to contemplate the idea of crime and punishment. Too bad I'm not a Russian writer soaked in vodka. It might have made the journey a little more coherent.

Often I give myself homework. Often I say "I know this will piss me off but I should read it/see it/do it. I just might learn something." Such was my idea behind watching The Woodsman. I thought it would push me a little too close to the edge but I thought I might also learn from it.

Which I did.

The movie centers around a pedophile getting out of prison and his attempts at reintegration into society.

In all honesty, there have been times when I have been so financially stressed that I just sat down and though "Hmmm. All he ever did was sit on his ass. How is doing that exact same thing in prison any kind of punishment?" Hey, he's even going to get tips on how to write out a job application and a resume which will allow him to list the prison system as his EMPLOYER while he's inside working for a buck-o-five an hour.

He will also never have a single obligation ever again for the kids. Life will proceed for him just like it always has...everything will be about him and him alone.

One time during our marriage, he told me he could never handle the thought of ever losing me. If something were to happen to our kids on the other hand, he could handle that...just not something happening to me.

Thankfully, I believe I responded to that statement with "What the fuck????"

So, I'm still trying to understand the idea of punishment.

He will only be able to live in certain places.

He will only be able to hold certain jobs.

Hmmm. Once again... how is this any different from the life he chose for himself before prison? He stayed in jobs that caused him to chafe and bitch at every human interaction. Unless he held a job that was just about him doing solitary tasks, he would never stop complaining.

My only two glimmering lights are that he will have to report to a parole officer. He will have someone who is in charge of him. He will have someone that knows his history and won't take his bullshit.

The other glimmer is that, as a convicted felon, he will never be able to vote again.

As someone who would often spout paranoid drival reguritated by the latest nutcase that he had listened to, voting was something very important to him.

Voting was a hell of a lot more important than his wife or kids.

I guess it's the little things that count.

360 Days of Fun Fun Fun!

We're heading into the anniversary weekend. The one year anniversary of when the shit hit the fan.

In retrospect, it feels like a horrible Dr. Seuss book that never quite got published: "Oh What A Year You've Had!"

Complete with Trompsnuzzles and Wangdoodles and they all either end up going to prison or to the poorhouse.

Yeah, we'll call that Dr. Seuss's blue period.

All I can say is that I've never had a more life altering year. For someone stuck in a horrible rut, this last year has been dynamite.

It makes me wonder if people in prison actually wake up in their cell with thoughts such as "Hey, ten years ago, I killed my next door neighbor with an ax! How 'bout cake???"

Do anniversaries count when you're in prison? And if so, what is the typical Miss Manners gift agenda for prison? Does it follow traditional guide for the folks on the "outside"?

1st WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Traditional Anniversary Gift: Paper

Prison Anniversary Gift: Toilet Paper

2nd WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Traditional Anniversary Gift: Cotton

Prison Anniversary Gift: Cotton Balls

3rd WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Traditional Anniversary Gift: Leather

Prison Anniversary Gifts: Bondage Leather (also known as "shower accessories")

4th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Traditional Anniversary Gift: Flowers

Prison Anniversary Gift: Marijuana (Prisoners are known for suffering from open angle glaucoma)

5th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Traditional Anniversary Gift: Wood

Prison Anniversary Gift: It's the gift that keeps on giving, just ask your cell mate.

Not A Tiny Little Division Of Hallmark

Taa Daa.

It's 3 a.m and I'm up to my old tricks: waking up at the butt crack of dawn in mid rant with the bed covers wrapped around me like a straight jacket.

Reconciliation indeed...

The person that I was ten months and four days ago is dead. Dead and gone.

No more door mat, no more excuses, no more patience, no more swallowing the day in and day out pain of being married to a fucking loser.

The most hilarious thing is (and believe me, when you wake up at 3 a.m, breaking into random hysterical laughter is a distinct possibility), even if he had just been unfaithful and I had kicked him out of the house and there hadn't been any earth shattering awfulness, I STILL wouldn't take him back!

Dear Jesus Christ on Toast! Not only does he think that I could actually stand in front of him without sticking a shiv in his ribs, but he thinks that after wasting 17 years of my life with a person that made me feel like shit on a daily basis, I would be raising my hand and saying "Oh please sir, I'll have another!"

Check this little head trip out: If we got back together do you think he'd still ask me to call him "daddy" while we have sex? Seriously...SERIOUSLY?...I just want to vomit.

Hey! Let's make the perfect Hallmark Card for this occasion! It can be a whole new line of greeting cards for prisoners!

On the cover of the card, in gilded letters with a tacky late eighties pastel color scheme:

As I sit here in my cell,
comparing ways to groom young girls for sex with my cell mate,
my mind harkens back to a far better time.
A time when I could eat all the junk food I wanted,
ignore my family,
and spend hours on end cyber-fucking my girlfriend.
I could do and say whatever I wanted
and there was never a threat of being gang raped
in the shower.
I could go to work and come home
and never lift a finger to help you with anything
and you were the perfect tool
and fitted the job with ease.
I miss you darling,
my perfect little door mat.
I miss wiping my feet on your back
on a daily basis.

Remember the good old days?

And on the inside of the card?

Wish I was there
Cuz I just realized
that in four and a half years,
I just might be homeless

I'd just like to propose my own little love song for this occasion. It's the only thing that I have that even remotely expresses my feelings at this exact moment.

Stand Back Ladies! This Winners Taken!

So, here is the phone call I received from my lawyer today.

Yes! I received an actual phone call from my lawyer! Legal communication from the wilds of whatever wilds lawyers communicate from...ouch. That sentence sort of ate it's own tail and now my brain hurts.

ANYWAY, the divorce papers have been signed and the actual document went to his lawyer to fix a couple of simple typos. Perhaps the typos were put in there on purpose because it gave them the final power in submitting the document to the courts.

See where I'm going with this? Bueller? Bueller?

The paperwork has not been submitted to the courts yet and my lawyer got a letter from his lawyer today. Guess what children??? He wants me to take him back!

Wait a minute now...let me put that in a way that will convey how I reacted...

HE WANTS ME TO TAKE HIM BACK!!!

No, wait a minute...that didn't cut it either...

THE $*&$()!#$*&@&!!! Mother ^$*(#(@)!*#&!!!! WANTS ME TO TAKE HIM BACK!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously....that doesn't even convey my emotion properly...

Yes, the reason why I'm still waiting for my divorce from a cheating pedophile while clinging on to my house by the skin of my teeth is that he has now apparently found Jesus and wants to reconcile with me.

My lawyer said she wasn't sure if I would burst out laughing or start screaming when she read the letter.

So now, I get to wait for the legal response to get back to his lawyer that not only am I not interested in reconciling, my expectations of him, after his 10 years of court appointed "Stay the hell away from us" will be that he never tries to contact any of us. WE WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM SO JUST LEAVE US ALONE.

I can promise with 100% certainty that he is working through his frickin' 12 steps because guess what? I read that book too! I know exactly what you're trying to do. You're doing it because you still have no fucking idea that what you have done is so incredibly awful that you just need to go away. That's why you're in prison. Prison is for people who have done awful things.

I literally drove home from work, primal screaming "FUCK YOU" until I think the windows in the car were ready to shatter.

There have been four things in my last ten months that have absolutely rocked my world:

1) My husband was cheating on me
2) My husband was a pedophile
3) My husband showed up in court and sat next to the child he molested and said she had to keep his name
4) My husband thinks that I would even, for one single solitary nanosecond, consider his proposition.

The killer of it all is that my response will once again allow him to play the victim. "Oh poor baby, he just wants to make it all better and that big bad woman is making his life sooooo hard!" I'm sure that it will be the topic of much boo-hooing in his therapy sessions.

My concept of forgiveness still stands. I drop my shit, you drop your shit and we both walk in opposite directions.

At this exact moment in time, he is lucky to be right where he is, surrounded by pedos and murderers and psychopaths because he's a hell of a lot safer than if he was free.

As I stated before when I read the book about sexual addiction, it was totally wrapped around the perpetrator and had a scant two sentences regarding victims. I do, however, recall in the 12 steps that reconciliation should only happen if it wouldn't emotionally damage the people that have been hurt, even more.

Guess what that means?

It means that he doesn't think he's done enough damage.

If You're Gonna Put Your Name On The Purchase Order...

(Text of the letter that I just got done sending to Debra.nordling@state.mn.us after discovering it was her name on the purchase order for all those 50 inch flat screen tv's at Moose Lake)

Dear Debra,

I know that you are probably not the person who made the actual decision to purchase the 50 inch tv sets for Moose Lake, but since your signature ended up on the purchase order, I am going to address this email to you.

Please feel free to forward it to any other person you feel might be interested in reading it.

My daughter's offender is currently housed at Moose Lake. This is also the person that I have been fighting to divorce for the past ten months.

I realize that in your world, the actual victim of the crime is not normally taken into consideration. In your world, it is all about the perpetrator and what they need. Allow me to enlighten you as to the other side of the equation.

I have no way to pay for the therapy that my daughter needs due to the post traumatic stress disorder that she suffers thanks to her father. The MN Dept of Corrections Victims Reparations Board was generous enough to pay for ten therapy sessions but since years of abuse can hardly be wrapped up with ten hours of therapy, she is now left out in the cold.

Our family has been driven to the brink of bankruptcy due to the fact that my "hopefully" soon to be ex-husband has fought against the desire of our children to change their last name to get a fresh start from the ugliness that he created. Some day, we will hopefully have a new last name and if we're lucky, we won't be homeless by that time.

I pay my bills. That is who I am and how I was raised. Every payday, I pay all my bills and usually don't have enough to fill my gas tank and feed my children. I have begun to visit the local food shelf.

This is where we are and this is who my daughter's perpetrator is fighting against.

As my children have commented on, after learning about the intelligent purchase for the MN Sex Offender's Program of 50 inch television screens, "Well, I guess we know just how important we are now."

Television is not therapy. Television will not make a darn bit of difference in whether or not any of the people in that facility ever have the ability to interact with society in a "normal" or "positive" manner.

The fact that the governor has removed the television sets is irrelevant. That money was poorly spent and is now gone forever.

I just wanted you to hear "the other" side of the story.

Sincerely,
Tina Shaddox
Soon to be ex-wife of Tracy Shaddox OID 229716

**Added later: This email was forwarded to the public relations person who has informed me that it will be forwarded to the Governor's Office.

No Soup For You

Dear Victims of Sex Offenses:
Do you have trouble sleeping? Do you suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Do you suffer from issues of self esteem? Have you ever tried to commit suicide? Have you ever taken chemicals to dull the pain?

Well, before you start feeling too sorry for yourselves, please remember the fine human beings that have caused these feelings within you. They suffer too. As a matter of fact, they won't be able to watch their favorite television shows on their brand new 50 inch flat screen tv's at the Pedo Summer Camp, which is my pleasant euphamism for the Moose Lake Correctional Facility where my daughter's offender and perhaps your offender is currently residing.

They are suffering folks. Please feel their pain.

What, you don't have a 50 inch flat screen tv? Why, you don't even have health insurance to cover the cost of the anxiety medications that you need to quiet the demons in your head? And that restitution that your offender is supposed to be making that currently doesn't exist? All of that pales in comparison to the suffering that these offenders must currently endure.

Personally, I'd like to see who had their signature on the purchase order for these tv's. Just curious.

And me, siding with ANYTHING Governor Pawlenty does? Yeah, I am TOTALLY uncomfortable with that...

I Have Not Yet Begun To Bitch

Funny ole justice system, it amuses me on a daily basis.

At every single juncture over the past nine and a half months, whenever I have "assumed" anything or "figured it would be set up correctly" or trusted the system for ANYTHING, I have been proven horribly naive.

I want to trust. I want to believe. I keep clicking my damn heels together but I'm just not feeling the magic.

I admit to being annoyed when I got the letter from the MN Correctional Department that spelled out all my rights as the representative of a victim of crime. Oh, everything was spelled out beautifully, except for the fact that STBX's name was wrong. His OID number was correct and really, that's the magic piece of info when you're in the big house, but it just got in there like a splinter under my fingernail and annoyed me.

I kept mulling it over in my mind...if they can't get the damn offender's name correct, what else are they going to screw up? But then I said to myself "Self, shut the hell up! It's over and done with. Get on with your life. You have done all you can do. ENOUGH."

Then I said to myself, I said "Hey self, you need to be a little less trusting. Haven't you figured that out by now?"

It's easier if you picture this conversation with two little versions of me, one sitting on each shoulder. One of course, is all angelic and dressed in white and believes in fairy tales and lawyers with big hearts and a system that only gives victims flowers and chocolate chip cookies. The other one? You guessed it. Dressed in black, piercings and tatts everywhere, perhaps chain smoking Marlboros, perhaps just a very big hookah. YOU DO NOT FUCK WITH HER!

These two ladies were talking at me for a couple days before I picked up the phone and called my victim advocate with the county. I prefaced my call with an explanation of the letter and how it was wrong and how it really just put another hole in my balloon and I knew he was busy and I felt kinda stupid BUUUUUUUT, I had a question:

If the system can't get his name right in a letter to the victim/victim's family, how can I trust the system to work when it comes to his payment of restitution?

By the way, he was ordered to have 50% of his prison wages garnished for restitution. That is exactly how the judge stated it.

Well, our advocate hemmed and hawed and ended up sending me paperwork that would bring the matter to conciliation court.

Paperwork that asks the stellar questions: Where is this person working right now? List their employer and contact info...and be sure to have this declaration notorized and hand delivered.

Oh, and by the way, you have to file this in the county where the person is working.

In other words, I spent a couple days paging through a stack of papers that forced me to try to put a square peg in a round hole.

After pulling at my hair and pacing around the room and demanding of the dogs "How do I do this???" I called him back and asked "WTF???"

Well, I didn't quite say it like that. He is a very nice guy and we must pity him...he has to deal with me on an all to frequent basis.

I simply inquired as to whether this was really what I needed to do.

He retreated to gather more information.

And appeared again on my phone yesterday afternoon.

In order for a restitution order to automatically trigger, there has to be a stated dollar amount put into the system.

Our judge never gave us a stated dollar amount.

Do you see where this is going? Yup! Right up my own ass.

The system will not trigger for any restitution until the judge puts down an amount.

Perhaps this is as simple as him filling out a form, perhaps we will need to make another appearance at the happiest place on earth! No kids, not Disney Land! It's the St. Louis County Courthouse!!

Now, with cleaner bathrooms and cotton candy for all!

So here is where I'm coming from...money is irrelevant here. I certainly don't go hunting down pedo's that make .50 cents an hour so my kid can pay her way through college. The fact of the matter is that the judge placed an order for restitution in such a way that restitution could never be made.

Unless someone, who felt like a fool just asking, picked up the damn phone.

Here's my next question when faced with scenarios like this: How many people actually make that calll? How many people decide it's just to painful to deal with and they just shrug it off?

And why should this burden be mine?

Oh, and one more thing?

Why in the hell can't they get his damn name right on the letters that they send me???

Once Again, I Consider A Career In Pharmaceuticals

I think I will start this conversation out by discussing my new job which I start October 26th. Not a change in pay but a change in scenery, people, hopes, dreams, and potentially, job satisfaction.

Yeah, smart people would probably hang onto a job in today's market and only settle for something that pays more. Well, I've been trying for awhile and I am, unfortunately, not finding much else. So I'm hoping I can cash in on my job satisfaction and tell the bank that a change in my workplace attitude has to be worth SOMETHING.

I look at it as my own little mini-reboot. They are also in a field that I might be headed into in the future so, if job satisfaction doesn't pan out, perhaps resume building will.

How's that for rationalization?

It is rather weird to walk among people that don't know my story. Right now, my name is hyphenated for pay purposes but after I was introduced to some of the staff with the hyphenated name, I've decided to tell them that the hyphenate exists just for my paycheck. I want a fresh start.

What will really be weird is that I won't be working downtown anymore. I have worked in downtown Duluth for nearly a decade and I love it. As much as I enjoy the quiet countryside and hanging out in my one room shack with my rifle loaded and my still bubbling away, there is something to be said for the vitality of a downtown area.

For those of you who are rolling their eyes and saying "Yeah, but it's Duluth...dear oh dear, you're so cosmopolitan" (I'm picturing you wearing a monocle and using a long cigarette holder. Am I right?) I really must protest. I have seen big and I have seen small and for me, Duluth is a nice "Goldilocks" kind of a town, just right.

As I've been investigating places I might want to live, I use Duluth as a population scale. I am interested in moving to a town that is two Duluth's big. There is also another town which is seven Duluth's big. It would be a fabulous place to go but I'm afraid I would need to sell drugs to support myself as the cost of living is a little high. Funnily enough, I think I'd like to keep 'drug dealer' off my resume.

Hey, speaking of resumes, drug dealers, and new jobs, I learned that prisoners are put through classes in prison before they are released that teach them how to write a resume and fill out a job application while tactfully avoiding, or at least downplaying, their prison record.

I also learned that prisoners are garnished a $400 gate fee when they first enter prison which is the money they get when they leave. Since they can only garnish 50% of their wages, the gate fee comes off first. Then and only then do they begin to pay their court ordered restitution.

And when you're making .50 an hour, you get to pay yourself for quite some time before you even begin to think about your pesky victim.

All I can say is JUSTICE ROCKS!

The Buyer Bewared

What I found but didn't buy at the library book sale.

I believe that would be a "hell no!" bargain.

Even for the low low price of $2.00.

Club Ped

I knew that STBX would be transferred soon so I've been checking in to see where he would go.

I was told my certain powers that obviously were not in the know that he would not be going to the sexual offender correctional facility in Moose Lake. I was concerned about this because a friend of mine had her perp go there and he proceeded to have an affair with his therapist.

Well, that is exactly where he is now. Club Ped. Doesn't he look happy? Proud of himself? Protected from all those that would do him harm. I'm guessing that they all gather round and talk about their conquests and what a great thrill it is to fuck small children.

It even looks like a college dorm setting. Albeit, a STATE college dorm.

And hey, he's just down the road a piece. Nice and close.

It sounds so incredibly insane of me but my skin is on fire today.

This is how you coddle a pedophile. Hey, maybe HE'LL be lucky and score with his therapist! Maybe she'll even call him "daddy" when they're doing it...

Victim Impact Statement

It's always interesting to look at what keywords or phrases bring people to this site. One search this week was "Actual Victim Impact Statements".

The sadly ironic thing is, I did that exact search before I started writing mine. What do you say? How can you encapsulate years of pain and betrayal into one piece of paper? All of the stuff I found online ended up being like the piece of paper I got from the judicial system, a series of questions that made me feel victimized all over again.

Because, as all people who have gone through this can attest to, we are ALL THE SAME. OUR STORIES ARE IDENTICAL AND THUS WE MUST FIT OUR EXPERIENCES INTO THE EXACT SAME SET OF QUESTIONS.

If you're here, doing a search for victim impact statements, all I can offer is the text of what I said in court.

And we are NOT all the same. We do NOT have the same experiences. And NEVER let ANYONE, including that niggling voice in the back of your own brain, tell you that you shouldn't write your own statement.

Don't feel like a failure if you can't read your own statement. You can have someone else do that for you.

The content of my impact statement is as follows:

I’m here as ______’s mother and for 17 years, the wife of Tracy Shaddox. I’m supposed to somehow verbalize the devastation that this man has brought down upon our family.

The only way I know to preface my statement is to say that I know what it’s like to be the survivor of sexual abuse because I am one.

Tracy has been very articulate during the omnibus hearing in letting us know that he has become enlightened during his therapy regarding his own victimization as a youth and how it led to what he is today.

But what does that say for _____? What does that say for me, the parent that now bears the sole responsibility for holding the safety net beneath her as she goes out into the world? She’ll be more likely to drink or take drugs to dull the emotional pain that her father has caused her. She’ll be more likely, and I can fully attest to this, enter into abusive or unhealthy relationships. She’ll be more likely to engage in self mutilation or attempt suicide. All because of the choice her father made when she was 9 years old.

And no matter how he frames his story, it all comes down to one thing: choice.

We can’t control what other people do to us but we can control how we react to it. Tracy knew I was a survivor of sexual abuse. All he would have had to do was open his mouth and tell me that he needed help. There is no stronger ally that a victim of sexual abuse has than another victim. But he didn’t ask for help. He perpetuated the cycle.

How will _____ understand what it is like to be in a normal relationship when her first sexual experience was with her father? How will she ever learn that there are good and decent men in this world when the most important man in her life did this to her? I live in fear that ____ will fall into the trap that I fell into. She won’t think she is worthy to be treated well. She’ll do the same thing that I did and suffer through years of a miserable marriage because she won’t think she deserves better.

But being _____’s safety net is only half of my battle. Every waking moment of my life since I found this out has been me, asking myself, how come I failed my daughter? The only job I ever cared about with every fiber of my being was my job as a mother. I told my kids when they were little that there were bad people in the world. I told them not to accept candy from strangers. I told them not to get into strange cars. But I never thought I would have to warn them about their own father.

Tracy isn’t the only one going through therapy. Both ____ and I have been seeing counselors. And I have fought so hard for so many days, sometimes minute to minute, fighting the urge to just give up because of the maternal guilt that I feel.

Back when _____ was a toddler, she woke up from her nap early and came into our bedroom where her father and I were having sex. I remember trying to grab my robe and escort her out of the room and Tracy tried to stop me by saying “Let’s just keep doing it in front of her. It’ll be funny.” And being the survivor of sexual abuse, I totally freaked out and got her out of the room and it haunted me for days. But instead of confronting him, I took the easy way out. I said nothing.

I also live with the fact that, as I do the math and figure out when he was abusing ____, he asked me once, during sex, to call him “daddy”. I can recall it like yesterday because it instantly made me want to throw up. I now live with the fact that he was fantasizing about having sex with our daughter when he was having sex with me.

There are days that I can’t even stand to live in my own skin.

I stand here a failure. I failed to protect my daughter from the only man that I ever trusted.

I don’t care how much progress Tracy says he has made in therapy. I know him now as an adulterer and a pedophile. He has been a master manipulator and liar for our entire marriage.

What I care about is what he did to his daughter for three years of her young life. For three years, Tracy kept her in a prison of his own devising. This is a prison that she remains in to this day.

After her father stopped molesting _____, his attention wavered between totally ignoring her and, as I’ve recently learned, flying into fits of rage at her when they were home alone together. He would scream at her, physically shove her into the wall, and send her running up to her room, trying to get away from him. He would then stand on the other side of her bedroom door and try to bribe her, telling her that he would buy her things so long as she didn’t tell mom.

This has been _____’s life for seven year, living in an emotional prison because of the choices that her father made. Tracy is asking to serve his time locally. In other words, jail, not prison. He’s asking you for mercy.

I ask you now, what about mercy for _____? I can’t conceive of a world that would see a child put through what _____ has been through and then give her perpetrator “mercy”.

I also refute the argument that Tracy is pleading guilty because of his emotional revelations made in therapy. When I confronted him with what I had discovered, he confessed. That is why he pled guilty to you, because he already pled guilty to me. As much as I have learned how much I didn’t know about Tracy Curtis Shaddox, one thing remains true. Tracy knows me. As soon as he confessed, he knew this is exactly where we would end up. Now, he’s trying once again to manipulate the court and make the best out of a bad situation.

In that same respect, if Tracy has learned so much about what is good for his daughter’s mental health during his therapy, I ask why he showed up in court on June 8th in order to block our family from changing our last names from Shaddox. This was a specific request from _____, to separate herself as much as possible from her father. Her father obviously saw it as yet one more attempt to hurt the family that he has nearly utterly destroyed. Once again, he wanted to get his way at the expense of everyone else involved.

I may have failed my daughter when she was nine years old. I can’t fail her now.

Thank you.


*Whatever help you may have been looking for in writing a victim impact statement, I hope this was what you needed.

Good luck.

Fucking You From The Big House

So, the story goes like this...

STBX get's his lawyer to pull our hearing off the docket and then the lawyer sends settlement papers to my lawyer.

Agreeing to everything except, mysteriously, forgetting anything and everything about the name change.

When my lawyer called his lawyer today, he said that STBX would not agree to the name change.

"I can molest you and I can beat you down and I can make you feel stupid and irrelevant for every day of your life. And you'll keep my name and like it."

Can you imagine that his sister still thinks he's some poor lost soul? He's just such a sad little victim in all this...

Next stop? Full blown divorce court. It will not be up to STBX nor his fucking lawyer to decide what last name the children have.

I knew I should have shot him and dismembered his obese corpse while I had the chance! God Damn therapists and their non violent methods!

Welcome To Your Gated Community

Since everything else has been crap today, at least I have this to soothe my soul.

Good night sweet prince. I'd sleep with one eye open for the next five years if I were you.

Yet Another Step

I'm tired of getting knocked off my pins.

Hmmm. "tired" seems to creep into a lot of my posts lately. Perhaps I should find another word. Exhausted? Wiped out? Physically and emotionally spent?

REBOOT

After getting an unexpected phone call at the end of the day yesterday, I find myself exhausted and emotionally spent.

There! Someday I might even be able to get an A in Introductory College Writing!

(Although my persistent use of exclamation points will not doubt get me in trouble!)

It comes down to the fact that I parcel out my energy for each and every encounter that I have to have with legal folks, social workers, therapists, and anyone else connected to life these past few months. I am admitting to myself that I have a finite amount of energy and I'm kind of at a place right now when anything extra sends me right over the edge.

At the end of the day yesterday, I received a phone call from STBX's either current or future probation officer. He is working on his recommendation to the judge for sentencing. He wants my daughter and I to come in for a face to face, to submit our impact statements to him and to talk about our life, this case, and how STBX has done his level best to destroy us. He emphasized, as did our victim advocate through the county, how important this was.

So I checked in with my daughter and called him back and left a message that we needed to meet next week. Then I realized that I had Monday off for the name change hearing so I called him back and left another message that Monday afternoon would be a great time to meet since I already had the day off. Unfortunately, I then became a little rambling on his message machine. I sort of went into some detail that I would have went into when we met but I just sort of started letting it out right then and there. And I might have gotten a little weepy. And a little sad.

And then his answering machine cut me off.

WELL!

Either he got that last message and he knows he's meeting with a decidedly unstable individual or it cut me off without saving the message and I can go in feeling confident in the fact that the bowl of m&m's on his desk haven't been spiked with prozac.

As I stated before regarding the simple act of reading our names on the court docket with the kids listed, it's just another step in the process that makes me ruminate for hours. It's like watching a muddy pool of water settle down and become clear for a moment, only to be stirred up again and again and again.

It's a good thing that our voice gets heard. It's a good thing that someone cared enough to call us and ask for a meeting.

But the act of sitting down with my daughter at my side and speaking the unspeakable cuts my heart out everytime.