I once wrote a short story and my sister, who was in college at the time, had one of her English professors read it. The professor sent me the book “Where the Sidewalk Ends” along with a very nice note. I LOVE that book, my kids love it and I hope my grandkids grow up to love it. Just saying.

So June is half over and January will be here before I know it and I dread January. The kid’s dad is in prison and in January he will be released. He obviously went over the deep end after (well during and after) the divorce and broke one too many laws one too many times and had to pay the price. It has been three years since I have seen him. I refuse to take the kid to a prison. I have been to them and they are not really all that kid friendly and really who wants their kid to have memories of seeing a parent in one of those places?

So I am dreading seeing him, dealing with him, or even knowing he is out there free somewhere. Not that I am afraid of him, I’m afraid of emotion. He is the only person who scares me when it comes to emotion. I am not even sure what I will feel seeing him or even hearing his voice and I am not sure I want to find out.

You see he isn’t all bad; he has made some bad choices, choices that I wish he hadn’t made. Choices that caused all those around him emotional pain, anger and just plain hurt. When I first got sick I was sure I was dying so I withdrew from everyone. I was in pain, miserable and figured they would all be better off without me. Woe was I. I was so self absorbed that I did not see the effect it was having on my kids or my marriage. To his credit he did try to communicate, but I would get defensive and feel as if he didn’t want me the way I was so he was better off without me blah blah blah..

Then one night to make a long story short he asked me to dinner, things had been not so good for a couple of years, and I figured what the heck. Dinner was good, but then when he suggested we give our marriage another try I told him he’d better leave. That’s when it got bad, and I do mean bad. I look back and it was like we were having this major contest to see who could hurt the other the most, we yelled, lied, fought, thought revenge, thought we got revenge only to realize all we did was screw up, and had one hell of a custody battle. Then he went to prison, I got sole custody and he has not seen or talked to the kid in all this time. They do communicate through mail, the kid knows he is in “jail” and understands it as well as the mind of an 8 year old can. He and I have even written back and forth, I keep him up to date on the kid; send a few pictures, some of the school work and report cards. One thing I have not done is deal with my feelings for this person. I put it off because I had three years to do it and what do you know times almost up.

 So here I am having all these crazy dreams (probably my subconscious self telling me to get a grip and deal) My daughter tells me to get therapy, my other daughter tells me the same (note, I have nothing against therapy) my sister says shoot him (I hate violence) The kid wants to see him (UGH) and I simply don’t want to deal with any of it.