Day 329 - Sunny-Side Up

It's a gray Christmas day outside the window of my booth at Denny's while I sip coffee from a mug that says "It's always sunny-side up in a diner." No family in San Antonio. I declined an invitation to fly home to Virginia and I didn't really feel like playing cozy with my dad and his wife in New Mexico. They're pleasant enough people, but just the three of us? Faced with our propensity for skeptical fatalism and polite, detached emotions, I'd rather go drinking alone where I'd be at least likely to meet a mysterious someone who is inefficiently avoiding the same baggage.

The kids are with their dad for the holiday this year. And he nonchalantly declined my request to attend the Christmas Eve service with him and the kids. He has a girlfriend now - a nice woman - and they're busy playing family without the third wheel ex-wife. Fine, ok. He's always that way when he feels secure and emboldened by his latest relationship. I usually know when it dissolves by his sudden shift again toward amicable and cooperative communication.

Sunday at the McNay Art Museum

There is an active CPS case due to my daughter taking medication twice that didn't belong to her, but was mine instead. I am the alleged perpetrator because it happened in my house and in my absence. To make matters worse, Rob thought the deserving way to handle this was to double the hospital's mandatory reporting and add his own formal accusations to the process, largely because he can't resist dialing the phone with gleeful retaliation regardless of the potential destruction. I'm trying to submit and be teachable as Dean Carfrey insisted that I do back in bible college when the dreadful Mrs. A refused my perfectly good enough transfer credits from the exact same curriculum of music theory. Herein lies the trickery of religion: it stands hand in back pocket with Business while piously pretending to be governed only by the unquestionable interests of the Soul. And if you suggest as much, well Soul trumps Business, so what can you say?

What I really stood against when I chose divorce not only from my ex-husband, but also religion.

There have been a deluge of meetings lately with Child Protective Services, one of the most recent to negotiate a support system for me and my disconcerting inadequacy. One of the questions posed was "Would you be willing to call the father and ask for help when you have a work conflict or need help with the kids?"  I responded with "I have never been unwilling to ask for help when it seemed necessary. But I can't trust him to follow through." They turn to him and ask if he can be available for me to call. To which he piously goes along with the name of the game and nods his head serenely, "Yes, absolutely I'm available"...as if this is the first time we've ever discussed this option.

"Oh really??" The table tenses at my rebuttal.

"You mean like when my brother was shot in the head and I asked you to take the kids a little longer on your weekend and then you dumped them back off on me because you thought I was going to 'ditch you with the kids and leave town'??  Leave town! To go on a lark and see my brother's blasted skull."

The professionals shift uncomfortably at this intensely abrupt, but very real example.

He tries to interject, looking at them. "I was dealing with PTSD. I've changed since then."

October 1 of this same year I got a text from him saying he checked himself into a mental health facility for his depression and would be unavailable for parenting for the next 30 days, but could I please bring the kids to see him? He was reportedly diagnosed with "combat-related PTSD" from his two short deployments in the Middle East - one to Baghdad before we met, and the other was when he volunteered for Afghanistan and left on the day Sophia turned one year old. I did take the kids to see him twice while he was in the facility. And I went to see my psychiatrist for managing my rage and resentment.

"Then you must mean like just this past Monday when I had asked you the day before if you could take Julian back to school after his doctor's appointment and you decided last minute that you had something else to do? Never mind that I had work and you're on out-patient leave for the time being. Never mind that Julian didn't go back to school at all that day because you dropped me."

So we're probably going to have to attend co-parenting counseling. I'm not sure how that's going to go or that it will really change things much. It doesn't really matter though. Right now I need to cross the Ts and dot the Is and appear "teachable." And continue on with my two-year plan.

However, there has been a deliciously tangy twist to this lemon suck. I am getting support through the state and military services. Sophia and Julian are being helped and it's not all on my shoulders anymore to figure out what they need. The events have fast-forwarded some of my desired plans to transition from the cleaning business to speech therapy. Even better, the erratic chaos between Rob and I is being recognized for the manic, cold manipulation that it often is. Of course, it also fits in perfectly with my well-established pattern for dramatic storytelling around the holidays. I was supposed to be done with this blog by this time as it was another attempt at getting this book done and maybe even miraculously fulfilling the vow. Version #78, Attempt #139 has been duly recorded for the world to read as my confirmed inadequacy.

Still, who cares. I love to write. I love the letters rhythmically popping onto the screen as my fingertips race across the keyboard to catch up with my brain. So, today, on Christmas day when I would love nothing more than the rich cultural traditions of waking up to cinnamon rolls and coffee, a kind man to snuggle me tighter in bed with children clamoring ungraciously outside our door to open presents, I am instead luxuriating in cinnamon roll pancakes and hazelnut coffee while snuggled into a cozy booth, occasionally answering the onslaught of "Merry Christmas" texts on my phone. This is my life sunny-side up. And the sun will come out tomorrow.