Curveballs
My feelings are too big for my body right now.
A few months ago, I felt like a completely different person. I was so proud of myself for finally paying off every single dollar of my credit card debt. I felt like a girl who had her life together: financially secure, independent, achieving her goals. But after only a couple of days of privately gloating over my ability to finally successfully adult, a deputy sheriff showed up at my door and served me with custody paperwork and a reason to drop $4k on a family law attorney. After all these years, guess who decided to show up.
There it is. The curveball.
It’s almost funny to think of how stress can physically affect a person. The very second that I received that paperwork, I completely lost my appetite. It has been almost a month now and it still hasn’t made its way back. I have lost weight, which isn’t the worst side effect in the world for a chubby girl, but I barely have enough energy to get through the day. I suddenly crave black coffee instead of the fancy oatmilk concoctions that I lived on before. I was a girl who meal prepped; the people in my office poked fun at the fancy lunches I threw together for myself. Now I can’t even drag myself to the grocery store because the thought of looking at all of the food makes me physically ill.
My attorney said that as far as custody cases go, this is probably one of the easiest there is. He is basically only asking for visitation, which has never been something that I have withheld. I have not been the outlier. I have only asked for consistency, but consistency may as well have been asking for the moon. My sadness stems from the fact that this all could have been so much easier had everyone involved just played their part from the beginning. This did not have to get complicated, but without complications it wouldn’t be a curveball, would it? At the end of the day, I just want him to admit that he screwed up and to say he is sorry, and it will never happen.
For the past almost six years, I have worked my mom-magic as a solo being. I have made every decision and done all of the planning. My girls did not even know that their father existed because he could not be bothered with being a presence for them. It was difficult and stressful, but I did it because it needed to be done. It fills me with soul scorching rage that he has had all of the freedom in the world to move to another state and begin a new life, leaving me with all of the hard parts, and then turn up one day and say that his absence was all my fault. There is a part of me that recognizes my jealousy. I understand that I miss having the freedom to go on dates or work late without worrying about who else can grab the girls from school. The stress alone of working and raising children alone eats me alive some days. For him to imply that this was my choice is astronomically mind blowing.
It took a couple of months for us to come to an agreement that I felt comfortable sending to a judge. I presented my attorney with hundreds of pages of documentation where the Captain admits that his absence is his own fault. Thus, our negotiations began. We finally came to a point where we were both happy enough to sign off. Four weekend visits in North Carolina over the next nine months, at his expense. Limited options for overnights with the girls. He could introduce the girls to his wife. We will revisit the agreement at the beginning of next year. The first visitation was this weekend, Father’s Day 2022. The first Father’s Day that he has shown up for since their birth. For whatever reason, that irritated me, as though he could not wait to pose for the obligatory Father’s Day facebook photos so everyone can rave about how cute the girls are and what a great dad he is.
The girls really liked his wife, and they had a good time all three days of the visit. I was genuinely happy that it was going so well. When the girls were dropped off on Friday afternoon, the Captain and his wife came into my house and hung out for a bit, talking about the day’s events and wrapping everything up. I am hopeful that this will all be okay. Other families manage to merge and make it all work. Can we manage to do the same? Where will we be one, two, five years from now? If only the crystal ball was a real thing.
I only want my girls to be happy, and I hope that he continues to show up.
