ulitave

Single parenting can sometimes feel like playing baseball. Your team is made of you and your kid. The other team is made of 9 adults. You are coach and player. Your parents and ex sit in the stands. They rarely cheer when you make a good play, but they practically jump out of the stands when you have to chase a grounder. How can I put the baby on first? Don't I know she's a born pitcher? I'd know if I'd ever listen to anyone's advice but my own, I'd know, but I'm too hard-headed to listen. That kid's career is doomed. Maybe they could get her traded. Why don't I just quit hotdogging? This game is for her, not me, they yell. One even shouts out provisions of the kid's contract. That person has never even seen the contract. Everyone's an expert.

I'm yelling back at them instead of watching the game. A ball flies overhead. I take a deep breath before I start running. My lungs meet the hard leather belt around my chest, asthma,and don't fill up all the way. I need to dig for my inhaler but I just don't have the time.

I skipped the morning poetry lecture. I woke up in a bad mood, mainly from dealing with 1st Ex and my parents. My workshop was scheduled to critique my work today: The Aisle, Cat and Bird, and The Liquidator. I needed the morning lecture time to retake my headspace.

1st Ex is always ornery at the end of the summer visit. She puts up roadblocks, trying to reassert herself as primary caregiver. She's never been 11yo's primary caregiver, not even when we were together. Perhaps she was when 11yo was about -5 months. After that point, I made sure 1st Ex ate and bathed and saw the doctor. She couldn't do those things for herself. I digress.

Mom has taken to lecturing me on provisions of the custody agreement. This is a third rail topic. Near the end of the case, I needed $4000 to go to trial. My friends were tapped out. Banks don;t lend money for custody cases; they can't repo the kid. I asked my parents for the money - they had a good amount in the bank and a large house. (I hadn't bought casa ulitave yet.)

At the time, the Bionic Sis was making her wedding preparations. She was in love with a man who would later mistreat and threaten her. They would divorce in nine months. We didn't know that at the time. We didn't like him. The Bionic Sis loved him, so my parents paid for the wedding. "I can't help you," Mom said. "I have to pay for flowers for the wedding."

$4000 flowers. $0 custody case. To the Bionic Sis' credit, she now claims she knew nothing of this decision and would have objected. I believe her. I did not speak to my parents for six months after this. 2nd Ex did not speak to them for two years or so. This incident was part of the reason we split up.

My parents put no money into their granddaughter's custody case. None. They never met her lawyer, never appeared in court, at the depositions, nothing like that. They never ran around the courthouses with me and 2nd Ex,making copies and filing to save save money. They have never, to my knowledge, read 11yo's custody agreement, nor the chapter of Texas Law that governs these agreements. Yet, they feel empowered to speak to me, even lecture, on what I should and should not do concerning 11yo's custody arrangements.

I have no patience for this. I can forgive much - infidelity, addiction, egoism, casual cruelty, even mental illness. My parents let me down, let my child down, when I needed them most. For flowers.

I got notes on my work today. The notes were excellent.