The more I see the less I know, the more I'd like to let it go...

Still no word or contact from or with the Prince. I would be lying if I said I didn't miss him and that I worry about him and want to just call him and hear his voice. But there is the stubborn part of me that just won't. I mean, I am the adult here, and I think an adult conversation with him is called for. But I know it will be fruitless. He is going to do whatever it is he is going to do, and I can not get passed the way he treated me that evening. {{{sigh}}} Going to try to let go and let g-d.



I spend way too much of my time worrying about the future and La Petit. Will he choose the same road as his brother? He has pretty severe ADHD and although he is quite capable, he does not do as well in school as he should. He is a bit lazy and just wants to have fun. He is a real homebody, prefers to be home than to be out with friends. His play time is usually spent with close friends that I am friends with the Moms and we do things together, or family etc. He did ask to go to a movie Friday with a friend but I had made other plans and would not be available to pick him up and he wanted to walk home the mile from the movie theatre at 9:30 pm. I would not allow it. Then I felt guilty. But I just don't think a boy who turned 13 less than a week ago should be walking the streets alone at 9:30 at night.



Sometimes he is this sweet little boy, without a stitch of body hair (or man hair as I like to call it) dancing around my house, making soap "potions" and singing in the shower, snuggling in bed with his Mom. And then sometimes he catches serious at-ti-tude and I see the teenager starting to emerge, and it just scares me. I so can not go through that again, and I know there is nothing I can do to stop it.

I also suffer from parent envy. I see the kind of parents some of my friends are and I feel I just don't measure up and their kids seem so much more together because of it. I mean, is my the only kid around who isn't in the gifted and talented program? Who isn't on the honor roll? Who isn't a local star athlete?

Nope, I am the mother of a drug addict. A member of the elite broken-hearted-moms club (credit to you, Lou; for giving us this apropos title!) My youngest son, the jury isn't in yet, but I can not help but wonder if it was my parenting skills (or lack there of) that have left my children to reap what they must sow.

Alcoholism runs deeply through our veins. So throw some genetics in there and I just feel, well, doomed.

So, anyway, I'm staying in the day, in a I wish I was someone else kind of way...

Let's get to the point, let's smoke another joint...

"Marin said he thinks dope humor can be as funny today as it was back in the '70s.
"I think it's time for a revival of dope jokes. It's a much bigger audience now, it's much more widespread and institutionalized," he said in an interview earlier this month."

This is a direct quote taken from a newsite about the reunion gig of Cheeech and Choong. Dope humor needs a comeback? There is a bigger audience?? Widespread? As in acceptable?? Are they f-ing kidding me?

Drugs are stronger, more prevalent, cheaper and more dangerous than ever before. So lets make it really funny and sound like its even funner to do because our kids don't already have enough peer pressure.

I just don't understand the world sometimes. I really don't.

There's a new kid in town...

Good morning and Happy Friday!! Received a really great, supportive comment from a newly sober/new blogger yesterday. Why not stop by and show her some love from our great little community??

http://healthyhappyandsober.blogspot.com/

I like studying faces in a parking lot, cuz it doesn't remind me of anything...

Today I am feeling frustrated. I am feeling angry with the Prince that he has not called to apologize for his behavior. Which means he doesn't think he is wrong. I am torn as to whether I should call him or wait it out. My gut is telling me to wait it out. He is leaving today for a short vacation down to the coast in MD with his g/f, La Petit, his dad, grandmother and Aunt. His dad's family. I am very pleased that their father is finally remembering he has a family and doing something with them and his family is participating. I am also banging my head against a wall because once again, the Prince is being rewarded and enabled. He is still not working and not even looking for a job. His grandmother must still be buying him his cigarettes and supporting him. So lets take him on vacation because he must be exhausted from partying all night and sleeping and/or doing nothing all day. He certainly deserves a vacation doesn't he?

My mom is going to have dinner with my brother and his girlfriend tonight. They haven't spoken since the blowout on my birthday (one month ago today). My mom has called him daily and he does not return her phone calls. His girlfriend set it up. My mom will bring him all of my dads jewelry and what ever other belongings my brother DEMANDED at the funeral. My brother will trash talk me all night, cry about how broke he is, even though he also does not work, he will complain about his health although he refuses to take care of himself, and my mother will walk away from the evening sympathetic to him and I will look like a martyr, as usual. Whatever.

I hate that my family is so dysfunctional. I really and truly hate it. I need to do some work on myself. I have to go back to detaching and letting go. To not owning other peoples crap. To continue to try to build the life I want for myself. To give up on the pity party and get on with it. Any volunteers out there to give me a good swift kick in the butt to set a fire up under me??

Come back, come back, don't walk away...

Had a big nasty blow out with the Prince this weekend. I invited him and the g/f over for a BBQ. However, I told them there would be rules and boundaries. No smoking in the house, when smoking outside of the house an ashtray must be used at all times (one would think this is a no brainer), "inside voices" should be used at all times even though we would be sitting out back by the pool, the f-bombs should be kept to a minimum, and there was to be absolutely no drama. NO DRAMA.

As if. The day started off OK, except he refused to respect the using of an ashtray rule and decided it was OK to bring a cigarette into the pool. Then he thought it would be OK to set off a firecracker in my backyard. Then after being told as nicely as I could muster that this was unacceptable behavior, he did it again but from my upstairs deck, dangerously close to my neighbors house, my neighbors with 4 young children that don't particularly care for me to begin with. They would walk away from the table and leave their dishes sitting there. He left his soaking wet bathing suit on my wood floors. Ditto his pool towel. Then the drama began. The g/f and him were having an argument that was causing alot of in and out of the house, slamming of deck doors and numerous walks down the block to argue.

This is when I pulled the plug and told them it was time to get picked up. The party was over. Now he starts ranting and screaming and trying to grab beer to take with them. He then started with the F- yous and how he would see me at the next holiday and what a f-ing bitch I am.

Smells like using behavior to me...

The news slows, people forget...

Locally, where I live, there has been a marked increase in the recreational use of a purer, more dangerous form of heroin. Small heroin rings have been busted as close as 8 miles from my home. A young girl of 18 overdosed shortly after her graduation last month, in the town I moved from last year. A young man, from a "good" family (as if it matters...) in that same neighborhood was arrested over the weekend for possession and intent to sell heroin. A boy we knew from the area, had been clean for a good year or two when the Prince was actively using, bonce brought my drunken, pilled up, passed out son safely to our home. I read two weeks ago that this kid was arrested for selling heroin.

Heroin was not my sons DOC. He used it a few times that I know of. (key words- THAT I KNOW OF) One time included an almost fatal overdose. The Prince's current poison is alcohol.

But basically, where I was trying to go with this, is that our newspapers, sort of kind of reported these stories some where deep within there pages. Articles that included information that was given to local school districts to be aware of this ever increasing LOCAL problem. That the schools should be more involved, more informed, in closed communication with the parents when they see a kid is in trouble. To take the shame out of this and bring it to the dinner table. That bad things DO happen to good kids. You know, the kind of things those of us with addicts as children have been screaming about for years.

My question is this. Why oh why does the birth of Brangelinas twins get front page coverage and this stuff just gets buried somewhere deep within the paper? I mean seriously folks, am I the only one who could give a damn less about these babies and the millions of dollars their first photos will fetch??

Somethings at the edge of your mind, you dont know what it is...

Alot of blogging to catch up on, but alot of work to catch up on too, so I am going to just throw out a list on some of the things that have been happening and will elaborate more when I have some time.

> I have finally, at long last, come to realize I do not need a man in my life to make me happy. I am having so much fun this summer spending time with girlfriends, old and new and just having fun.

> It is still nice to have a man attracted and interested in you and I am learning how to date without jumping into a serious, sexual relationship.

> I do kind of miss the sex thing though. LOL

> Going to see a show on Broadway is just about the most wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Seeing a show starring the Fabulous Ms. Patti LaPone just brings it to a whole other level. They really just do not make good old fashioned stars any more. She is brilliant. I had goosebumps. She is a demi-god and I worship her. Seriously.

> Spending a long summer weekend at the beach with La Petit and his best friend, making smores by a bonfire, walking along the beach watching the sunrise, root beer floats in town... just blissful.

> Learning to spend within my means, closing all of my credit card accounts and living on a cash only policy is humbling. But if feels good to not have any credit card debt.

> Letting go of the ones we love does not get any easier, but it must be, even when you think you can take them home and keep them on the right path. It is in G-ds hands now and I can still love him and have a relationship with him. On my terms.

> Bullies suck. Even more so when they are your own brother and they continue to verbally and emotionally abuse your mother.

> Being a single mom and teaching a friend who is also about to be a single mom how to pump their own gas (seriously), well, it's just good to pass on even the simplest of lifes little pleasures to help one of my own get a little stregnth.

> Alcohol. {{{sigh}}} It is destroying my family on some level, one of us at a time. I am even starting to have some concerns about my own imbibing. And as we all know, normal drinkers dont ever worry about their drinking.

> The best advice I could ever offer anyone is to relish every moment with your loved ones. When they are gone, you will miss them more than words can say.



Hope you are all well and taking some time out to enjoy the lazy days of summer.

Leave, but don't leave me...

The weekend after I buried my Father, was also the last weekend the Prince was living home with me. He is still drug free, we still speak to each other almost daily, and I still see him often. It is just that we aren't meant to live together. As sad as that makes me.

Being a drug addict, mind you a drug addict who is not currently using, the Prince has long ago mastered the art of manipulation and bullying as a tactic to getting his way. He loves to play the victim, make it all about him.

He very quickly got very comfortable living at my house. Part of the arrangement was he was to secure some kind of employment. He has yet to do so. So I was supporting him and his girlfriend. They would leave me shopping lists of the foods they wanted, they were ordering movies daily off of the pay per view. I was paying for their cigarettes. His sobriety is always so important to me and I felt I was doing what I had to do to keep him clean. Right back to the old enabling ways.

When they first moved in, they made sure to have the house clean before I arrived home from work and to at least start dinner and help La Petit with his homework. The clean house thing is a serious pet peeve of mine. Its my house, I work hard, I like, no I demand it to be kept the way I leave it. So I started coming home to a sink full of dishes, computer wires etc., running through the house, overflowing ashtrays, their room just disgusting and smelly. I was started to really loose it, and it was creating a lot of tension. Especially since he was not looking for work, the only interviews he had gone on, were ones I set up for him. The girlfriend managed to find herself a part time gig at a local supermarket.

The day after my Father passed, to go the funeral parlour to make the arrangements for his wake, my former mother in law was taking my boys shopping to get suits. This created a conflict about who was going to pick up the girlfriend from her job at 4 pm. This healthy, 18 year old girl is apparently unwilling or unable to walk the 2 miles from the supermarket to our home or inconvenience her own family to pick her up. My son called me furious that I had the audacity to be at the funeral parlour and was therefore unavailable to play chauffeur to his girlfriend.

Later in the week, during the wake etc., my Prince had reconnected with alot of his cousins he hadn't seen during all of the years he was out getting high. He started making plans to get together with alot of them. The day after my fathers burial, I was very, very happy to have the out of town relatives, etc., pack up and go home. I am basically a quiet person, I needed my space and quiet. Time alone to work through my feelings and my loss. The Prince tells me his cousin from the East end was going to be coming out and spending the weekend. I told him, no, that was going to happen, this was not a family reunion. He was not going to use my father's death to throw a party for his long lost cousins. He got angry with me. Whatever. So I asked him if he could spend the weekend at his girlfriends house just so I could have some peace. They grudgingly obliged. He stopped in over the weekend to pick up some clothes and he saw that La Petit was home, he was somehow under the impression that he would not be "allowed" in the house for the weekend either. He flipped out and said, "I'll see you in a few months" and stormed out of the house.

I was deeply hurt by his behavior. He was just so hurtful and mean to me. I couldn't believe it. I felt as though I was punched in the face. The old Prince, although clean, was rearing his ugly head. I wish I could say that I miss him living with me, but when he is there, there is no peace or serenity. And I worked too hard to have that in my home.

Well it's my birthday too...

Happy Birthday to me.

Today I turn 40 years old.

Is that really possible?

My eyes are open, and I am ready to move forward.

Never be down, I said don't ever, cause its gonna keep 'em hanging around...

Apologies to anyone who is still reading my blog for my complete slacking off in posting. There has just been too much going on, too many emotions to sort out, too much life getting in the way with life, you know?

First off, thank you for all of your kind words of support and sympathy for the loss of my Father. I am taking it one day at a time and trying to work through my feelings and grief. I am quite sure I am supressing my feelings, because while I often feel sad, it has not completely sunk in that I will never see my Dad again, it is as though he is still in a nursing home or a hospital somewhere and I will get to see him this weekend. Only he is not, and I will not.

I was going to update on all of the things going on for me in this post, but I think I will stick with where I started. I would like to share with you some of the things I learned when I lost my father.

--> Its true when they say you really do not know who your friends are until a tragedy strikes. I have come to realize there are people in my life that I thought would alwasys be there because we have "history", we go back a long way, etc. Well, they call, they show up at the appropriate time and place, but that doesnt mean they are "there" for you.

--> It is also true that there are some friends who will just blow you away with their loyalty and love for you. People who you would not expect to be bothered, show up and become the Rockstars. It is those friends and people in my life that I am grateful for.

--> Family, {{sigh}} Can't pick 'em, can't kill 'em. My brother could not be bothered to come to the funeral home with us to choose th casket and make the arrangements. He was not feeling "well" and it was just too uncomfortable for him. Cause really, I mean, can you even think of a better way to send the first Saturday in June????

--> My brother also sat in the Widows Chair at the wake, like the Godfather himself waiting for the visitors to come forward and kiss his ring. I mean seriously. We are Irish for Petes sake!

--> He then spent the time in between the wakes harassing my mother about when he would be receiving all of my father's jewelry. Harassing her to the point of bringing her to tears. I am still just beyond upset about this and have come to realize that my brother and I will never have a relationship of any kind, especially once my mother passes. He is just disgusting as far as I am concerned. My mother also offered to give him $2,000 from the insurance settlement. His response? "Is that all?" Did you ever???

I can actually go on and on with stories about that week, but it is really upsetting me more than I thought and I just don't want to go there.

I hope you are all well and sober and healthy.

Praying for the healing rain, to restore my soul again...

Last Friday, May 30, 2008 at approximately 2:25 in the afternoon,

my Father left this world for the next one.

I will miss him more than I can ever express in words.

For our rise against the years and years and years....

I have been smoke free for 2 days, 11 hours, 39 minutes

And as a result:

My hair does not smell like cigarettes and neither does my clothing, my car, not to mention my 12 year old son.

I have saved approximately $20.

I am cranky and miserable but stronger than this.

I have not smoked approximately 77 cigarettes.

I have added an additional 14 hours to my life.

(Thanks for all of your support and suggestions)

Or just try again tomorrow...

I have not smoked a cigarette since before going to bed Saturday night. I have always had a love/hate relationship with smoking. I can quit for 6 months, 2 years, whatever, and then randomly decide one day that I can be a social smoker, and smoke one cigarette, and then I am instantly addicted again the next day.

My reasons for quitting are the obvious; health and financial. So far I am feeling OK. I would love to smoke a cigarette right now, or even more so, half a pack of them on my ride home from work. But for the moment, right now, I am going to remain smoke free. Maybe tomorrow I will smoke. Maybe I won't. Taking this, like everything else, one day at a time.

He buzzes like a fridge, hes like a detuned radio...

I am not sure if it is appropriate to blog about this or not, but I do feel a need to share it. a day or so after the Monster beat me, I told a very good, platonic, male friend of mine what happened and he stopped over to see me to see if I was telling the truth about the extent of my injuries, as he tends to think that no one could possibly have as much drama in my life, and I therefore maybe I was exaggerating the extent of my injuries.

Needless to say, he was infuriated when he saw me. As a human being, as a man and as my friend. He could not comprehend something like this being done to someone, let alone someone he loved and cared about. He decided, without my knowledge that he would take a ride and have a talk with the Monster about what is and is not an acceptable way to treat a woman.

It is important to state that my friend is about as calm as they come. He has never been in trouble a day in his life. He is a good guy. I have known him well over 15 years and have never seen him raise his voice or loose his cool. Anyway, as the story was told to me, he took a ride out to his house and sat waiting for him to come home from work. When the monster pulled in the driveway, my friend pulled in behind him. He did not disguise himself, his vehicle or his plates.

He walked over to the car and told the monster that he was a friend of mine and that he needed to step out of the truck as they needed to have a conversation. The monster, refused. He made a statement about how he was recording this and how my friend was trespassing on private property and he should leave. My friend explained, calmly that he would leave just as soon as he steeped out of his truck and spoke to him. Again, the monster, big tough guy who beats on 115 lb women, would not get out of his truck. Now mind you, I do not know for sure what my friends intentions were, if it were to be a conversation or a confrontation. I only know he was doing this in my honor and defense.

Long story short they started to push and pull at each other a bit through the window, and my friend finally said this is ridiculous, walked away and OK, this might sound bad, pulled a hammer out of his car. At this point the monster RAN from his car into his backyard screaming that he would be sorry, he was going to jail, etc. Not so tough when it is a man he is confronted with. My friend then, in anger smashed the windshield of his truck, his cell phone that dropped as he ran from the truck and a few more slams to the hood of the truck. Decided this was not what his intention here was, knew he had crossed a line, got in his car and drove home.

A few hours later, detectives showed up at his house with a warrant for his arrest. He was being charged with felony (!) criminal mischief, and a few other ridiculous bogus felony charges. He admitted what he had done to the detectives, told them why and even went as far to show them some digital pics he had taken of me the day before. The detectives then told him how the monster had quote a violent reputation in his home town, and well, although they should arrest him, it would be best for all involved, if he just came to court the following Tuesday to be arraigned. No point in him having to sit in a jail cell. Everyone has a sister, mother, wife, GF.

My friend had to hire a lawyer. It is important to say, that I felt awful about what he had done, that he got himself into trouble, and was looking at felony charges, possible jail time and restitution for the damage he did to the monsters truck. My friend had no regrets, he felt strongly that the monster deserved this and a whole lot more.

My friend had his court date on Wednesday. He was anxious. He gets to court and he has to have a sit down with his lawyer, the DA and the judge. All charges DROPPED. Not even restitution. The judge said this is what they call western justice, old school style.

Karma, baby.

Won't you take him when he comes to your door...

This is a picture of my father and I taken late last August. It is probably the last picture that we will ever take together, and I wanted to share it with you all.

My Daddy is dying. I'm sure I have posted in the past about his many medical ailments. He has been in the hospital since early December, switching back and forth for physical rehabilitation and back to the hospital. As he has had no success in the rehab, he is pretty much confined to bed, unable to stand up, never mind walk, he is incontinent, and just a very sick man, he was admitted to a nursing home a few weeks ago, which was basically just the rest stop to his final call. Last week he had another bad episode of Congestive Heart Failure, Pneumonia, Anemia, etc. and was rushed to the ER. He has been back in the hospital for over a week. He will not improve. At best, he will plateau, and we will transfer him back to the Nursing Home with Hospice care. He is not eating or drinking much and we refused a feeding tube. We signed a DNR. It is very sad. I do not think he will be with us much longer, and sadly, it is time for him to go. This man, who lies incoherently in bed, filled with cancer, fluids filling his lungs, his heart too weak to pump his blood properly, yelling, confined to a hospital bed, is not my Father. Or at least he is not the father I will choose to remember.

Have faith in you and the things you do...

There is much to be shared here today. I have been writing this post in my head for the last week and just haven't gotten around to put it down here.

First off, I have nothing new to add about the monster. I will update after the next court date which is May 15th. I am better about it every day. I still have anger, and still want him to pay for what he did to me and took from me, but every day I think about it less and less and have chalked it up to a life experience. I am better than him.

Ok, I haven't posted much of anything about the Prince since early this year after his overdose. What I do want to add about the monster, is that the Friday night before he beat me, was the night my Prince came back into my life. We had barely spoken in months, and he knew I had a boyfriend and he wasn't particularly happy about it. He had called that night and needed to come by to get his passport. When I told him that the BF was there, he said forget it and hung up on me. He then called back and said he would come over. I suggested they come over and hang out for a while. He agreed, reluctantly, and they did. I wont get into the details about that night as there is no real relevance, other than basically we had a pleasant evening and I was able to see that my son and I were begininng to be capable of developing a new, adult relationship, despite our opinions about his life choices.

The Prince had called me Sunday night, just a few hours prior to the beating, asking me if I could help him and his GF plan a trip to the Bahamas later this summer, and did the monster and I maybe want to join them, and then we got into a conversation where we had offered to help finance most of their trip if he would stay clean from that moment until the trip, random drug tests required. He wholeheartedly agreed.

A few days later, he stopped at the house for a visit, and the physical signs of the beating were still incredibly obvious and the monster was also obviously absent. I told him we had broken up and when he inquired about the bruises, etc. I told him I had taken a bad fall. He bought it. His girlfriend, on the other hand, did not. However, I digress and this is a story for another day.

His visits became more and more frequent. His clear eyes evidence that he was taking my challenge/offer seriously. It started with a short visit for a few hours on a weeknight, to him calling Friday afternoons asking what I was doing in the evening and could we all go out to dinner. This lead to us making plans to see an exhibit at a museum, or going together to visit my Dad in the nursing home, staying in the evenings to watch movies together, playing games, etc. The visits got longer and longer and the kids started wanting to go out for dinner less and less and we started cooking meals together, the Prince and his GF (I think I will have to give her a nickname soon) anxious to learn to cook, and slowly they were taking care of the entire meal. Mostly just BBQ, but now we have progressed to full dinners and they are anxious for me to teach them to make sauce. As the visits got longer and longer, he and the GF starting spending the night at my house, and sitting around on Sunday mornings drinking coffee and having breakfast.

We have also begun to actively look for employment together. He can now pass a drug test, so his options are less limited. With my help, he put together a nice resume, and we have been applying all over the place. He has also gotten his drivers learning permit, and has begun taking driving lessons (required for his license) and is contemplating computer trade school possibly next winter.

Since January, he has lost two friends to drug related deaths. He also has a friend looking at jail time for a pretty serious felony assault charge who was offered the option of rehab vs. jail, and went away for three days and came back Sunday evening cause he "couldn't deal". Another friend is well on his way to becoming a career criminal because he just refuses to follow the rules of society and prefers jail to conformity. It is very, very sad. However, I do believe this has given him a priceless reinforcement of the old saying, that an addict will end up in one of three places: Dead, Incarcerated, or in Recovery. I believe my beautiful Prince is seeing that recovery is just the best, if not the only option.

Basically, my son and his GF have been spending more time at my house than not. He looks for excuses to come over and wants to come "home". We are seriously considering converting my attached garage to a small apartment like space for them at the end of the summer, under the conditions of him maintaining his sobriety, they both must find and maintain steady employment (that does not break any laws), and they must contribute financially to the household. I am extremely apprehensive about this. But when he is there, I am as happy as I have ever been. When they are not there, the house feels a little empty. I didn't realize how much I missed him, especially when he is clean. Oh!! How beautiful his eyes are.

This situation has taught me something incredibly valuable, something that I should have realized a long, long time ago. One of the reasons I stayed married to the AH for so long is that I hated the idea of breaking up my family. One of the reasons I was so enamored with the monster is that it felt like a little family. What I didn't realize is that families come in all shapes and forms, and that my family was there all along, we did not need someone else to complete us. With the absence of their father, there is so much less anxiety, stress and sadness in our home. The monster just added a different level of anxiety and stress to our home. My kids and I, well, that's all we ever really needed, we just need each other.

I fought the law...

The monster arrived in court with his own lawyer yesterday. It gives me a sort of twisted kick that he had to retain an attorney and I am sure that is costing him somewhere in the neighborhood of around 5 grand. I hate it when I feel vindictive. Anyway, during the last few weeks leading up to his court date yesterday, I had sent the DA approximately 30 pictures documenting the injuries I sustained at the hands of this animal, medical reports completed by my physician, a written statement from my mother, and copies of previous police reports showing a history of his violent behavior. Essentially, I have made it very simple for the DA to do his job.

The DA told me this morning, that he and his lawyer were very confident and casual at the appearance yesterday. Until the DA informed them that we are, at present, ready to go to trial. Immediately. He told me he thought they would both fall out of their chairs. He said, the assumption with these types of cases is that the charges will be dropped or plead down, that most people lose interest quickly and do not give the DA's office enough cooperation to actually get to a trial. He feels strongly that his attorney will call back next week suggesting the monster will agree to attend anger management classes and perhaps some kind of alcohol awareness classes in exchange for reducing the charges.

Honestly, while I appreciate the fact that this monster is in clear need of Anger Management, that is so not my problem anymore and I am not budging. I want the Assault charges to stick. The DA was right there with me and said he will not accept any plea and will push to take this to trial. It will be dragged out and expensive for the monster if that is the way he wants to do this, unless he decides to act like a man, and accept responsibility for this and pleads guilty. I do not see that happening. If we go to trial, it means I will have to face him and testify in court.

Bring it on Motherf*cker... Bring it on....

I need to be with myself and center, clarify...

So hold on to your chairs... I have news. Last night I went out on a date. A real date. With a grown up. I was scared half to death. This does not in any way imply that I am ready to be back in a relationship. Not by a long shot. But I did feel the need to be validated again, to feel attractive again, to silence the echoes of the monsters voice in the back of my mind telling me that no one else would ever want me.

Apparently I am a decent date. He wants to take me out again. I didnt feel any big sparks or particularly attracted to him, but then something clicked in my head. My relationship with the monster started out so physical. It was pure attraction, an absolute sexual chemistry from the moment we met. We didn't really date, didn't take the time to get to know one another. It all just happened so fast. I didn't take the time to see the red flags, to get to know him before we were so entangled. Apparently, this is important in building a real grown up relationship. I am still learning all of the rules here.

And I really think I am going to be OK.

When the moment arrives and you know your gonna be alright...

Thursday is his second court date. I need to call the DA's office to see if I need to be there. I am torn between wanting to go and not wanting to go. I do not think I need to be there, not at this point. Either way, I will keep you posted.

Anyway, I am feeling better each day. I am feeling more empowered, almost glad to not have him in my life as I am seeing alot of my old friends again lately, I went to the MET on Saturday with a friend and saw an exhibit that I had wanted to see and enjoyed greatly. After viewing the exhibit, we sat at the Balcony Bar in the museum, listening to the small live orchestra, sipping champagne and enjoying a lovely cheese platter on what was probably the first beautiful, warm spring day this season in New York City. If I was still with the monster, I would not have been able to go with my friend, it would have been taken as an insult, it would have caused a huge fight where I would have been called names, probably something would have gotten broken, and to be honest I never would have even considered telling him I wanted to go with my friend.

Something about that afternoon made me feel like the winner. This was one of my normal routine things to do with my girls before I was with him: going to museums, discovering cool, funky restaurants and trying different foods, exploring Central Park and taking gondola rides on the great lake (gross and green, but still cool its in the park) and dinner at the B-House, picnics at wineries, and botanical gardens, etc. He was the one who lacked culture. His social life was comprised of hanging out in the local gin mills in his hometown with the regulars, the people he grew up with that past the age of 40, still make pub crawling their priority, regardless of whether they have families or not.

I hope this isn't sounding too judgemental. But it just suddenly occurred to me on Saturday that my life was better before him, and I am starting to see that it will once again be better without him. He did not bring anything to the table to complement my life. He just brought me down, tried to take me down to his level, because HE was the one who wasn't worthy, HE is the one who is broken and damaged, HE is the one who has the self esteem problem.....

So this is me. Taking back my life with a F-ing vengeance.

Sometime's solutions aren't so simple...

This past weekend was very difficult for me. I found out that the psycho is back with his ex-girlfriend. I can not say I am surprised, he is, in my humble opinion, a sexually compulsive narcissist. Probably a Borderline Personality. And no, I have no formal training to back up my opinions, just from knowing him and the research I have done.

I can not say that it doesn't hurt just a little though. He claimed to have loved me so much, to the point that he had to beat me over his jealous and controlling ways, and yet a week or two after the beating, the arrest, etc. he is back in someone Else's bed, probably living in her house. Meanwhile, I am still unable to sleep through the night, I am in a state of constant fear and paranoia, as is my mother and my son. And yet, he goes goes about his life like it never happened.

I still struggle with my feelings for him. I still feel sad about how it ended, I still miss him. I still reach for the phone to call him when something happens. I miss sleeping in his arms at night. And then there are moments when I am filled with such rage and anger at him. For hurting me, physically and emotionally. For prentending to be someone he is not. For letting me have a taste for the first time in my life of having a nice happy little family. For letting me believe in that lie. For taking away my inherent right to feel safe. For being, just plain evil.

All the more reason to chalk this up to just a bad mistake and put it behind me.