my loss

i've been wearing a lot of black lately.  i didn't quite realize this until a dear friend pointed it out one day as i strolled into my children's school in black leggings, black tunic and black boots.

i gave her comment a moment's consideration and arrived at the conclusion that i must be wearing black because of it's simplicity and neutrality.  black is safety.  you know it won't let you down.  no matter how many times you slip into that fitted black top, it still looks damn good.  black is generally accepted by everyone, it doesn't make a bold statement (or so i thought) it looks good with everything and it requires no thought... black with black, black with denim, etc.

i now realize i was wrong.  i wear black as a silent declaration of a loss of myself.  no longer the fearless girl in bright colors mixed with funky shoes and flashy accessory to finish it all off.  i've changed.  yes, it's happened.

i've become the angry bitch that can't get over her ex.  it's happened without me even realizing it.  i'm one of THOSE friends whose call you dread taking because you know it's going to be an hour long tirade of the latest bullshit and injustices that jack is inflicting.  i've become my divorce.  i realize it folks.  it's getting old, i know.  but somehow i can't help getting swallowed by it all.

so tomorrow i'll enter my closet, armed with this realization.  oh and please keep taking my calls...

a small victory

4 hours of mediation and we got through negotiating disbursement of approx. 1/2 of jack's commission bonus.  


the rest is supposed to remain in his account untouched. no new house for jack this week. 


however, we were unable to get the agreement officially read onto the record so, in essence, i currently have no enforceable order and until the formal documents (= $3000 in lawyer's fees) are prepared and presented, we are all at the mercy of jack's word not to spend the funds until we can attend mediation again next week.


any possible chance he will actually be able to refrain?  i can't wait to see what unexpected surprises arise.

the infamous in-laws

i'm quickly realizing that divorce is a family affair and when you add a dysfunctional one to the mix it becomes even more delightful.

my first encounter with the other side came in the form of a seemingly civilized lunch with jack's mom a week after jack moved out of my home and into hers.  we awkwardly chatted over salads and i tried hard to make nice~ after all it was quite gracious of her to try to care.  by the time our waiter brought the bill our conversation had erupted into a tear filled recap of her divorce from jack's father 10 years ago and her pleading for me to take jack back, after all he was so much better than his father because he actually admitted that he was sleeping with other people and STILL wanted to be with me.  i stared at her, horrified that she actually believed every word she was saying with a forced smile plastered to my face.  in the back of my mind i thought, my god i'm not THAT desperate... surely someone who isn't sleeping with other people will want to be with me~ a realization i guess she had never considered.  i thanked her for lunch and assured her i was still confident that divorcing jack and retaining some sense of self was the right thing for me to do.  i haven't heard from her since.

since then my contact with jack's family has been an assortment of phone calls threatening to take my kids if i didn't start playing nice, reminders that they have more money and can fight this a lot longer, threats for how i was going to regret messing with their family and other such pleasantries with the occasional incorporation of words such as slut, whore and bitch.  i had wondered where jack learned that it was quite normal to use such words to describe the mother of his children.  the majority of these calls coming with regularity from his brother, who is also living with jack's mom, just finalized his divorce and quit his job so he wouldn't have to pay child support.  he and jack have revived their once strained relationship so that they could keep each other company at various night clubs every weekend.

i guess i should be grateful though that one of jack's sisters finally reached out to me today for the first time since jack and i split.  she sent me an email stating that she was sorry for what has happened and wanted me that know that she wasn't judging me.  whew.  what a relief.

now presenting...

managing a divorce is a rather time consuming and office-supply-intensive affair.  it requires lots of file folders, highlighters, printer cartridges, cell phone minutes and brain power.  i'm starting to feel like i need to go beg my doctor for a prescription of adderall just to retain all of the information i need to argue against all of the bullshit that jack is trying to pull.

since november i've been tracking everything~ each $ spent, our catty email exchanges, each day that he doesn't bother to take our kids to school, etc, etc. and i feel like i now need file folders to organize my file folders and i'm sure i am now the proud owner of the most extensive collection of highlighters that one could ever hope for.  i've invented several new highlighting colors by layering 2, sometimes 3 colors over each other to carefully categorize the absurdity of what jack has been spending.

yes folks, it's getting ugly.  (not that it was all that pretty before)

things have been less than cordial up till now, but this week we're talking money and jack is convinced he is taking his to the grave.  jack is due to receive a rather large commission check on friday and i think it's only fair that he pay the bills before he spends it elsewhere... silly me.  apparently he has made big plans to purchase a new home and needs some serious cash for a down payment.  um. where to begin with that one.

ironically, he scheduled the closing on this new home for the day that the check hits his account.  i guess he was hoping that if all the money went out the same day it came in that maybe we could all pretend it was never really there?

coincidentally we are scheduled for our first mediation that morning as well.  i guess jack was planning to show up to discuss disbursement of his commission wearing his best p p p poker face.  what a fun performance it would have been watching me carefully review all of my highlighted files and calculations for who owes what to whom and when it should all get paid, knowing that he had already spent it.

i'm wondering if it would be overkill to pull up to mediation blasting Lady Gaga's Poker Face dressed in leotard and stilettos?  i think it would really add to the spectacle that this discussion has seemingly become.

my spoiled milk

loved this analogy that one of my friends shared with me after she attended divorce education classes...

'many couples think that they might be able to reconcile post divorce.  don't plan on it.  consider your relationship a carton of spoiled milk.  leaving it in the fridge and coming back later doesn't change the fact that it has soured nor will trying to remove the curdles.  in the end it's rotten and it will still taste and smell rancid no matter how hard you try to fix it.'

back again.

i've been traveling yet again.  this time i was gone for over a week.  a mixture of pure bliss and agony.  the crazy pace of my work schedule was welcome relief from the insanity of my real life but i carried a heavy weight deep in my tummy each day that i was gone from the kids.  jack was nice enough to pick and choose the days he felt like he wanted to be with the kids and our nanny picked up the slack.  bless her poor, burnt out soul.

8 days later i returned home to a frazzled nanny who had been dealing with sick kids (jack had meetings and couldn't care for them) the doctors appointment i set up from the road to treat the pink eye infection our youngest showed up at school with monday morning after spending the weekend with her doting father AND the aftermath of jack's decision to keep the kids home from school the next day when he called and demanded that she care for them~ completely oblivious to the fact that it was her birthday.  i apologized profusely and gave her a paid day off in hopes that she wouldn't just throw in the towel and quit on me.

i had lofty aspirations for how i would spend the next 4 days with my 3 darlings.  we gathered around the kitchen table and made lists of all the things we could do together.  reading picture books that had been gathering dust, playing wii, making forts with the couch cushions, and breaking out the paints they had gotten from Santa.  we all agreed on bacon and eggs for breakfast, pancakes for lunch and french toast and sausage for dinner.  we also vowed to spend the entire weekend in our pajamas.

it was heaven.  pure syrup~sticky heaven.

gee, thanks.

jack showed up to our son's basketball game tonight with a gap shopping bag and proudly handed it to me.

i opened it to discover 2 pairs of blue school uniform pants in my oldest boy's size.  jack smiled and expressed with deep concern that he had noticed that the knees were worn on our son's uniform pants last time they were together so he wanted to buy him a few new pairs.

wow.  i'm sure this makes up for the fact that he has yet to pay child support.