I have needed space to go mental, or something. I've been realizing that there has not been one moment, yes, not one, where I have simply been alone in my house without fear, without pressure, whithout something looming for 18 months, or a little longer. My routine has become to park my car in the garage, enter the house and go straight to the bedroom. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200.00, go straight to jail. There has been the way my husband sees it, knowing that or not, that our room is the best place on earth.
Whether it is or not, it's been a prison. There have been so many nights I have spent locked in the bathroom, or unable to go to MY KITCHEN to make dinner, or simply enjoy a single foot of physical space outside of the bedroom for, my god, a year and a half? How insane is that?

We all seem to be reaching breaking points all the time on different levels, and I've reached a new one. It's taken me five days to undersand it once it began to surface. I have no space. I have no room. I have not one moment in any day that I feel myself, as in, I experience a sense of knowing, myself, in any way on any level at all. I don't know what I want, where I'm going or what's going to happen with anything. I've been so retarted in my attempts to reach out that the recoil I've become is utterly foreign.

Tonight is the very first night, ever, since I have known my husband, 3 1/2 years, that I have been in the same physical space with him (what was my house and is now our hosue) and separated myself from him without having needed to create a fight in order to feel like I had permission to. I am outside on the deck, and he is in the bedroom, the best place on earth.

My heart is aching because as the parenting time schedule stipulates, Labor Day weekend alternates by year. The way it falls each year results in my childrens' father or me having them for three weekends in a row. This year they spent the holiday with him, and I am into the third and dreaded weekend without my boys. I wouldn't begin to know how to express how I miss them. I know it's a factor running through all of what I am thinking and doing tonight, this week. Everything feels so off, so unknown, I find myself going back in time, wondering, why, again, did my ex do this? Why did he make it so our children, my children, we all live with this divide? Why do any of the silly assholes do it? I don't know.

The past few weeks have included the following shennanigans: pee helped himself to the first bottle of champagne in the house for nearly a year on the night of my husband's birthday. We didn't choose to drink it that night, it had been sitting for awhile. In the back of my mind, I wondered: will he? I hope not, will he take it? There was also a bottle of wine he left, and beer from a get together. I didn't expect that my husband would find beer, there, too, but he did. If he hasn't yet, maybe he won't. He did. So I got to wake up my husband, my husband got to confront pee, pee got to work himself up at the injustice of it all and pee got to punch walls, tell my husband and I 'FUCK YOU!' call me a controlling bitch, call my husband my bitch and happy birthday, honey.

My lovely step son has instructed my husband to 'choke on dick' via the cell phone we pay for, informed us he will steal whatever money or other items he can from the house, attempted to emasculate my husband and create a split between us by casting my husband as my bitch, which, I guess, would by definition, mean I'm a castrator. We're talking unresolved adolescent Freudian shit here for pee. If pee needs to see me as a ball breaker, I can't oblige the young man.

My husband took his first stand with pee. I mean, he took his first stand ever with pee. The cell phone was shut off. pee was grounded, from leaving or having hick retards visit here. pee was cut off forever, thank god, from all nicotine. pee's privileges to guns (they're common out here) has been cut off. Everything in his world stopped. The only thing that would restart his world is putting thought and effort into actually having relationships with people in this house. I don't know that pee will ever give a shit about anyone in this house beyond himself, but he has at pantomimed what would pass as respect. If I'm honest, my heart is as about as warm for him as it is for princess. And I've come to understand the permanence of that. Unless he metamorphized into Jesus Christ, it would never occur to me to trust him on any level.

My, my, I'm redundant with this talk of levels, levels, levels. Maybe I'm seeing out from a bottom one. I don't know, I hope so.

So I hand it to my husband. He has been absolutely firm and consistent with pee and at the very least pee understands what motions he needs to go through and whose alcohol he needs to keep his sneaky fingers off of in order to have his privileges. Which, before this monumental endeavor, he did not understand were privliges. He thought those things plus heaven and earth were his rights by virtue of having had a shitty mother. What the fuck ever. I should be more patient.

pee has intution. My husband had been considering when to unground him and would have had that conversation with pee this weekend. This week is homecoming week, I think? My husband and I were totally absorbed in having to deal with princes's latest show. pee, without having data I know of (because it was not at all in princess's interests to share any of this with him) somehow knew and took himself off grounding to go to the football game. Now, I don't know if that's what he did or not, he's still not home and I don't think football games go this late, which is beside the point anyway.

princess's grandmother bought her a stupid monster truck two years ago. The insurance has been paid for, the tabs have been paid for. But princess, shining with her usual brilliance, decided that rather than listen to her father and be responsible for regular maintenance on the vehicle, she would let it all go, and then hit Grandma up for money for another car. Is this girl insane? In my world, she IS. For the love of Christ, is she serious.

Now - I'm getting up my soap box here, folks - Ok, nice and comfy up here. IN MY DAY, ha. I am from a blue collar family. The holders of degrees are few and far between. There's one in addition to me that went to extent of Piling it Higher and Deeper (Ph.D.) and I'm proud of his status as a Nobel Peace Prize Winner. But IN MY DAY, in MY FAMILY, I worked my fucking ass off to go to school. princess comes from a family where a B.A. or B.S. (I know, ha!) is the understood minimum. I mean, it's assumed. You don't think about how you're going to pay for college, you just entertain notions of where you want to go to college, and what dream you want to pursue. Wow. That, to me, was amazing. I mean, wow. Think about that: with that kind of support, even if you're a substandard human being, Oh, The Places You Could Go!

So, princess has the stupid monster truck, the insurance, the tabs, the cell phone, the school, and all the fucking silpada (or whatever the hell it is) jewlery she can load her arms and ears up with paid for.

princess wants a new car. She's sick of her stupid monster truck. She wants a Cougar. I have no idea what kind of car that is, and really, I don't want to know because the C word might fly out of my mouth if I do know. princess doesn't want to be bothered with brake pads, oil changes, wiper blades, oh my god, really? Can't I just get a new one? The dealership will give 500.00 for the stupid monster truck that Grandma paid over 6k for 2 years ago.

Is that finally the moon on the horizon? I've been waiting to see it for hours now. I live in a nice rural place with a perfect circle of old oak trees surrounding me. Listening to the trees breathe, the wind, the moon, and the utter silence of other humans is what enables me stay alive. My god, it's a beautiful moon tonight. There are some birds calling, and there are crickets and dogs just now beginning to go, this very moment. My heart is feeling a tiny bit better, and some animal is doing clumsy things in the tree branches, I don't know what animal would be right now.

Now, with the moon rising, I've given in to music. The voice of the heavens to my ears, Justin Hayward. I should put myself to bed soon, my inner critics are beginning to craw at me, pee has arrived back here, somehow I knew and I, between the acidic presence of pee and the the lack of space anywhere in this universe, am experiencing a desire to flee while in my own home. I want to run away from this, I do not believe life was meant to be this way. I had a full three hours. I sat in my own kitchen, I looked around at evidence of my sons' existence, my witch art, my art deco, my love for this place. I miss being in my house. I miss my house. Thank god for the moon.

I think she is such a stupid girl. She spends as much time and energy at trying to manuver, abuse and manipulate her father as her mother did. I hate them both for that, it is a true hate. The things she did trying to get that fucking car deal in place. It outraged me on several levels. I hate that the fact that dumb girl does not see or understand that her one surviving grandparent cares so much about her, that she would do something that went against her own will because princess would not stop her incessant nagging about it. princess can't see good from the most immediate relief of want. In my experience of the world, that is the definition of retardation. So there were several conversations that occurred, all of them separate and not disclosed of course, between those three. Whether right or wrong, my strongest urge is to protect my husband's mother. She is the matriarch, and in my opinion, as a kind and true woman with real intelligence and caring, deserves protection from her sons from whomever, even against (I hate that word, against) her own grandaughter. My mother in law's husband died some years ago, before I knew my husband, and I believe it the duty of both her sons to protect her, no matter how strong she is. I have a deep respect for that woman.

I'm watching the moon rise. It gives me relief. It is what feels the most real to me. "Candle of Life" is quite assuaging, the breeze is lifting my hair. I count on the wind, I rely on it, it is breath. Stillness is, as well, they go so together.

princess wailed, as my husband described it. She made blunt and stupid accusations, designed to play upon him, about him toppling her plans, as he described it. Of course she knows this not so. She is heartless and manipulative. That is different than immature and self-centered. Qualitatively, permanently different. My husband had to lovingly, skillfully, compassionately illustrate to his mother, his mother for god's sake, the nature of his daughter and the specific ways she had manipulated her (my mother-in law). What does it take out of a person to have to do that? I don't know.

So this stupid girl is driving a danger trap that she has refused to insure, renew tabs on. The danger trap is this dream truck that needs fucking brakes, brake line work and windshield wipers. The reason she didn't involve pee in this? pee is theoretically next in line for a car. My husband's mother told her that she couldn't shoulder all the burden, that she had other grandchildren she was providing for. cunt princess couldn't involve pee in this one because there was no obvious base for her to manipulate him from. I can't describe how I despist the both of them. He's just more under the radar because his ways of getting his sneaky needs met are different.

My husband never told me, "You are inheriting a mess." I wish he had. We all approach and interact with everyone based, at least, in part upon, our understanding of who and what they are. When that is not represented correctly, Jesus, the fallout.