I have a good friend who I just spoke with over the telephone. She suggested that I start writing again, at least until I can recleaim the feeling of happiness I felt a month or so ago when I was without Mark. I have been trying to live in a world without this man since I was twenty-three-years-old. I am now almost thirty-eight. This is an amazingly beautiful, fleeting life we've all got. I am so sad that I keep getting sucked back in. Here are the things that make me go back: loneliness; wanting a "real family;" not being close to my real family and having few friends; wanting Ezra to be happy; crazy fear about not being able to make it financially on y own; fear that ppl. will never know me as well as he does, as I have known him longer (in a sense) than my real family of even my own, beloed son. But this last thing is not even true; it is only a fantasy spun out of the anxiety that happens when I am on my own. He does not reall yknow me, as he does notreally know anyone, not even Ezra. He is a self serving, spoiled creepy scummy guy who has the emotianl intelligence of a thirteen year old. I deserve so, so much better. Saying this, saying that I deserve so much better is even difficult, as he has led me to beleive--for years now--that I am crazy, lazy, selfish, a bad mother, etc. If I view the world through his eyyes, and I tihnk desperate women like me do this often.. I do noth thingk I am unique in this way.. I feel like nobosy would ever love me. He has told me that there is a "type" of man who married single moms and that they are predatory. Interestingly, he wants to "date me" his own son's mother, have me clean his disgutingly gross apartment that looks like someonw ith mr lives there. He wants me to listen to his political ideas (which are somwhat informed, but born only out of a desire to serve his ego and to feel better than other, more educated ppl. Note; he is fabulously undereducated.)
This man has never truly parented a day in his life. He wants Ezra so that he can have a buddy who keeps him company and admires him. I beleive he keeps his daughter (who he has abonded many, many times) @ bay so that he can feel as though someone much better than him has a longing fo rhim. his man has: lived in a trailer, date a prostiture/stippper; had the stripper burn down his apartment; had the stripper look after his daughter even though she had lost not one but two children to social services. And he came out of this expereince not grateful that she was the only woman who ever loved his daughter, but angree b/c she stole a few hungred dollers, as he would not pay more than half of his share in their rental agreement. THs man does no respect women. He suess his very owen mother to bail him out of legal issues as well as for a place to live when nobody else will take him in.
I listened to this man belly-ache about how sad his life was, as his daughter's maternal grandmother raised her. When the daughter was born the woman he had her with became so nuts she could not take care of her; thus he was--and cry me a river here, flolks--abandoned with his baby. Of couse at age twenty-three why would I doubt this story? Most twenty-three year old cannot be trusted to pay for appropriate car insurance, never mind synthesize real adult life situations. I have heard lately that oone's brain does not fully even develop until they are twenty-five. I adore our son with my whole entire heart. And it is thus that I would most likely not restructure my life if I had the opportunity; however, imagining a life with this beautiful boy and a REAL man, an educated, kind man who did not manipulate his, his mentally ill daughter, his low life means-spirited-already parents, was not an immature drug user , etc. is a killer. It breaks my heart. I imagine poetry written on cardboard castles, small tiny songs that you can hear on Sunday mornings, and friends over doing cool stuff, even playing PICTIONARY.
