I felt like I couldn't breathe all day. I felt like my stomach was inside out. I quit smoking awhile ago so I know it is sadness, panic, not asthma. My older dog is going blind. I can't eat.
The end of something is coming or it is already here. My daughter comes home tomorrow or maybe she doesn't I don't know anymore. No one is telling me anything and Covid19 is still happening and a forensic psychologist costs about 10, 000 and that isn't including court fees.
I am tired. My daughter says she wants to live with her dad and I know I am being alienated as a parent and I know he is this grade A manipulative douchebag. I think the damage is done. She is slipping away, She has slipped away and here I am holding on to a memory. Here I am trying to change time.
I don't want to get out of bed in the morning even when she is here. I can't think about the world out there. Her going to school wearing a mask like some dystopian novel. I can't leave the house to walk the dogs, My husband does all the outdoor things and I do everything inside if I can get out of bed. Everyone keeps pretending everything is okay. Everyone keeps pretending like this isn't the world ending.
The nightmares, the insomnia, the not knowing what day it is. My kid hates me because I can't lie. There is a falseness in the world and it tastes like bile to me. I keep trying to have hope and dreams but everything is slipping away and all of us are holding on to what used to be and it doesn't make any sense.
So I am sad. I can't paint this rosy picture of tomorrow for my daughter because I can't get through the night. And because the world is this fucked up place, people like us fall through the cracks, we get ignored and abused and made fun of.  No one likes the truth. The truth is that humanity has already fallen.
Yeah, I am depressed and so is everyone else. Pills don't dampen reality because we all know the pharmaceutical companies are Satan and only care about money. 
My daughter doesn't want to live with me anymore and we used to be close and I know her dad is a therapist and manipulative and treats me like shit but what if she doesn't want to live with me because reality sucks and I want her to survive and he is offering her some youtube video of life where dogs ride on skateboards and she doesn't have to think or feel. I think that's worse but what do I know. 
The world is a cruel and violent place. We are living in a dystopian novel and the kids go to school while adults stay home and work online.  It is no wonder they hate us. It is no wonder they are confused. The world is shut down and we expect them to pretend like everything is ok for us and then we say it's for them and if you don't do that you are depressed, you are crazy.
I am grieving a world that no longer exists. I don't want to be out there. All the masks and hand sanitizer and hate. I suppose that means I am crazy that I just want to sit this out.  It is like some shitty gym class, everyone is playing dodgeball and all I want to do is hide in the locker room and read poetry. Who wants to be hit in the face with a ball? or Covid19? or a bullet? Apparently everyone. I am going to sit this one out. Tell me when the game is over, until then I will read my book and hide.

don't marry that one night stand
just because he left his sweatshirt
at your house
it isn't a sign from the universe
he will tell you this later
ten years later to be exact
he will also tell you
he wasn't going to email you
that is why he gave you his email
not his phone number
and you will feel really stupid
as you are married now
holding his baby

don't read depressing poems
about getting abused as a kid
at the local Barnes and Noble
while wearing a whimsical shirt
with animals on it
it just isn't right

don't say anything
about those weird sad clown
paintings on the wall
that guy you are dating
will be really insulted
his grandmother painted them
now rest of the night will be awkward
and don't let him give you a bath
because you feel guilty
you said his grandma's clown
paintings were creepy
don't tell him he is creepy
when you are already in the bath
and no one knows where you are
don't point out the mildew

don't go on dating websites
don't meet people from dating websites
don't tell the guy at the gas station
your love life
he has been stalking you

don't watch scary movies alone at night

don't eat spaghetti and meatballs
before a heavy night of drinking

At night when I can't sleep
there is a place only I can go

an empty town in my mind
a whisper in a seashell
of my hometown

I walk the streets
walk through time

everything I have ever lost
is there waiting for me 
a timeline of me
a map of myself

she is there
​waiting for me
to take her home
to here and now

sitting on the curb 
with her scraped knees
crooked glasses
swallowing her face
she looks up at me with such hope
holds out her hand

we walk like this
hand in hand
she reminds me all the things
I forget to remember
and we both keep
pretending
I might let her leave this place 
one day
when it is safe

so she doesn't have to be so alone

we sit on a bench near the sea
I try to explain to her
how its better here
that where I am isn't a place
she should be

she looks at me through 
her fingerprint smudged glasses
fiddles with the scab on her knee
and says but you keep coming back here
less and less
one day you are going to forget
that I am still here
you are going to forget
that there is always another tomorrow

until there isn't
I think but don't say

I am so sad
because she knows
that I know I can never bring her home
that the world will crush her

we walk past the old houses
house one
and house two
we can see the ghosts
peeking out 
little girls just like her
she squeezes her eyes tight 
blows out an invisible birthday candle

the ghosts disappear
 I ask her where they go 
when she makes a wish
you know, back in my head she says
the same place you keep me

we are back near the waterfront
she loves the ocean
I could drown here she says
with a sigh
I nod 
but you won't I say

the sun is starting to set
but it won't
because it is always the day here
I don't want her to be in the dark alone
she is afraid of the dark

she read a book on constellations
told me to give her just one night
one night with me
one night in the world
but I couldn't 

she hands me a crushed dandelion
all warm and  wilted from her pocket
I saved this for you she says
I don't want you to forget how pretty
dandelions are
 
when I reach out to take it 
she grabs my hand and doesn't let go
I don't want to stay here anymore
I can't she says
I try to pull away but it is too late
she unzips me like a coat and climbs inside

I blink
and here we are
in front of the computer
it is 4:51 am
Did you write it all down?
yes
I missed you
I know
​
welcome home

I am holding my heart in a paper bag
a sad lunch sack
dripping blood

remember that plastic bag
floating around
in American Beauty?
we all thought it
was so profound 
it made us feel

I am holding my heart in a paper bag
a sad lunch sack dripping blood

it sucks
carrying around this bleeding heart
give me a day-glow lunchbox
with cartoon characters
give me a lunch ticket
for some day-old heated up chicken nuggets

you know what is more sad
then an empty plastic bag 
floating around?

an empty soul
an empty person
a dark heart
that looks away
from your bleeding heart
in a sad paper bag

It's all wrinkly and moist at the top
where I hold it
my hands are sweaty
like that fat kid at recess
trying to climb the ropes

he is looking away
a jock in gym shorts
he doesn't understand
the beauty of empty bags
or full bags
or bags held tightly
with sweaty hands

so you stand in an empty parking lot
with your bleeding heart in a wrinkled
paper bag
and that guy from American Beauty
hands you his profound
empty plastic bag
that was blowing in the wind
he even chases it down for you

because your heart is leaking through
and your are cupping it with your sweaty hand
he hands you the plastic bag
so it can hold your bloody heart
and you thank him

then you both stand in the parking lot
him with his video camera
you with your grocery bag heart

Well, me being positive and looking toward a future without this crap, lasted half a day. At 10:30, X emails me about Easter. He hasn't been following the contract anyway and recently my daughter dropped the bomb on me about only wanting to be here two days a week. Normally I have my daughter for Easter and she visits her great grandparents for a big Easter egg hunt, but because of Covid19 and travel, this is the second year that can't happen. So anyway, he emails me about Easter and asks but really tells, do you know what I mean? Like double-speak, he is good at that. He wants our daughter for Easter, wants me to pick her up in the afternoon after her "other" mother takes my place and throws the hunt, and then I am supposed to bring her back here do another Easter egg hunt, then drive her back there. I am still reeling from the bombshell of my kid saying she doesn't want to live here and it is two hours to my birthday and I get this weird ass email from X. This man does not communicate at all about her health, then out of the blue asks me this stupid question? Pretending as if he asks me this stuff normally and doesn't just take what he wants. 
Cold-hearted and stupid or fucking brilliant, I don't even know anymore. I just emailed back asking if there was anything else he wanted as well, maybe to harvest my organs or sign papers so his new wife can adopt my child. The cruelty is never ending. I feel like they are dancing on my fucking grave. My identity as a mother has been ripped from me and now pretenses and bullshit are still alive and well, over at the House of Satan. There is something inherently creepy about people who pretend all the time. The 90s word for that is "poser" but nobody uses that word anymore. Posers are alive and well. My X is the cult leader of posers. He has a different face for everyone and pretends that past conversations or his own history has never happened. How bizarre.
No relationship with my kid and now, no Easter this year. My daughter is going to come home today and throw a shit fit so she can spend Easter with her new Mommy. Happy fucking birthday Michelle!
Remember this man is a therapist. Isn't the insensitivity shocking? I suppose I should meditate or something. I am not looking forward to today. You know that tarot card where the man is on the ground with a bunch of swords in his back. That is how I feel right now. I am glad I slept last night because tonight is going to be rough.

I slept at least eight hours last night, maybe more. My 43rd birthday is a tomorrow. Betrayal, lies, being alienated as a parent. The cold hearted abusive gifts keep on coming!
Still reeling from the news that my daughter has suddenly decided she only wants to live here two days a week and... wait for it...I won't even get to be a weekend Mom, the days Thursday and Friday are her in-school days. She doesn't even want to spend weekends with me. When I got a little teary eyed about it she said "two days are better than none". I choked on my heart then swallowed it. The two lovely nights I had with my daughter were apparently only so I could get that wonderful news. I am terrible at sarcasm hope I am getting it right.
Perhaps it was the miracle of sleep but I am starting to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. My bleeding heart, I cannot win at this because I actually have a heart. I can't tell up from down or inside from out and my mother's intuition tells me my daughter can't either. I guess it is time for me to let go and live because I have been grieving for too long. 
It is never that easy though is it? If I try to hold on to her like I have been it is only going to get worse. 
Looks like I can finally save my money for a life I have only dreamt of, if I don't die from heartache before it is even possible. After getting vaccinated probably in May going to start planning endless travels with the hubby to soothe my broken heart. I am going to start living my dream instead of being trapped and chained to abusive X so he can use my child against me. Have I mentioned he doesn't even live in her school district? So I can't even move and go live in another cheaper warmer state that doesn't have endless winters. I have arthritis, it sucks.I have to be stuck here for another four years and continue getting stomped on.
​Sigh.
​

I am starting to realize a pattern within myself. I crave stability because I never had it as a kid. Everything was always volatile. My step-dad always had these outbursts and didn't like noise because he worked nights and My Mom was always sad because she lost things I wasn't aware you could lose then, parts of yourself that you hide away. I was still a kid and I had hope even when I was a sick and stayed in bed for a year. They thought I had Lou Gehrig's disease or Leukemia but what I really had was childhood rheumatoid arthritis and secrets.
Secrets can actually cause physical pain.  My secret was that I didn't want to live. I felt like a mistake. My Mother had gotten pregnant with me at a young age. There is a picture of her and my father. She had run away from home and lived with him and his family. She was 15 or looked like 15 and he looked like a criminal which is what he was. I have always believed I was the product of rape. My mother never said this but after spending time with my father and knowing how young she was that was all I could think. My Mother chose to have me; she had a miscarriage before me and a stillborn baby I didn't find out about until I was in my thirties. It made so much sense. She couldn't look at me when I was a child; it seemed to cause her pain. I didn't want to cause her pain.
When my daughter was born, all I wanted for her was the stability that I never had. A hometown where everyone knew you who you were. It didn't work out that way. I made a lot of the same mistakes my own Mom did; I was just older. I didn't have any self-esteem. I married a man I met in a bar. In my defense, I knew I was going to marry him and have a child with him. I am "sensitive"; I know things I am not supposed to know and I see those who have passed on. I just kept it hidden for a very long time.
I knew my daughter was going to be born at 2:00 a.m. on Halloween even thought she wasn't supposed to come until November 4th. I knew there was going to be significant complications that would put both our lives at risk. I had panic attacks and, although it turned out to be true, when it was happening I was calm because I felt her spirit and told her to hold on. She did.
Things didn't work out for me and her dad. We aren't even in the same universe. I needed someone like me, sensitive, emotional. I have that now and I wouldn't have if that marriage with X hadn't dissolved.
I had this idea of what the perfect childhood would be for my daughter and it was all about what I didn't have that I wanted so badly. Stability. A mother whose sole goal was to raise me. A hometown. A house she only left when leaving for college. It didn't happen and it is not happening and I feel like I have failed.
I wanted to give her the childhood I longed for, but she doesn't want it. She doesn't read classic literature. She isn't an introvert. She doesn't want to live in my quiet lake side condo community that gives  me the peace I never had growing up.
Her dad has given me more grief than I have ever wanted but now she wants to live with him and his wife, who I am sure is the opposite of me, as much as my husband is the opposite of him.  It is killing me. I put aside all my dreams to give her what I never had and she doesn't want it. She doesn't want me.
I am not sure if it matters anymore that X was emotionally abusive and sometimes physical and made my life hell, You can't mix oil and water. Now that my daughter wants this other life where my full time job as a Mom is now just a weekend thing and she wants this other Mom who isn't like me, it hurts. It hurts a lot and it hurts even more that this was taken from me before I was ready, if one can ever really be ready for your only child to leave you.
I can't help but think what I could have been and what I could be if I wasn't always thinking about how I should be, so she didn't turn out like me. My Mother didn't love herself either because men abused her just like they abused me. She couldn't dream for awhile and when she did, she traveled. She let go of raising a child that had animosity towards her for being a normal flawed human being. I survived but I needed her. I had my grandma and we got a long better as grandmas and granddaughters do. I just thought it wouldn't happen to me so soon and it wouldn't happen this soon because of a man that is my nemesis. I thought it would be Annabelle going off to college. I wanted to be one of those mothers.
I went to live with my grandparents at 16 by my own choice. My stepfather kicked me down the stairs because I laughed too loud on the phone with my friend. It wasn't the worst thing he had done but it was the last straw.
My baby wants to leave at 13 and I don't do shit like that. I get angry because she won't clean her room because she loves a man that made me want to kill myself because he took away my dreams for her. He took away my dream to give her the childhood I never had.
She doesn't want it. She doesn't want me. I want to dream. I want happiness and not being tied down to how I should be. I want to travel and write and love my husband who is just like me and loves intensely and feels intensely.  
I keep having these nightmares that I am going to die. I am murdered. I find out I have cancer. I am on a bed surrounded by flowers, alive at my own wake.
When I was sick as a child and they didn't know what I had. I heard my parents (who were like oil and water) talking about what it could be and I would research it by reading books on death. I thought I was dying from the age of 12-13; no one told me any different. I hated my life so much I accepted it and I was okay. I believed I wasn't supposed to be born. I am not sure that feeling has ever quite left me.
I am at a crossroads. I don't want history to repeat itself. X is oil. I am water and his wife is probably oil. They don't communicate with me about Annabelle's health and It is hell because I want her childhood to be what I could never have. She wants hope and sunshine, and all this shit I can't give her because I have suffered and this past year with the plague and the last hurrah of decent humanity. She missed the same year of school as me when I was sick and thought I was dying. I survived. I survived without Zoom calls and Tik Tok and a disco roller rink set up because of boredom. I am worried it has taken this much of a toll on her and now she wants to move again after her Dad has moved her three times.
I don't understand this world of sheltering children to the point where they don't understand reality or how to stay safe. There is no joy without knowing pain. You can't reflect on vapid tik tok videos. When she was born, all I could think about was the immense responsibility of keeping her safe and keeping her alive.
She wants to live in a reality that isn't real and I am scared for her.

 ,Update!!!! Being blocked out of your parental health contract for two years does affect your relationship with your child. What could possibly be worse than being bullied, emotionally abused, and treated as if you don't exist so your child can be a gift for your X's new wife. Your child telling you she only wants to live with you two days a week because her dad's house is more fun. By more fun I can only assume she means he exposes her to the public during a pandemic when she should be being careful because she has an autoimmune disease. She also mentioned that remote learning is better over there. It might be I still don't get remote learning and neither does she. She wants me to trust her but she is 13 and I can't be sure she isn't being manipulated especially since her father has withheld any information about her health purely out of spite or cruelty to me.
I don't know what to do. I feel like I am being ganged up on. This is a trap. He won't make amends for abuse. He won't communicate about her health and now mine and my daughter's relationship is dissolving. I am supposed to fight for a daughter that has no loyalty to the mother that protected her and fought for her rights from a self centered abusive man and it nearly destroyed me. 
Do I just let go? and finally fucking heal my life because people are shitty and let's be honest children leave eventually and end up hating you until they have their own kids and realize they were awful.  I live in a retirement condo village because I have PTSD and jump from someone walking into the room. I don't like sports or social situations but I love my daughter and I have been her loyal advocate and worn my heart outside my body since she was born. I am constantly treated as if I am less than human by her dad.  I am worried that Annabelle is going to die before age fifteen because he thinks about himself first and has to keep busy so he doesn't look at that cold hearted soul of his.
Maybe I am not the "fun" choice for her but I will keep her alive. I honestly don't know what to do. I don't know his wife at all and so far she treats me as badly as he does. So I am assuming they both have matching cold hearts. How fantastic my daughter wants to be raised by two people that treat me and my husband (who dotes on Annabelle like the diva she is) like we are ants under their magnifying glass in the sun.
Whatever happened to family fucking loyalty?  My daughter doesn't respect me at all because they don't respect me at all and I am angry and broken hearted.  
I live ten minutes from her school and they live 30-40 minutes. I think her wanting to live there is because of X's master manipulative tactics. He has secrets, now Annabelle has secrets. He has taught her that lying is okay. He has taught her that her mother's life is not of value because I was a stay-at-home mom and I don't walk all over others because of greed and selfishness.
Life isn't fair. If I choose to "trust" my 13-year-old child who wants to change the contract so that I only have her two nights a week (I have her four now) because she doesn't understand she has been slowly conditioned to block me out because it is easier for X to eliminate me then be a grown up and admit who he really is. Shit, he probably is going to ask me for child support when he has been withholding his income for five years.
I don't want to be the self-sacrificing mother anymore. I have been putting everyone else first my whole life since I was a kid. Always the responsible one, always putting my needs last, for what? No fucking career, too depressed from being devalued, and now my child being ripped from me and repeating the words of my abusive X  daily like a little puppet. 
My kid is confused and I get it, but having her block me out and refuse to help around the house and have tantrums because life isn't Disney all the time isn't helping my mental well being at all. I can't get over the fact that she only wants to be here two nights a week.
That nightmare of me being dismembered and murdered I get it now. My identity is being her Mother. Now X and Step Mommy dearest have just chopped off my limbs, put them in a trash bag and thrown me in the river!!!! 
​Fuck! Fuck! Fuck Fuck!

My daughter is home.
My heart isn't so heavy now.
I am no longer weighed down by secrets.

Someone sent me a gravity blanket for my birthday. Annabelle and I sat on the couch underneath it and I fell asleep from exhaustion while she took a Minecraft quiz.
I dreamt that it was tomorrow. In the dream I knew this because I was cooking fish for Annabelle and I (I only make fish on Fridays).  X shows up and just hovers awkwardly next to the counter making me nervous. I heat up some leftovers for Jeremy (lamb stew) because he doesn't like fish. X scoffs at it. I don't offer him any food. I say something sarcastic about his sudden vegetarianism and him being too good for meat. Annabelle comes downstairs and takes a bite of the stew and I say oh this one is yours and pass her the fish. I am getting my own plate to sit down at the table with her when X takes her into my office.  Jeremy goes to see what is happening and comes back pissed and says how ridiculous this is. He wants to throw him out but I convince him to wait. I go look and Annabelle is sitting on the floor eating  her dinner, with X next to her just watching. Jeremy goes upstairs. I stand there in the kitchen. X comes out and I just lose it and start yelling for him to get out what the hell is wrong with him etc. etc. He starts screaming at me and pulls out a pair of gym shorts from his pocket like a magician does with scarves. Then he starts taking his pants off to change into the gym shorts right there. I scream at him to go to the bathroom and ask him what the hell he is doing.  He yells that he is going for a run. Annabelle comes out of the office.
I wake up, tell Jeremy about the dream and the gym shorts, we laugh. I Go check on Annabelle. She is safe in her bed. I can breathe.
So I am back to dreaming again. I prefer a silly dream like this over any nightmare. A couple months ago I had a nightmare so awful I tried to avoid sleep for a week (like the teenagers from Nightmare on Elm Street). I was being murdered. I kept telling myself it was just a dream and not to be scared but then the man started stabbing me and I felt the pain. It was so real. I knew the man was going to dismember me and put me in a trash bag and throw me in a river. Unfortunately I didn't wake up right after the stabbing and the nightmare went on forever. I was bled out on the floor while he was sawed off my foot. I woke up shaking and crying. Still not sure whyI felt pain in the dream. Sometimes when I can't fall asleep (which is often) the murder nightmare just pops in to my head and I shudder. I have yet to find any information about feeling physical pain in  a nightmare in any of the books I have been reading about dreams. I haven't had that nightmare again. Thank God.

I read my Lenormand cards daily, especially if I am stressed. They are very poetic and somewhat cryptic. Anyway I keep getting combinations that mean "luck in un-luck" and the "wait is over" which doesn't sound awful but who the fuck knows anything anymore. My least favorite combination in Lenormand is anything with the Scythe in it because it always ends  up meaning pain or surgery. I pulled that combination a week before a horrible toothache came about that resulted in an extraction. Tarot cards and Oracle cards contrary to what people think, do not tell the future. They are just a game of interpretation and symbols. Which is pretty much what life is. I have had three crows visiting the back porch every morning for like two weeks. In my experience every time the crows visit something bad happens. Now there is just one crow left. I saw it eating a worm the other day and it was staring at me and the dogs were hysterically barking. I left it a slice of bread as an offering. The bread isn't there anymore so that is probably a good sign.
Last night I lulled myself to sleep binge watching episodes of The Haunting, slept a few hours. Now I am up and back to thinking about this and thinking about that. I keep imagining worse case scenarios of every possible thing that could happen ever. Then started to daydream about traveling. I got my Discover it Miles. card in the mail today so now I have two credit cards to earn travel points. I had some happy thoughts about traveling and blogging. Before Covid19 happened I was putting away money in a savings account for a trip every year. Then lockdown, the plagued world, depression. I spent it all on books and Christmas 2020. It was at least a good half hour of daydreaming about traveling. Then I went on Abe books and looked at signed rare books I can't afford for several hours. It is very soothing. I ordered a first edition of Sylvia Plath's Crossing The Water (35$ 17$ shipping and handling from UK, won't get here until May) and Wheelock's Latin (5$). I have decided to learn latin because I have always wanted to learn latin then read Hellenistic poetry in latin.
They have so many cheap used books. It makes me reminisce about the book tables in NYC. I used to buy these weird titled battered paperbacks from the 1970s  for 50c and read the whole book on the train home to Long Island. After whatever writing class I had been attending.
I am really trying to not focus on anything stressful or sad today. Unfortunately I am getting sad and tired again. I don't think it is working. I am haunted by sadness trying to fill my mind with fluff.  I usually hear the crows by now but all is quiet.