Crazy People

I barely slept last night. Between the lower level door not being properly latched and the cats, therefore, being free to roam the house and sit outside our bedroom door meowing for food and attention, and the sheer freak-out factor of my evening discovery, I wasn't much in the mood for night-night. I tossed and turned for an hour or so, and finally gave up at midnight. After chasing the cats back to the family room (where they sat at the door and meowed for food and attention), I took to the couch, where I fell in and out of sleep and had very unpleasant dreams about db.

Bob wasn't interested in going to bed, either. He told me several times that he didn't want to go to bed. I finally just said "duly noted" and didn't counter. By the time he got into bed, he was crying--real tears--and told me he's scared to sleep alone. I tried to reassure him that he's slept alone all this time without any trouble, and then he told me "but when I'm at my daddy's house, I sleep with him."

Way to enforce good habits, asshole.

At any rate, I finally convinced him somehow that he'd make it through the night, and he did--but dammit, the kid was bothered and that upsets me.

I talked to M on the phone this morning for a good 40 minutes. She seems to be about as well as anyone in that situation could be. I worry most about that little girl--at barely 4, she doesn't really grasp the magnitude of it all the way an adult does--but she's a sharp little shit, and I'm sure she's in for a tough road ahead. She'll carry that morning with her for the rest of her life.

Which makes me worry even more for my own little Bob. At 6, he's been through more bullshit and drama than I ever wanted for him, and I believe it's far from over. Tomorrow morning, I have to go to court to testify against db in the criminal matter. Bob will go on to school, like he does every day, oblivious. Then db will pick him up from school, and I will (hopefully) be picking him up at 8 pm.

Alone. In a dark parking lot in a questionable area. To say I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy about this would be an understatement.

What are my choices? I can take someone with me, and risk db just deciding not to turn Bob over to me. I can call the cops and request an escort, but that would just freak Bob out and besides, the KCPD have been ever-so-helpful so far. Or I can suck it up, show up with my video camera, and hope for the best.

Great choices, huh?

But I'm not backing down. I can't. Because at least half the media coverage of M & A's story has taken a very "poor guy" tone. As in, "poor guy, his wife left him and he was broke." "Poor guy, his wife left him for another woman." "Poor guy, he was under stress." Fuck him. If you're depressed, and your life sucks, go sit in a fucking corner and cry into your beer. Put a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. Just don't involve anyone else. And especially keep your fucking kids out of it. I'm depressed, I'm broke, and I'm under stress, but it's never occurred to me to take my kids out just to make myself feel better.

And you know, maybe--just maybe--if the world was more interested in preventing domestic violence, maybe A's girlfriend would have gotten out of her shitty marriage sooner. Maybe she would have been better able to protect herself and her kids. Maybe it could all have been avoided.

Maybe other women in similar situations wouldn't hear about it and worry that it could happen to them and their children.

I'm going to try not to over-think it too much tonight. Easier said than done, but I have to leave the house around the same time I normally get out of bed tomorrow morning, and I'm going to need my beauty sleep. So I'm going to try to put it out of my head for now, enjoy an evening with my husband and my little guy, and try to finally beat his 6-year-old ass at air hockey.