Alone

Well, it's been my first official week of being "single" again. The weekend got off to a truly abysmal start as my daughter and I stopped off at a neighbourhood grocery store to get a few things, and who was walking out of the store towards us but my "ex". My daughter yelled "Daddy!" and rushed up to say hello to him. To me, he said that I had ruined his life. Not the first time I've heard that, so it was relatively easy for me to ignore and just tell him that I needed him to watch my daughter for me next Saturday afternoon, as there is an event I'm planning to attend with a friend of mine. To this, he promptly refused, saying I was the one who wanted custody and he had "things to do". And people wonder why I left him? I told him, "This is your daughter, she is your responsibility too." He just basically said, "Hey, you wanted this, so live with it." This is the man I married, who doesn't even want to spend time with his own daughter. Thank God she's too young to fully understand yet. I called him an asshole, started walking away and he yelled back at me not to call him an asshole and that was that. I took my daughter's hand and started toward the store. She was sucking her thumb and I said, "Are you okay, sweetie?" She just nodded and I said, "It's okay, honey. Don't worry, everything's okay." "I'm not sad," she told me. Sometimes she just breaks my heart. I know it's only been a week, but she doesn't seem to miss her dad at all. Is it any wonder? I know she's only six but I'm sure she can pick up on his indifference just as much as I can.

The next wonderful morale booster on my list this weekend was my mother. She has had an attitude with me ever since I told her off about 2-3 weeks ago for nagging at me. Since then, I am Public Enemy #1 around her house, and the permanent expression of distaste on her face whenever she sees me, whenever I'm around, no matter how nice and cordial I am, is really starting to piss me off. She watches my daughter for me in the mornings before she takes her to school, which amounts to roughly 2 hours per day, 5 days a week. She told me before I left my husband that under no circumstances would she watch her for me in the evenings or on the weekends. (Translation: Since you left your husband, I will make it my personal mission to ensure that you have no social life whatsoever.) Well, she reiterated this to me when I left my daughter in her care for about an hour on Saturday afternoon. My brother and I went on a stroll together and my daughter didn't want to come with us, so I left her with my mother. When I got back, she comes in and says to me, still with that scowl on her face, "I told you I wasn't going to watch her on the weekends, I told you right from the start." "I know, I said, telling myself to calm down, don't rise to her bait, don't get into a fight, don't freak out. So, that was that.

This weekend was very quiet. I spent some of it unpacking the rest of our stuff and disassembling boxes. Did some laundry. Took my computer somewhere to get a modem put in. If I don't have internet at home, I truly will have no life other than mothering to speak of, and much as I love my daughter, I know that would drive me absolutely crazy. I try and keep myself busy so I don't have to think. I know if I think too much, I'll climb the walls. I just have to keep thinking of things to do. Because if I don't, the loneliness and trepidation I'm trying my best to ignore will just consume me and make my life a living hell.