if one lets go, the other falls down.

Today is Shea’s 8th birthday. Yep. My youngest child is eight years old.

Shea’s birthday always puts me in this weird mood. It reminds me of her first birthday and how my marriage was coming to an end.
“Shea turns eight. My marriage ended 7 years ago.”
It’s a crappy thing to remember on your daughter’s birthday.

Alyx broke her arm on what would have been my annaversary with her father. Now when I think of July 11th, I don’t think of the day I got married, but the day Alyx broke her arm. We actually do this strange ‘broken arm’ celebration every year and it makes me smile instead of feeling regret or sadness.

My ex called today after he got out of the doctor’s appointment.
“Well, he said I have about 3 months to live.”
My brain never had so many thoughts run through it before I finally said, “WHAT?”
He said, “Yep, the doctor gave me three months…..to lose this weight.”
I called him a fucking dumb ass for scaring me like that. He laughed and proceeded to tell me that the doctor instructed him to lose weight.
My first thought was to say, “WELL DUH.”, but I was nice because I live in a glass house.

I’ve spent the morning trying to get over the fact that my mother’s day sucked ass. Learning the art of not letting the way other people behave and treat me and other people has been a huge lesson that I haven’t quite learned how to do yet.
When the neighbor was a prick to me I was pissed, but I had not really put any effort into trying to make our ‘neighbor relationship’ the best it could be, so I didn’t really feel much of a loss.
There were things I could have done to try to make our relationship as neighbors go smoother. I could have gone back over there and asked him what hours he worked so I could see if I could keep the dog in during those hours. I could have said I was sorry that my dog woke him up. I could have been a lot nicer and gone out of my way to make sure that certain things wouldn’t trigger him.
BUT and I mean, BIG OL’ BUT…yesterday reminded me of something that I should have known from all the years of me being nice to people and going out of my way to make sure that everyone got along: It doesn’t matter how much you do for someone, when they want to be mean, they are going to be mean. It doesn’t matter how much you put into a relationship, if someone isn’t putting just as much effort into it then it’s not going to work. If you put in a lot of work into something to earn trust and respect and it goes unnoticed…you need to just walk away and stop trying.

I’m not going to go out of my way to try to be nice to my neighbors because in my heart of hearts I know that it doesn’t matter all the things I do right to make our relationship right, it’s going to take one misunderstanding or one thing and they are just going to talk behind my back and call the cops on me again for something petty that could have been resolved by simply coming over and talking to me like an adult.

So the lesson I am learning today is I’m only going to put effort into relationships that give back and I can find trust in.
I’m not going to dwell on the bad things that happened this month (even though it SUCKED REALLY BAD!) or the petty things that happened yesterday or even the things that happened 7 years ago.

Tonight my ex-husband will probably drag me, the girls, my future husband and his children out to dinner to celebrate his daughter’s birthday. He won’t bring up the past and how this month marks the tragic end to our marriage 7 years ago. He’ll laugh and smile and crack jokes with Shaun about me. He won’t raise an eyebrow as Shaun tells the girls to settle down or to use a spoon to eat the ice cream instead of eating it like a dog.
These are two grown men that aren’t threatened by each other and the roles they each have in their children’s lives.

This is the type of relationship I need to be in. This is the type of relationship that I am going to put effort into maintaining.
All the other relationships that don’t have 100% from everyone involved, I chose to not be a part of.
And this is the post where I sound mature, but later at dinner I’m probably going to pat my ex’s stomach and ask him when he’s due.