licking the bottom of the Xanax bottle…

Shaun told me today, “Don’t let her get you down.”
There is a lot in that statement. A lump formed in my throat and I almost cried. I realized later that those were words I never heard from my ex.
During my first marriage and having to deal with CAB, after every phone call we were fired up and had to figure out what step to take next or what route we would have to take to make sure that my ex would be able to see his son that upcoming weekend. For years, if my ex didn’t call every day for 4 days before the Friday he was to have his son, she would assume that he didn’t want him and wouldn’t plan on bringing him to the meeting spot. Every other week around Wednesday our nerves would start to fray because we knew it was going to be a battle to see him. There were a hundred excuses of WHY she couldn’t make it or WHY he wasn’t going to be able to see his son…and for three days we were on pins and needles everytime the phone rang. In most every call, my name was brought up and how I had ruined her life and everything would be so much better if I just wasn’t in the picture.

It’s strange all these things coming to the surface now. I need to talk about them because for many years I wasn’t allowed to.
I wasn’t allowed to show weakness. I needed to be the strong one. The one who pushed him to write letters to see if he could see his son. The one who got the paralegal to get the papers in order. The one who went to the DA’s office and got child support assigned. I look back now and I realize it was my survival methods kicking in. If I always kept on top of things then nothing would slip through the cracks and no one would get left out.

Sometimes I wonder how I would have turned out if I had woke up one morning and decided to just stay where I was and not move to Sacramento with my ex.
That thought scares me sometimes because I believe if I think about it too much then the things that I was given for making the choices will vanish…like a Twilight Zone episode. Never in a kazabiltrillion years would I give up those years because it was those years that I became a mother…and a step mother.

Being a step mother didn’t prepare me for being a mother. It prepared me for this point in my life. I think I am the best step mother I can be to Marina and Tyler because of the lessons I learned. Marina and Tyler have a mother. We may not always see eye to eye. We may get frustrated with each other, but I think we both see how important the roles we each have in the children’s lives and we don’t step on those roles.
It’s time for me to let go of that part of my life and that includes the part that involved Ryan. As bad as that hurts to even say, I know it’s true.
I have a new life now. Remember the new me? the new squeeky Kristine? It’s time for me to let go of hoping that people will see me for who I really am. I’m not a life ruiner. I am not evil. I am a fighter for ‘fairness’.

Things need to be fair, but sometimes they’re not.

Those are the things that Karma likes to take care of…and from now on she can.