Priority Check, eisle nine.

When I first sat down to blog,  armed with a glass of Sutter Homes and furious resolve NOT to die unwanted and alone with a brood of ungrateful and embarrassed offspring, I thought my mission was simple. Forget loser husband, poke fun at batshit crazy inlaws, find a series of outrageous dates and go on with my little dysfunctional fairytale ending with Mr. Right (for me).
Well, its been a while. Curious as to why? You all know you LOVE my chaos.
I won't dissapoint, I promise.
My family has gotten caught up in the normal flurry of day to day life. My eldest started school (thats a WHOLE other post!), we have had schedules to adjust, potty training x2 to tackle, trick or treating, first school dances to attend, and, oh yeah...their dad got tased repeatedly and arrested from my apartment for beating me, all with our kids right there.
Sordid drama. As you would expect. Blog worthy, the only people left dissapointed are my parents.
I could rehash every little detail of that awful night, but there is a local newspaper article (yup, it was that kind of thing), and I'm all about protecting privacy here. Even in the case of people I hate.
And really, it's the aftermath that matters.
This is a cautionary tale.
What a lot of people don't understand, myself included at one blissful point, is that domestic violence is so  much more than just a beating or fifty. It's mind control, with self confidence and mental health taking the brunt of the abuse. Add kids, shake it all up with the instability of the cycle of abuse, and you've got a family on the rocks. The courts, child protective services, therapists, all label me as "the victim". I'm not. I choose to engage with this guy. My kids are the only real victims. And they suffer.
Let me paint you a picture of what happens when you beat your kids mother, degrade her, insult her, threaten her.
My daughter stays up at night waiting by her window, afraid he'll come back. She tells me, social workers, teachers and anyone else who will listen that she is afraid he will kill me. She has called me a "stupid cunt". My son, his fathers namesake, told his preschool teacher that his daddy is a "monster" who hurt his mommy. They are  traumatized. Every day is a fight, as they attempt to proccess what they just can't. Every child is in therapy, even my two year old.
Here we insert the Batshit Clan.
What else would they do but, loudly proclaim his innocence. In one online post the phrase, "Mr. _____ is the real victim here." The police lied, I lied, the witnesses lied...poor Batshit husband. Clearly the only one to trust here is the guy who kicked the cop and got cuffed after five taser rounds. But thats the cards these people were dealt. And his sister waiting outside  the courthouse to threaten me and ramble about "karma" makes their case all the more compelling.
I owe my former inlaws a resounding thank you, though. I can look at them and get a comprehensive preview of what will happen to my family if I don't spartan up and end this. It's not very pretty, functional or educated. Sometimes it takes sobering reality through something drastic to show you what really matters. And I know that even marrying Jason Aldean will not make me happy if my kids grow in to a bunch of hot messes.
Worry not. My foundation remains. I'm still broke. Still have a tribe of kids, still love my cheap wine and eccentric friends. And I still have the worst inlaws ever pulled off an episode of cops. But is Kate overly concerned with dating? Nope.

I'm Not Daddy, I'm me.

If this is a story about redemption, I guess I should start with my kids.
There are four types of divorce. Amicable divorce, where the marriage does nothing more than fade into dusk like a sunset. Mutual, no flaming emotion - lack of emotion is the reason for the marriage dissolving in the first place. There's contentious divorce, where one party just can't let go, even after the other has packed her bags, walked out the door. The papers become a tether, the final break in a one-sided bond. There's volatile divorce, where there is so much hatred that even after it's over, the fighting never really stops. You've just stepped outside to do it. And then there's my divorce, so sick and twisted I can blog about it. Where both people swing between absolute detest and false hope of a better tomorrow. Where the marriage turns on itself, every intimate moment and personal detail is just another bullet in the chamber. The divorce papers are a vague, false threat, a sobering reality, a terrible implosion that sucked my whole world into a hateful void, in that order.
Add children to any of these, and the volatility multiplies exponentially. I know best. No matter who "I" am. And like my dad always said during his divorce and consequent custody battles, "He who has the kids has the power."
Since when is marriage and parenting about power?
As soon as you step into court.
I love my children, absolutely. Entirely, unequivocally. I have made more sacrifices and endured more pain than is humanly reasonable to those without children. But if you have kids, you understand.
Mommy, do "martyr" and "mother" rhyme?
We love our children because they are a part of us. We don't have children, we receive them. An ethereal gift from our own bodies.
So what happens when we lose ourselves? If our children are a part of us, a reflection, what happens when we can no longer stand ourselves?
Or worse, the other parent? The other part of the proverbial minor-dependent puzzle?

Which brings me to this:
My son said something all together too profound for 7am this morning. He didn't mean to; he's two and a half. But it hit me. Out of nowhere. A six car pileup on an otherwise sunny and uneventful morning.
"Mommy, I'm not Daddy. I'm _____."
This child is the spitting image of his father. He has his mannerisms, his temper, his name. Everything about him is shaped into his father's image. And he's difficult. Painfully difficult.
Moreso since I finally separated from his father.
He's not daddy. He's him. And I am supposed to love him, unconditionally. And I do. But I don't like him.
I know why he said it. He knows he's named for his father, his sister and neighborhood kids tell him this. He wants to assert himself. He needs to be separate. Is it just his name? Or does he sense I struggle to give him his own identity? Does he feel stuck in the crossfire, by something that he can't even control? His own birthright?
This is supposed to be simple. We don't love each other, we hate each other. We can't be in the same room, let alone the same household. Our marriage didn't dissolve. It burst into flames.
But here I am, left to solely support my band of children and run my household. Boo-boo kisser, personal chef, nurse, cheerleader, personal care assistant, chauffeur,  referee. I knew he wouldn't help as soon as he left. I had to get rid of him regardless. I knew what I was doing. So why am I still angry.
On the surface, it's a., b., c., d. Love, marriage, children, not necessarily in that order. Fights, tears, someone moves out. Now we have to move on. I shoulder this responsibility, I bear this cross, because my ex never could. There's the martyr again. Oh well. But it's so much more. It's the end of an era, it's a lifetime of regret, of wasted time, money and resources. It's the death of my girlhood dreams and romantic fantasies, it's the hard reality of what SINGLE MOM means. It's the birth of distrust of men, the slight glimmer of hope that there's someone out there who gets me. Who I get. Someone not tethered to me by children we have in common or a stupid piece of paper of a semi-convenient living situation. The hope for love.
The other day, I let my daughter have a "sleep over" of sorts in her room with her brother. We try not to talk about their father  because he is not a presence. But you can never forget. She tells me, "This is so cool, mom. Daddy would never let us do this."
Well, I'm not daddy. I'm me. 

This is the stupidest idea three glasses of Sutter Homes have ever given me...or is it?

This is a story of redemption, true love and second chances. The harrowing tale of a victim finding empowerment. Or, it's just me leaving my hoard of children with "The Meat" and "The Meat's Girlfriend" (my hetero life partner....nickname to be determined at a later date), while I engage in quazi-drunken desperate acts of dating, hoping to find a man I DON'T wish a terrible mac truck accident upon. So...do I sell myself now, or do I convince you that I don't really care who reads?
Or am I unabashedly honest?
Let's go with the latter.
I am way too young, have a tribe of children, a shitty apartment, a crazy ex husband and the best friends money can buy. Well, almost. I have no money. so I guess they're shitty friends?? We have put our children to bed and had three glasses of Sutter Homes White Zindfanel at this point. I am slightly intoxicated at this point, and will most likely wake up tomorrow to make my children pancakes while feeling like a bag of smashed assholes. Such is life. I will regret internet whoring myself tomorrow....possibly.

I am waaaay too sexy and outrageous for  you, internet public. I need to date. My life depends on it. Date me. I am desperate, and easily drunk. I don't want you to play father to my children. Chances are you'd suck at it anyway.

More to come when I find a date.