Letters to Hope

I don’t think your ‘Terrible Two’s” are soo bad. I say that now, but wait… I might change my mind.  Today you where cranky but I know you did not sleep that well for some reason last night, so this morning you were very tired.  And all day you have been tired.

You are almost officially out of diapers. I still put them on you when you go to bed but you have been doing VERY well with not peeing in your pretty panties and you tell us when you have to go to the potty.  You are so cute you look and say uh oh pee pee and then RUN to the bathroom.  I think you have only had like 2 accidents and in the morning you have been dry even in your diaper.  When I go out for LONG trips I still put the diaper on you but then as soon as we get home I take it off again.

You are growing up so fast and becoming quite the little woman.  You have started this slapping thing that is driving me crazy.  You keep hitting me when you get mad and I just can’t have that.  I have no idea where you picked it up from but it is not very nice and hope I can find a way to correct you without hitting you back.  Since that is what my mom used to do I am out of ideas.  We do have this one thing that works though and I think it is kind of funny.  I ask you if you want to go to your room and you always say no and stop what ever it is that you are doing.  I don’t know what is going to happen if you ever say YES but for now it is working.

Your father and I are still on the outs, but you guys seem to not notice and you spend a lot of time together.  I hope that everything can stay this way and that no one will become resentful or bitter.  It is good that you hardly notice that he is not here; I think if you did notice it would be very hard on me.

I love that you snuggle with me and now you are really getting the cutest little sense of humor.  You sing all the time now and are sooo smart.  Your memory is great and you remember things from 8 or more months ago, which is amazing to me.  You’re just simply wonderful. And I am sooo proud of you for the potty training, man that makes life easier :)

HA! Wow, I have to get longer lasting clients, this is driving me nuts. New ones seem to come somewhat easy, but I can’t keep them for very long. Sometimes I really think it is me.

But not this one, even my co-worker said that these people were nuts. Take “Crazy Dr”. This guy would call me all the time and ramble on about things I had no idea about. I was not at his desk and had not memorized every vender. He wanted his wife to do some of the bookkeeping and she had no desire to do I, so would slough it off on me. I didn’t mind (hey extra work!), but then if he asked her a question she would blame me and then not tell me what she had said. I felt like a marriage counselor with them both and all 3 of us were not going to win.  My co-worker dropped them as clients and so did I.  It just wasn’t worth the hassle.

I am going through a whirlwind of emotions right now.

It is driving me crazy, your father is driving me crazy.  I am so tired of talking about our relationship, about changes that have to be made, about things that have been said or not said, about things I will not put up with no matter how he begs or tries to blame me.  I am scared in my life right now that I will become bitter and angry and never want to be with anyone ever again out of fear of having to deal with all of this in another relationship.  I’m afraid that I am teaching you that all of this is ok, that going through relationship after relationship and finding them all the same.

I am tired of people telling me that I have to be happy by myself before I can be happy with anyone else. In this relationship that I have had for most of my adult life, I have been alone most of the time.  I am worried that I will lash out and talk about your father in a negative light because I clearly see the mistakes he is making and do not understand why he does not see them.

I want to give you expamples of good strong confident men,  and I fear you will never see that; that you will make the same mistakes that I have made no matter how much I try to shield you from them.

I am scared that all my efforts and feelings will pan out into you making incorrect choices because I cannot break this cycle of “abuse”.  Not physical abuse but mental agony of both of people in a relationship not being enough for one another and having to search else ware for what is really needed.

I am scared that I am too selfish in what I want and that I will never find what I am looking for because I am scared.

You are such a wonderful willful child maybe you will not have any of these issues maybe you will never tolerate this type of behavior from anyone let alone a man.  I can only hope and pray and TRY to teach you NOT to.

I met a man today, from a colleague,  who is not only giving me a great start in my business, but also sending me a lot of business contacts.

This man, lets call him “divorce man aka A/C King” is a bit odd. He appears to be very religious and a little dorky and has great manners.

I had lunch with him today to talk about his business and it was nice that he so wonderfully treated me like a lady.

People often open up to me and he talked about getting divorced the whole time.  I did not tell him the issues or problems that I am having with your father. Maybe I will though; maybe it would be nice to get a man’s opinion on all of this.

He talked about his business and how he built it. How his ex-partner was trying to screw him over and how he had been very disappointed in all that was happening in his life.  He complemented me, but not in a sleazy way (which to say sad but true I am very used to) he talked about how I could improve his business and that together we could make great things happen.

I met a neat lady today; I meet a lot of odd people.  We will call her and her family the “sad polygamists”.  They are sad only because the woman seems lost and confused and overwhelmed by the world.  I did not realize how … different this religion is.  I didn’t realize that it part of their religion is to hoard food.  Part of one of their 7 children’s bedroom is stacked with food. I kept telling her over and over again to please eat the food instead of buying more.  She just kept trying to skirt the conversation.   I went home and did some research and realized that this is part of their upbringing.  They also had this very odd card. Well not odd, but different to me.

17 Rules of Dating

1. Date those with your same standards

2. No necking or Petting

3. No French Kissing

4. Date in Groups

5. Do Not Park

6. No Back Rubs

7. No lying down on top or beside each other

8. Attend wholesome activities

9. No immodest dress

10. Never enter a home alone together

11. Never enter a bedroom together

12. Choose friends carefully

13. No missionary work one on one

14 No late hours

15. Be responsible for your own actions

16. Discuss dating rules with partners

17. You are not the exception to these rules

What I thought both odd and good about these rules was that they were printed out on a little laminated business card.  You could carry it with you and refer back to it if you forgot the rules.   I thought it odd that they wrote them out.  Wouldn’t you tell your children this to there face? Does a card make it more real or more the truth? Some of them I thought funny and others I thought “wow – if I had only listened to these when I was younger”, even at this point in my life I most likely would not have been with so many people.  I wonder at what age they hand out these little cards and explain them to the kids. Do the kids know about sex or do they just prevent it by giving them these cards? I think a better way would be to explain to your kid about sex about how it feels and about how our natural urges are sometimes not so smart. But this is also why I am not a polygamist.  I cleaned there closets (they wear odd under garments) and the woman kept wanting me to throw things away they had such a small amount of stuff for all there kids I felt really guilty for throwing anything away.  6 girls and 1 boy and they want me to get rid of something. Everything was a hand me down, and everything was very old.  The house was too small for such a large family and the parents had no privacy. But I did my job and wished them well.  The last thing the woman wanted me to do was assign her children chores. With ALL of those kids none of them helped around the house.  Hope, YOU help around the house and you are only a baby.  I think a teen and pre- teen should know how to clean up their own room.  I thought about all the  dating rules and all the mess; they can not simply have chores.  I made a chore chart sat them all down and explained how important it was for them to all have chores I am not sure if they get it but I hoped so for the mom’s sake.

Life has been going on for the past month or so without your father here, and as stated before you do not really realize it.

Since taking the job at the club after selling the Pizzeria’s and working at night he leaves to go to work when you are asleep and the fact that he sleeps most of the day and then fills his day up with the phone calls and the gym, you never really realized he was here in the first place.

He is here for the hour and a half or so that he has always been here and while I am at work he comes over to take care of you.  You love the time that the two of you spend together and when he leaves you yell “bye bye dada” and jump in my arms only to have the day continue like it always has.

If your life (and my life) goes on like this I doubt you will ever have a problem or issue with your father at all. I doubt you will even notice that we are not together and it will not affect your life at all.  Besides when one of us starts to date someone but even that I am sure will not be that big a deal to you.

You are used to people coming in and out of our house and our bed and although at the age of 2 you have no idea what sex is when you do realize it (hopefully at the age of 40 hehe) you will not think it strange that we have different people in our lives (at least I hope not) because the same amount of attention will be directed to you.

I never remember my father and mother together and they where divorced at around the age that you are now. Although my father trashed my mother and said mean and hurtful things about her because he was bitter and angry it only hurt the relationship between my father and me not between my mother and me.

I very much doubt that your father will ever do such things because we are civil to each other and are very much still friends.  I know that you are going to have many questions when you get older as to why we broke up and I am sure when you ask me about them years from now I will give you a different answer then what is here because I am sure that through time memories will fade and I will not quite remember why just that it did not work out.

I have said this before and I am sure I will say it again.  I love your father very very much.

Let me just say that certain people mature and grow at different stages in there lives and sometimes when two people are together one person just does not catch up to the other person.  Also sometimes people just grow apart in this aspect and in other aspects of there lives.  That is what happened to your father and I.  He has different goals, different friends, different dreams and different priorities then I do.  They are not bad they are just different.

It has been over a month now and I am starting to get used to him not being here.  It still hurts, I still cry at night because I miss him and I wish that I could go back and be the 21 year old girl that he first met so that we could see eye to eye again, but I have grown and I can’t be that person anymore and he has not changed at all since the day I met him and that is both painful and frustrating. But I have changed and just like you will not be the same person when you are 5 from when you are 15.

Some people never stop growing and changing and some people do.

So I met this off the wall guy today he was all over the place, more so then any other client thus far. We will call him and his family “The Yachts” He talked in circles and was a TRUE ADHA person to the core.

He had a million little notes all over the room and wrote so small I could not read anything.  He was very smart and his whole family was very inviting.

He has a secret that he keeps locked away from his daughter that I personally think is mean but he states for her own good.

His daughter is VERY bright and as far as I can tell very balanced.  They make too much of her being slow on some subjects and fast on others and are always trying to diagnose her instead of just looking to see that maybe she is a normal girl.

It’s funny I meet these parents and they tell me how there kids are and it all sounds like normal kid stuff to me.  Children are supposed to have short attention spans they are supposed to be loud and not listen to you they are supposed to not want to do homework. It’s all part of being a child.

Sometimes I think people are too quick to give  kids drugs instead of just realizing that they are growing and maturing and going to act out.  They are not little adults they are kids. Anyway these people are neat and interesting and although a little demanding seem very nice.

I have been working with this wonderful lady. Let call her the “horse lady”.  At first I started working with her because a colleague of mine had recommended me and I was just organizing her bills and paperwork then I started doing other little things for her and then that slowly lead into me doing her bookkeeping.

She is a very …. Robust woman with a heart of gold who always tries to fill her life up with too many things to do. I call her the horse lady because she owns a wonderful ranch full of horses and although I was around horses for a very short time in Holland I really have not been around them all that much.They are big and beautiful and powerful animals all with there own personality and opinions.  The “Horse lady” loves to hunt and jump and run these horses and all have a special job and requirement for her.  She also has a small staff and it is neat to see the hustle and bustle of the farm work. Horses take a lot of time and care and although I have not ventured asking her to ride one one day I am sure she will throw me on the back of a horse smack it’s ass and send me off riding. It is really neat to meet so many different types of people in my job and to see how everyone lives the same but different. It is neat to see all the different personalities with the same fears and worry’s that the next person has.  I have a feeling that this woman will be a great joy in my life and I will learn a lot from her, and hopefully I will help her in being more organized and bring less stress to her life.

So I just have to tell you about this because it is too funny.

Yesterday You decided that you wanted to go for a walk, so you got your shoes on and lead me and daddy to the door. (Daddy visit’s you every day)  You wanted to go for a walk NOW.  Daddy  was not feeling well and the walk was short.  He left and then you decided the walk was not over so you started walking down the street on your own.

I followed you and we walked for awhile. The ice-cream man was coming down the street and normally I ignore him and tell you that the ice-cream man went bye-bye.  But today I thought why not let you have some ice-cream so I told you that we had to go back and get money. You kept saying “Ice-cream man coming ice-cream man coming need money need money”.  So you started to run because I said we have to hurry.

Well you fell and scraped your knee.  And OH MY GOODNESS you talked about that boo-boo for hours. We went back we got the money and we got the ice-cream but you kept talking about your boo-boo you cried while eating the ice-cream you cried while eating your dinner you cried in the shower you cried while watching, yet again, pictures-of-Allana.  You just kept telling me about the boo-boo.  And how you hurt your leg and where screaming no band-aid no band-air.  I was hardly able to clean the cut because you where crying so much.  And for a couple minutes you would forget about it and then lift up your skirt as if to see if it was there and then start to cry again. So dramatic so sad so determined to let me know you had a boo-boo.  Too funny and heart breaking all at the same time.

And then in the middle of the night you came into bed with me and even in your sleep you said ouch boo-boo and then whimpered ice-cream man as if he had inflicted the pain on you himself.

I wonder if now you will relate the ice-cream man to pain.  Hey that would not be such a bad thing.

Your father has still not moved back into the house.  This seems to not affect you at all but it is weighing heavily on my heart.  I miss him and I wish that he would realize that what I want for our relationship and for our future will only benefit us in a positive way not in a negative way.  At some point you do have to “grow –up” in life and he is still not realizing this.

When I had you my whole world changed and every thought I have and every thing I do makes me want to be a better person for you and for myself.

He does not see that he should make the same choices and chooses to live as if he has nothing to loose.  He still has not seen the light at the end of the tunnel and that we as a family must grow.

I hope you are never with someone like this and if you are I hope you do not waste too much time.

I love your father so much, we have been together most of our adult life and I really do not know how I am going to handle loosing my lover and my best friend all at once.  But I have to stand by my convictions or damn you to a life of the same mistakes.

We are going to seek counseling and we are going to see if we can make this work but right now he does not realize that just saying he loves me is not all I will ever need.  He does not realize that in a relationship there are two people not just him. You hopefully will never see this of your father.  You hopefully will grow in the loving glow of his care and love for you.  You will see him as the strong independent person who cherish every breath you take.  You will see the knight in shining armor and understand that he trying to be everything that he can be for you.

I will love him until the day I die, I just can not handle his behavior and his choices.

And I do have to say Hope  that relationships take two people and that I am just as much to blame for our issues as he is.  It is just that I am making different choices then he is and I am not saying that my choices are better but I am saying that they are healthier for you and for me.

My heart hurts, my stomach hurts, my eyes hurt, my body hurts for the choice that I am making but I know in the long run it will not be something I will ever regret.