This post is about how I’m not going to bitch and whine about my Ex. I’m not going to focus on what’s wrong or on how I want to send him an angry email right now. Or do something deliberately to make his life difficult. I’ve often thought of egging his car or slashing his tires, but this post is about how I haven’t done that and won’t do it. (I won’t slash his girlfriend’s tires either, because she doesn’t have a car. Or a job. But apparently she did have a few too many drinks at Toby’s grandmother’s birthday party–I know because Toby told me so, which means he now knows what a 25-year-old drunk girl looks like. But I’m not writing about that.) Nor will I spend my morning crafting the civil email explaining to him that I’m upset about a co-parenting issue and asking that he handle things differently in the future. I have done that. But I’m not doing it today. Instead, I’m writing this post. Slowly over the past two hours the anger has receded and I am going about my morning and by lunchtime I will be whole. This post is about how even though It’s Final, I still will be dealing with my Ex and our co-parenting differences for years to come. And it’s about how, after sixteen years and many of the most horribly emotionally turbulent, breathtakingly devastating events and thousands of dollars on therapy, I finally do truly understand that I cannot change him, nothing I do or say will change or control him or make him consider me or things differently, and I am left simply to deal with myself–I can only control me, my reactions, and take care of myself and Toby. Shit, I sound like fucking Stuart Smalley. But you know what? Stuart Smalley is a fucking U.S. senator! So, with this Daily Affirmation, I Move On!
