My son is 17, an exchange student to Thailand, for the year. My daughter is 12 and two days ago I took her to Seattle and met the X. He took her back over the mountains. They plan to be back on Christmas Eve.

I feel like my brain has melted.

We are three and a half years out from the divorce. Summer, 2006. For the three years before that we were separated for a year, together for a year, separated for a year. When we separated, the X said that he would take the kids on Wednesday night and every other weekend. "I'm not going to take them on call weekends," he said, "that will teach you a lesson."

One call weekend early on I took the kids and sleeping bags in to the hospital. There is a fancy hospice room with a fold out couch. We went up the back stairs. I changed in to scrubs and went by the desk. The unit secretary looked up. "Staying?" she said, "Do you have a labor patient?" "Nope," I said. She was looking down to the far end of the hallway, where one of my kids was visible. "I'll be in the hospice room." "Oh," she said. "We'll make sure no one comes in." I told my daughter to wake her brother and have him page me if she got scared. She was 6. For some unfathomable reason, we don't have a call room to stay in. No one bothered us.

My son protested when my X told him the schedule. "No!" he said, "I want 50/50!" My X ignored him. And the divorce plan was that if he moved out of town, he could have the kids for summers and alternate holidays, but it was optional. The receiving parent would pay for the travel. "I might not have the money," he said. He said he'd stay close to the kids, then he said he wouldn't, then he said he would. I tried not to listen. The kids stopped listening too.

He moved to Colorado one week after the divorce was final. Threw everything in a rented van. I worried, worried that my children would fall apart but the opposite happened: they both relaxed. Dad was unpredictable and my daughter was frank about not liking Wednesday night. "He picks us up late. He hasn't shopped yet. He shops and then cooks dinner. I'm starved. We don't eat until 8 and then there is no time to do anything and I have to go to bed." For weekends, he always took them to a friends. His friends. They would hang out.

He did stay in touch. He calls at least five nights a week. He stays connected. But the kids did not go for holidays: he came here. Cheaper. And I am here, so he can play and I can do the parenting.

Two summers ago, the kids were supposed to go to Colorado. My daughter started having nightmares and me too. She dreamed that the adult in charge of the daycare was missing and "there was a man who we knew was sick but not contagious. He was dressed in women's clothes". The daycare was in the courthouse in the dream. She left, with the other kids' help, to get me.

My dream that night was that we were bicycling. My daughter fell, bike and all, into a deep hole. She was unconscious, face down, in water. I was with two male bicycle friends. "I need a rope!" They shrugged. "Take off your tights!" I tied the ankles together and belayed down and flipped her, in time. I waited for the ambulance and woke up.

I took the dreams to my counselor. "I don't think she should go to Colorado without me." "Nope," said the counselor. We went, and I stayed with old friends. It was fine.

So this is the first time in years that I haven't had parent responsibility. They are both gone. A friend who raised her son alone laughed at me yesterday. "You are unhooked from parenting. Unhinged." I feel unhinged. It feels like I am floating and detached and weightless. Not anchored. I am letting myself float.

Take a single parent under your wing, just for an hour or a minute. They hold up the sky for at least half the world.

 

"Because I love you  (in 65 words): I love you, because I think you really see how I truly am.
I love you, because it is you who I can tell everything that nobody must know, or hear.
Because my life with you, could finally have sense and stop vacillating in drivel.
I love you, because you asked me how old I was when dad died. This had never been questioned before you.

I love you so much, that I would like.."
"You would like...?"
"I dont know, I can't write it...
The words have reached their count...
65 words are too few..."


Now, this is a very touching movie which bugged my thoughts into writing. First of all, in the upper paragraph is the translation, and, second, I try to "fit in" just 65 words...
Oh! it just struck me! this would make a great nodeshell for all those Love Children out there...

Notes from the Surf

Bubble Bursting
http://i.imgur.com/ngd34.jpg
Might come in useful.

Top 10 quirky science tricks for Christmas parties
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_f3SkxTWxc
Interestingly cheesy Vaudeville.

Fractal Wrongness
http://i.imgur.com/wXmHg.png
"You are wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution..."

Gulf petro-powers to launch currency in latest threat to dollar hegemony
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6819136/Gulf-petro-powers-to-launch-currency-in-latest-threat-to-dollar-hegemony.html
“The US dollar has failed. We need to delink” ...The Sunni Gulf states are deeply concerned about the great power ambitions of Shiite Iran and its quest for nuclear weapons... They nevertheless repeated on Tuesday that “any military action against Iran” by Western powers would be unacceptable.

Soldiers Forced to Go AWOL for PTSD Care
http://www.indypendent.org/2009/12/16/soldiers-forced-to-go-awol-for-ptsd-care/
"He asked if I was suicidal... and I said not right now, I’m not planning on going home and blowing my brains out. He said, ‘well, you’re good to go then.’" ...He’s turning himself in “because he is not a flight risk and wants to take responsibility for what he’s done,” Branum stressed.

Last Words : Ultimo Discurso (Salvador Allende)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYGxGeLAMBE
"The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets... Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment..."

Solidarity Forever (Pete Seeger)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYiKdJoSsb8
"This is a tribute to all the workers who sacrificed to make a better world for their children and grand children."

Hit back if police officer attacks - Russian interior minister
http://en.rian.ru/society/20091126/157000028.html
Ordinary citizens have the right to defend themselves against police officers who launch illegal attacks on them, Russia's interior minister said... "If the citizen is not a criminal who is being detained and has not broken any laws...if he is being attacked, self-defense is applicable here"

Prisoners riot in ’climate jail
http://www.modkraft.dk/spip.php?article12227
"the police have used pepperspray against the inmates in the climate prison in Valby. Climate activists smashed the cages and used benches to break cell doors open."

Greece in Revolt
http://libcom.org/news/wave-strikes-sweeps-greece-17122009
"All media have gone on a 24h strike... there are no news broadcasts on radio TV or the internet... almost 60% of (police) officers consider quiting their jobs if they have to wear insignia with their number or name while on duty... Strikers have occipied the broadcasting headquarters of ERT3, the Salonica state channel."

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