April 12, 2021

I lost custody of my daughter. Now it's time to look at a one year plan and then a ten year plan. What does everything falling into place look like?  

Mike tells me that I need peace.  

Cathy's relationship with me has always been troubled. But we were getting past everything because of Chris's stroke. Things had to become different. I wanted us to pull together. I wanted us to bury the hatchet.  That was in the winter.   But now it's spring and I lost custody of Breeanna.

I wrote this to Cathy: 

"Your father never had sufficient approval from you to give carte blanche to the next woman that he would marry after your mother's death."

Judith and I had been tight. I had no social skills when I married Chris. I was a country bumpkin as all get out but Judith took me under her wings and included me in all the family get togethers. It was bizarre to be a part of a bustling family that celebrated every holiday and birthdays, a family that had endless children and grandchildren. I had been an only child growing up. I was used to seclusion. Judith was a good mother in law to me, more than what I deserved. And Cathy literally crushed her with the weight of her judgments.  

 

Plan B: the one year plan to heal my relationship with my mom. She was 76 this year. I wanted her to be with the children and me. I wanted us to find a way to heal. But obviously the court gave custody of the children to Cathy for a year at the very least.  

I had told Mike that I didn't want to be here because I felt that my mother never wanted me. I didn't want to exist. I wished I had never been born. I was too ugly. I was too lazy. I was too stupid. Well at least that was the reflection I saw from my mother.

One year when Bryan was two I wrote to my mother one letter a week and mailed it to Las Vegas. When I flew out there we were going on an adventure, a road trip to Alaska. I packed some items and placed it in the minivan. My mother screamed at me and told me that I was selfish for taking up all the storage capacity of the vehicle. I got on an airplane and left Las Vegas in an instant. I stopped talking to my mother. Three years went by then I had a new child. Her name was Breeanna. Breeanna was an opportunity for my mother and I to have a fresh start.  

The weather was overcast with a chance of rain. As I was walking I passed a man. He wore a smile so wide. He expressed appreciation for the nice temperatures. There was an utter sense of joy about him that was infectious. It was beautiful beyond words. I think of Mike doing his endless rounds of lawn care in perfect weather because weather in South Carolina must be similar to the weather in Ohio. I was grateful for a moment of perfect weather and I wouldn't have to worry about him suffering in the heat.

I told Mike that I miss reading the encyclopedia. I had been working on the N book. I miss discovering new things and just getting out of myself, and my context, and just thinking of far away lands, and people who live in the past in a time different than our own.

Mike said that was how he felt when he read a bunch of books about Thai Buddhist teachers and direct translations of Buddha's words. It took him right there to the Indian villages jungles with tigers and elephants.