So, Um...

I fell off the face of the earth, apparently.

TJ is 2 1/2. I'm divorced. His daddy is overseas on his first tour. I moved.

Long, long story... Despite my being the baby's sole caretaker for the first two years of his life, rarely getting any help from his father... ok, steer clear of that for now, stay calm... it became a condition of the divorce that his father have full custody.

My own father and sister backed him up, even though they have both seen how little the man knows, or even tried to learn, about dealing with a child.

I'm trying to keep this post short, and I'm not quite ready to go into the details of the situation... and all the self-evaluation and guilt that entails... just yet.

My sister, the unmarried, "I'm never going to have children" 33 year old who just got evicted from her house (steer clear, think about it later) is now my son's caretaker while his father is overseas. I haven't seen him since the week before Christmas. If I'm lucky, I get a phone call once a week. My calls have often gone unanswered... I need a mantra: something along the lines of "This isn't the time or place for that yet."

Anyway. There's my kid.


Mom died a week after TJ's first birthday. I had been putting off moving back home, mostly because I didn't want to deal with my father, until it was close to the big 0-1 and TJ's father began whining about not being able to visit his son on his birthday. So I stayed. And stayed. And stayed... and one day, Mom actually ended the phone conversation before I did. She was tired. She sounded tired. I let her hang up, cried, and slowly started packing.
She died the next day.


I, on the other hand, am now in Texas. TJ's father told me over a year ago that he had either filed for divorce or was "just about to" (it went back and forth). I had been wanting this since I was pregnant, but I didn't have a job, so there was no way for me to pay for it.

Stupid me believed I would be divorced soon, so I thought it would be ok to start a relationship... I'd known of plenty of people who dated while they were separated-awaiting-divorce.
Long story short, I've only been divorced for about 3 months, during which time the news of the deployment came down and Daddy decided he finally wanted to be a father... now that he was leaving the country. ("TITTOPFTY") Anyway.

Only divorced for 3 months, but with a wonderful man, a real man, for 11 months now.

This is the right one.


I hope to be posting somewhat regularly from now on, as I turn yet another New Leaf.