Journals of Lord Malinov

the poetry of madness

Joys of July

Another glorious day begins in the pitch of family life.  Tess continues her life-on-the-run with another afternoon of choir rehearsal before the departure for Oklahoma!  The boys and I are deep into our quest for knowledge, exploring every corner of the Universe to discover answers to questions we had only begun to imagine.  The heat of Texas is blistering this July, a far cry away from last year's record rains.  We walked to the donut shop just as the morning began to surrender to furnace temperatures.  Whew.  That will be enough of the outdoors until after dinner.  In some ways, the summer heat is like the northern winter, trapping us indoors.  I prefer to skip the winter.  That's why I'm in Texas.

Texans can be naive when it comes to the East.  It makes me smile.

I have my attorney hard at work, which is good but expensive.  If only justice were free.  We continue to collect tales from people who have come to know the eX and her Alcalde, tales of remarkable stupidity, insensitivity and selfishness.  Bashing them seems to have become a popular pastime among the church-folk, who are not the sort of people to engage in this sort of thing lightly, but the tales are so remarkable that passing them has become almost mandatory at any churchy gathering. 

So strange, this reputational landslide that has descended on my eX.  I have clung to the high-road, simply as a matter of wisdom, fighting my impulses to lash out to preserve my position.  Without any input from me, they have managed to destroy themselves.  Selfishness and moronic attempts to control things beyond control have done the work for me, taking them down while my hands stay clean.  The Universe can be harsh to people without some reasonable measure of humility.

I think the saddest thing is the psychic trauma being inflicted on Tess.  Her self-esteem has been horribly beaten by constant comparisons to the Alcalde's daughter, a comparison that is especially bizarre because the step-sister is a deeply disturbed child with some obvious problems in dealing with other people.  Tess' love for her mother is in tatters because of the eX's inability to stand up to the unsympathetic intruder.  Knowing this, however, makes it easy for me to be the hero, compensating for the attacks with a continual stream of unmeditated reassurances. 

I feel bad that the kids are suffering so terribly at the hands of their mother, but pain is unavoidable in this life and at least I am here to help them navigate the assaults of stupidity.  If it were not this, it would be something else, someone else, giving them lessons in unfairness, selfishness, neglect and the rest of the unsavory board they are receiving.  While it is bizarre for a mother to behave so rudely, at least they can learn the lessons with help from people who love them, learning to cope with the pace of this world, in whatever mad forms it takes.

At least that's the best spin I can put on it.  It is crazy, the attitude my eX has taken toward her own kids, and the rest of reality, although beyond the kids is well beyond my concern.  She has always been a selfish git, but I never imagined her selfishness would overpower her love for the kids.  I have been repeatedly told, "She doesn't love the kids, not in the way most of us mean 'love.'  She takes and never gives.  She will hurt them when it suits her.  She doesn't love anyone but herself."  I never believed it was possible, but I have been forced to admit the truth.  She is as terrible as people say she is.

So it goes.

Malinov

posted by: Malinov at 10:12 | link | comments (1) |

Comments:

#1  11 July 2005 - 12:30

 

Good luck with your ex... be sure you keep your kids informed of everything. Sometimes, just knowing it isn't forever makes things better.

SianNorah

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