In this life, you're on your own

Last Friday I was supposed to be facing my ex-husband and his lawyer in front of a judge, to begin the battle for primary custody of our children.  Three weeks ago, an administrative judge reviewed his lawyer's motion to postpone this first confrontation to sometime in January, or later ("I'm busy, can't do it that particular day") and my counter-motion to request that we proceed as scheduled ("All papers have been filed so there's no reason to put this off, and by the way, this is the 7th time they've requested a delay").  That judge not only adjourned the existing date, but after reviewing the file and seeing that I had protested the sixth request for a delay, I was slapped with a $150 costs penalty for "repeatedly" not playing nice with the other lawyer.  The previous judge awarded a ten day extension instead of the sixty plus that my ex asked for, because he needed time to file his 2009/10/11 taxes to support the financial statement he was required to provide.  I said, I'll take the confirmation he's filed and he can provide the supporting documents later, because if he hasn't filed his taxes from 2009 yet, what kind of open-ended postponement is going to get him to do it now?  That judge agreed with me.  Wait, what?

The past ten months especially have been frustrating in the extreme.  I didn't realize how accustomed I'd become to wrestling with my sh*t and working it out in a public forum by writing it down and submitting it for analysis to a jury of my peers on Facebook.  Been doing it since 2007 - never got on on the blog-roll, because I didn't feel like I posted regularly enough.  I've missed writing those notes, more than I can express here in a few words, but I've also become hyper-conscious of the repercussions that could follow - statuses included - which precludes feeling completely comfortable right now.  I used to feel like I was an open book.  Not so much, anymore.  The part about that that pisses me off most about that is that every. goddamn. word. that I write is suddenly something I have to evaluate with six other pairs of eyes.  More often than not, the result is silence.

Angry.  

Frustrated. 

Sad.  

Scared.  

Paralyzed.  

If I was someone other than, well, me, I'd use the word depressed.

The last one is the really big one...the one that tells me that sometimes I'm getting a little too near the edge for my own comfort.  I don't feel like there's enough of me to go around.  I'm scared I'm losing me. For the first time in my life, I've debated going to a doctor to talk about getting a prescription for antidepressants....something I've been hugely contemptuous of in the past, to the point where I'm not on speaking terms with my father about his active desire to drown his issues in prescription drugs.  Caveat - people who are genuinely depressed need medication.  I have friends who suffer from depression, and I'm not down on them in the slightest. I get the difference.  I just don't know what side of the line I'm falling down on more often yet, and I feel like, if I can step back and go, wtf, are you kidding me?, if I enjoy my kids, my friends, my job, I probably don't need Prozac just yet.


I've worked in a law firm for almost three years now, and EVERYONE says, do not, never ever, believe that your case, your position, is a slam-dunk.  That is the worst kind of self-delusion possible.  I know my own case, better than anyone.  I believe in my position, otherwise I wouldn't continue.  But, in more than a year of active combat (and by active, I mean, back and forth in court), in a legal sense, this is the first time I felt like I'd unwittingly counted on something happening, something being ruled in my favour.  I was devastated when I got the letter that said, sorry....not happening, at least, not on your terms.

There's nothing I can say, really.  I keep waking in the night, night after night, with tears on my face.  I feel muzzled.  The stress-related facial tic under my right eye is back.  Crying, now, is like opening the valve on a pressure cooker...it lets off some steam, but sooner or later you have to close the valve and the pressure builds back up if you're not taking the pot off the heat.

I started this blog last summer, in view of my Facebook paralysis, and it never really got off the ground.  One whole post.  So thanks, Tameka, for issuing the NaBloPloMo 2012 challenge.  You may have saved my sanity.  I'm going to try to post every day, and comment on at least ten other fellow participants' blogs every day.  Bring it on, November.  Imma beat this sh*t.