So the mother of the boy who kicked me in the throat doesn’t spend a lot of time trash talking me and neither do her friends. Ok. Do you want me to give them a cookie? Literally the only thing I did to that mother was get kicked by her son and then tell her there was a problem. That’s what I fucking did.

But I’m supposed to give her a pat on the back for not talking shit about me?

Really? You think that? Oh my. Well. Guess what, honey. I am fresh out of fucking cookies.

You told me that you can’t take a side because you didn’t see the assault. Well. You know how I’ve been sympathetic for years and years as you tell me about the abuse you suffered? I no longer believe you. I didn’t see any of it; therefore I can’t take your side or be supportive. How about if I go sit with the people who hurt you. After all, they haven’t been trash talking you to me so clearly I should sit on the fence and hang out with them a lot.

That hurts you?

Oh well.

I walked away from the group because I didn’t want to face people like you. People who would tell me that they are my friend…. but they really want to still be friends with the person who kicked me in the fucking throat.

Go! Be friends with them!

And stop telling yourself that we are friends. We aren’t fucking friends. You are the mother of someone my kid likes. That’s what we are to each other. So I’ll send you fucking Christmas cards and you can feel liked and whatever bullshit you want to say to yourself about our relationship. But the fact is: we aren’t friends. We stopped being friends when you couldn’t take a side and instead you expected me to play nice at your kids birthday party when you invited both families. Guess what, bitch. That was taking a fucking side. And it wasn’t my side.

You picked the side that said, “My son did not do that and if he did it is your fault.”

If you feel sad about being called out for your behavior…. tell someone who gives a shit. I don’t fucking care if you are sad.

You can keep your daughter around him. I will get my children the fuck away from him. Given that he is just hitting the teen years and he’s putting knives up to girls eyes when they have the audacity to argue with him? Yeah. It’s gonna get bad.

And I will be thousands of fucking miles away. Because if I were within 50 miles you would probably want my god damn sympathy when your kid is the next target. I wouldn’t like myself very much if I said to your face “Ahhhhh, do you want sympathy now? Do you want to be believed? Well I didn’t see anything. Sorry.”

When I went to the fucking park and someone told me the story of the altercation on the camping trip I didn’t tell her that I didn’t see it so it didn’t happen. I said, “I believe you. That’s horrifying.”

But I’m the big terrible meanie because I talk about this. Because I express strongly that this is a fucked up situation and this mother is creating a monster. I can live with that.

You think that being nice means not making waves, not pointing out issues, not making people feel uncomfortable. Fuck your comfort.

I’ve been wildly uncomfortable for years now. I have known that weak ass bitches like you claim that you are my friend. With friends like you, who needs enemies. (I’m pretty sure I don’t have an enemy. There are people I won’t talk to… but I wouldn’t fight them. I don’t care enough.)

I have grown up a lot. I might snark here in my blog… but I haven’t started a fight in a very long time. I have ended relationships. I have walked away from a lot of people. I won’t bother to fight. Whatever it is that you are doing that bothers me: the best solution is to not be near you. Because I don’t need you.

It’s really weird having this bone deep confidence. I will be ok without any of the people I know. Like, I would cry like a little bitch of Jenny or Pam broke up with me. Like I’m crying like a little bitch over Sarah. It fucking hurts. But I will be ok. As ok or better than I would have been with her. Why? Because I’m a bad ass motherfucker. Because I have a family now. Because after the loss of my mother basically no ending can hurt that much. Because I can make more friends.

My kids have been expressing sadness about leaving the neighborhood. I keep telling them: I built this community and I can do it again. It will take me time and effort, but I will have both. I am a community-oriented person. I will always find a way to make relationships.

It’s a gift.

I know this about myself. I am extremely gifted at making new relationships. I put myself out there. I’m a trier. I am codependent as fuck and I love people. I will be able to form new relationships as sure as the sun will come up.

If I have 99 problems, inability to make friends isn’t on the list. I like to look at people. Folks like being looked at. I mean, I have my favorite people to look at.

I wonder if I will stop crying for Sarah before I stop crying for my mother. Maybe not. But we are hurting each other.I don’t want to hurt Sarah. I really don’t. And I do. I hurt her with my anger. I hurt her with my impatience. I hurt her with my expectations. I hurt her with being inflexible and rigid. I hurt her by absolutely requiring a kind of consistency she isn’t suited for.

I take so much responsibility because I am not big on blaming other people for my problems. Could I rant about ways that Sarah let me down? I could. But it wouldn’t make me feel better. It wouldn’t heal my heart. It might trickle down and hurt her more.

I have hurt Sarah enough for one lifetime. She gave me a second chance after I scared the shit out of her. I didn’t deserve it. And I lost it. I don’t believe in third chances.

Noah got a second chance. So did my first fiancé. I tried a second time with both of them. It didn’t work out with Steve. Noah is hanging on.

I focus on what I did wrong because I can’t control anyone else. And I will keep existing. If I want to do it differently in the future I need to be real honest about what I did this time. If I lie to myself I will just do it again. That’s inevitable.

I am trying with this expectation problem. I am not doing well. I am being too much of an asshole with the kids. I don’t have faith. I don’t trust. I’m grouchy and suspicious. I am dismissive and negative.

I’m not like Sarah’s mother. That doesn’t mean I’m doing well enough. That doesn’t mean I am giving my children what they deserve from me. Sarah’s mother is not the bar. The bar is not refraining from hitting them with weapons. The bar is not screaming for weeks.

I did scream for weeks. Months. Stupid, fucking math. I am worried that I am going to care so much about this that I create big permanent problems. That could totally happen. Parents do that shit.

I *did* hurt Sarah with my screaming.

Am I hurting my kids? They still say no. Their shrinks still say that it isn’t great but the kids seem ok.

Which thing that I do is going to break them?

I backed off on math for Middle Child. I found a different set of books for him. He’s pretty excited about this set up. He is doing well so far. I found three different workbooks, none of which are vaguely adequate alone. One is a step down (2nd grade) so that he can establish a bit more confidence for a few weeks. He’s upset that he keeps failing whole weeks of work. It has happened a few times this year. He’s not reading the directions and that makes it hard to do the right thing. It’s not an arithmetic problem. It’s a reading comprehension problem. He is still working on reading. His decoding skills have increased substantially; that’s most of what he got from the reading program that the school enforced last year. He learned decoding and copying. This will take years to fix. I’m not happy.

But it’ll be fine. He will spend a lot more time reading and he’ll learn to understand and he will learn how to express his own ideas in writing instead of just copying someone else’s writing. It may not be how his sister learned, but it’s ok. It’s pretty normal. It just…. wasn’t part of my fantasy. I wanted to wait until he was old enough to write the way I did with EC. I blame myself. I shouldn’t have signed him up for the charter even if I did EC. Bad call.

I regret that.

Nothing to be done for it now. Except to get off his g.d. back.

I can’t control other people and I can’t chase friendships that aren’t working. I have to concentrate on the people I brought into the world.

This is my job.