Gift, too.

M’s Dad is in the waves of his second divorce. As the first wife and M’s mother, I don’t know details, but they trickle my way.

Moved out to a hotel. Gambling. Restraining order. Broken down car. Rooming house.

I could have made my role grand inquisitor, but M is twelve. My job is to raise her to know how to navigate her relationships and herself. We don’t need to know the details, which I’m sure mirror my experience, to do so.

So, after a few years of stable, we’re back to the place where there is no sure footing. People always refer to rock bottom when someone is sliding, but you never seem to find it as a bystander. Every time you think you’re to the bedrock, you discover the floor can drop out further. It’s best to focus on the climb. One foot, one handhold at a time as you inch upwards. Somedays you don’t move, but instead just expend a lot of energy holding on.

M’s father is an absolute creepy, asshole when you cross from valued to not. I don’t think he wants to be wired the way he is. I, despite all the pain, still root for him. Which is about me and my God more than anything else. Plus, as a mother, I want M to have a Dad who is there for her.

He can’t be right now. He is in shambles. He is lost. He is a pile of shame. Therefore, I’m sure a pile of angry words and name calling and threats. I reap the benefits of not having them hurled at me right now.

He spreads his pain. Unfairly. Despite knowing better.

He feels unsafe and then makes you feel unsafe. You have to learn to swallow it and make choices outside of the fear.

I don’t know the details. I know what happened to us: I’m sure he cheated on me, but I have no proof. I did see emails naively of naked woman and swallowed the story about how porn sites work having not experienced it myself. He gambled away our lives and kept it secret until things were unable to be hidden: my house foreclosed, I sat without power or gas for days, my car was repossessed, and I had credit cards with cash advances opened and racked up in my name. I found broken glass in the his pockets of the laundry. He told me it was to smoke pot and I believed him. I learned from one of his friends that glass tubes are how one smokes crack.

I spent hours walking after him: down the street before he got in a strange car, picking his up from random places broke and wet with his own urine. Sitting home because he stole my car watching debits ping all over town as I stole the neighbor’s wifi. I’ve field calls at work and him showing up. I’ve slept with my debit card in my bra hoping he won’t try to take it. I’ve hidden cash and he always found it.

I’ve sat outside GA meetings. I picked him up from a two week stint getting sober at a inpatient to have him demand McDonald’s with his hand on the shifter of our car. I’ve scrubbed peanut butter and jelly off of my fucking walls. I sat with M after a C-section alone in the hospital wondering if he was going to make it to pick us up. His check came in the mail and he, with no supervision, drove past the hospital after he went home to feed and take care of the dogs, to the casino. I’ve seen him on the hood of a police car. I fielded calls from hookers looking for rides and I’ve never really asked more about that one. I’ve seen him steal deposits from his work to play Keno and I’ve helped him replace the money so we kept his income. I’ve found an empty piggy bank that was first mine and then M’s.

I gave him 9 months and 1 year to choose M. I moved back home with him to see if more eyes helped. He left me and M at a holiday dinner to go get high. I had to go home with my mother. I have had him harass me at work. I have had security called at court more times than I keep count. I have had him lean over and whisper: “If you do this, you will pay.” I have fielded call after call. I have read filthy, hate filled text after text where I have been everything from a cunt to douche to better off dead. I have done pick ups and drops off with police to keep the peace and my fair share of wellness checks.

I’ve drilled M with her name, address, phone number, and gave her tools to help herself because that is her reality. We’ve done DCF after a panicked call home and Match having to pick her up with a lot of unknowns.

I have paid back his best friend a loan I didn’t have much say in. I paid back his medical bills. I have paid some of his back taxes. I have paid tend of thousands of M’s future in court and lawyer fees. I have gone through bankruptcy. I have felt shame about all the lifetime of disfunction addiction and mental illness loving someone has given me. I am not ashamed. I fucking had an entire lifetime movie of shit occur to me because I was not told this was a thing in the world. I will have this thing in my life at various degrees until he dies.

Like an email today that he fucked up again. He might not be in touch for weeks because he might get arrested.

I don’t want that for M. I don’t even want that for my asshole Ex. But, consequences are a part of life. And so, as we navigate this crisis we’re on the outskirts of, M needs to know this is in the world.

People ask how can you harbor sorrow for someone who causes you pain again and again? Because, the fact you have to be one thing about anything, is a lie. I can feel like he deserved everything coming to him AND feel immeasurably sad that this is his life. I can root for him (a saying I picked up from Laura McKowen) because he has two children that want their father to be a better version of himself. Empathy is not the opposite of boundaries.

I don’t know if he’s still running form his pain, or if his brain just can’t regulate his hormones and impulses, or, my best guess, he just can’t sit with himself and the pandemic tried to make him. I do know it makes me immeasurably sad that our baby just turned twelve. And that his new baby, just turned one, and it now has become a cycle.

So, for now, M is home and safe. She is aware her Dad is exhausted by his own life right now and there is no room for her. It would be nice if it was different, but that it is a form of love. Not having her in the chaos, waiting for him to be stable, is a wisp of love. Its not enough. Its not fair. Its hard as hell. But it is progress.

I don’t know how things will play out. I do know we just keep climbing. That we’ve done hard before. That, while their paths will be different, his second daughter from his second marriage won’t have to build an entirely new road into the unknown. M, whether she likes it or not, is a beacon.

For all of us who are in the muck, and life has shown me, I’m not alone: Keep your eyes up. If you wait for rock bottom, you’ll never start to rise. This is the gig. Just like the good parts of life, this too is a gift.