Since I moved out of my house and away from my son, dog and cats the ex-in laws have come back. This makes 4 trips in 5 weeks from Hilton Head. They are going on 8 days right now. Not that I expected anything different. After all I did take the guest bedroom set of bedding and my chair it had to be hard on my ex to be a part of all that uprooting in her life. I had been going over in the morning to see Miles and piecemeal my things over to the cousins. The ex let it be known her people were there and it would be uncomfortable to keep doing that. So I did not see my son for a week. I never knew how awful I was going to feel or how scared I was going to feel. The divorce is not final and mostly because I have to find a job and establish child support. I sure would like my little piece of equity in the home so I won’t be destitute in the next couple of months, but anyway I understand. The ex talks to me like I am a three year old, almost robotic with kid gloves. Every time she calls me she says as I answer “hi this farrar” it just gets on my nerves so bad and creates tension down to my bones. Like I don’t recognize her voice or that her number pops up on my cell phone. I have suggested that we communicate via email for a little while it is more convenient and easier for her to do the bad things she has to do to me. Like drop my insurance, we have been using her insurance b/c it is state insurance very good and very cheap, even though I am unemployed and not officially divorced she called to tell me I have been dropped from her coverage. She really cares about her sons Dad. I offered to pay her the $60 a month to keep me on it until we divorce. She said she “had already cancelled it” and in essence was not going to go through the hassle of re-instating it. Let me tell you about the email, she is not into modernity; she should live in Arabian Peninsula somewhere. She has never used email; even I didn’t realize she was that far cast into last century. She doesn’t know what a browser is. I set up the Home computer where she wanted it cleaned it up nicely and thought I will just go to yahoo and set up an email address for her and give her the password so she could change it later, but there would be no excuse that she didn’t have time or didn’t know how to get an email address. I wrote very simple directions made my yahoo her home page with email right up top. She called and thanked me for setting up the computer and the email address and I said it will be easier and you can send me an update daily on my “buster bean” Mileser. So great right? Not exactly. I email her a few times just to try to get this communication vehicle moving. No response. I asked about Miles. I mentioned she could put whatever clothes I had in garbage bags and put it in the Garage and I would be by to pick them up. I sent these all before I knew her handlers the “General and the Banker” were going to be there for a week or so. Sunday night a week since leaving my son and home I get a frantic call like there had been some paradigm shift in her world and she was having a William Shatner moment. “Spock…… I….just don’t……..Know…..If I can……take it…much more” She was trying to take the big step and email me. I could tell her folks had been there for few days because the hyperness in their hyperspace always gets turned up with their natural oozing nervousness, it is sadly contagious. I call her and ask her to explain what is wrong; she says” I don’t know, I don’t want to do this email, I tried and it doesn’t work”. I ask “what did you do?” she says, “I pushed the email thingy and I tried to write something and it kept getting messages so I just quit.” The email thingy I suppose was an honest mistake even though I had written two pages of bullet point directions of getting into yahoo. Number 1 click on Mozilla. Your homepage will be Yahoo. Look in right hand corner it says mail, click on that.” She was bringing up outlook and a defunct email address with her email button. So being unbelievably patient and kind, while wanting to tell her what an idiot she is and how the fuck is she going to raise my child in a world when she can’t browse the net and complete an email, I calmly walk her through it. She hit save as draft the first time so it didn’t work and then on the second time “Bingo” she got it, she saw the word send. Yeee haw! I later found out that she thought the email address that had stated right next to it “This is your email address” and the password that stated next to it “this is your password” was my address and that was what she needed to get in touch with me even though the username had her name in it. Wow! She the figured out what the inbox is and noticed, she had mail from me in it with an address relative to my name. She reads the emails and says “oh I have already got your things packed up,” which was nice but the image she relayed to me almost made me throw up. I was starting to understand what the “handlers” purpose was on this trip. To purge anything that vaguely resembled me or my personality from the home. She said, “My dad went to Target and Mail box etc and got boxes and bubble wrap and packing tape, and at Target got those big air tight Tupperware like containers to put your clothes in.” “We got all of your pictures and knickknacks and bubble wrapped them and folded you clothes and put them in the containers,” she says. “We took all of your books off the shelves and put them in boxes and taped them up and moved them to the garage.” These actions were all to my benefit ultimately, be the vision of the hyper in-laws frantically flying around asking questions “is this his? Is this his” the nervous rip of bubble wrap ratcheting of tape on the boxes and how easy they are making this for her just makes me sad. I went to see my son at school the last two days and the first time I almost walked in crying I was so in need of seeing him and scared that he wouldn’t respond to me, it is just such a unique situation. The school and his therapist didn’t know anything about the divorce so I told them about it and they all counseled me and told me to come by anytime and watch or play with Miles. It was nap time and all the other kids were sleeping but as usual Miles the rebel was awake. I went and laid down next to him and started talking to him at first he wasn’t sure who it was but then his eyes lit up and he turned his head toward me and made my world complete for that instant. I picked up over my head and he smiled and laughed, and I laughed until I almost cried again. We cooed and oooed and he looked into my eyes. His vision really seems to be improving. He did give me the look of I wasn’t sure you were coming back. I have to make sure he hears my voice as much as often b/c I can’t just call and talk to him on the phone he has to be able to hear me, smell me, and feel me, and I need the same from him. Ms Cilla said “look at that boy smile at his Daddy” he is so happy, I was so happy. So I followed it up by going be and seeing him today again. He realized right away that it was me this time and play the skin harmonica on his neck and belly and he just laughs and starts talking his talk. I am a Dad in pain, but as the song says “Pain is love, and if you don’t feel pain you don’t feel anything” He is love I learn everyday from my experiences with him. His pain his toughness his resilience his innocence, his ever giving love. I am blessed and I am cursed, but aren’t we all. Its life and learning to love and accepting it all an hopefully everyday learning its not about me and ego its about all of nuclear family and global/universal family, Ego is the devil and as much as I need to gripe about shit on this here blog I need to grow and I think with enough practice and caring for others I will learn to truly care about me and wade through the mire of bullshit our lives are consumed in. After all in this wonderful god fearing nation we are consumers first, and from the time you’re born to when you die people are going to be trying to sell you something that is not real. Image ego. “And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”