So even though I’ve already said that there is no way in H-E-double hockey sticks I can hope to catch up on all of your blogs (although I have been a busy reader and low and behold there are some new and interesting folks who are starting to lure me in! As if I don’t have enough to read! Damn you exciting people!), I figured it might be a good idea to get some of you up to speed on the happenings in Janet Land. It’s probably going to end up sounding like a laundry list of excuses for not having blogged in so long. And it’s probably also going to sound like incessant ramblings. But then, you would expect nothing less, now would you?

It’s old school, point form and it’s a refresher course. Remember how I said that the Universe is spinning? Well, at times it’s been hard to stand on solid ground. Oh no… here comes some Ani Difranco… some things never change, eh?

“I’m gonna do my best swan dive into shark infested waters and I’m gonna pull out my tampon and start splashing around. Cuz I don’t care if they eat me alive. I’ve got better things to do than survive. I’ve got the memory of your warm skin in my hand. And I’ve got a vision of blue sky and dry land.”

WHAT JANET HAS BEEN UP TO: 101

--I am, officially, a single mother of three. Rock has left the house. He’s living in his Dad and step monster’s basement. In his old room, in fact. He’s been gone, oh, a couple of weeks, now. And the clock has started ticking, the separation minutes tocking past. And it’s great. And it’s weird. And at times it’s very sad. And at times I want to jump with joy. And at times, I could strangle him. He is displaying a side of himself that I never knew existed, to be quite frank. And I’m getting really sick of people telling me that he’s hurting. Because he’s * had * months and months of very comfortable hurting time. And I’ve been hurting for almost two years now. And all of that hurting NEVER makes it okay to hurt the three little people who had literally no choice in the matter. That’s what kills me. The kind of father that he has suddenly turned into. And by that, I mean he’s turned into a shitty as fuck kinda dad. Remember all of my little posts about his declining fathering skills? Right. Well, it went from bad to way fucking worse. And he is starting to make my worst nightmares come true. Here comes the secret…

I’m terrified that he will actually completely abandon his children. I’m terrified that he will choose another life that doesn’t include them and leave them by the roadside, hurt and confused. I’m terrified that even if he doesn’t actually make a huge literal move that way, he will lose them by disappointing them over and over again. That’s what is going on right now. He is losing them. And I am helpless to stop it. I can’t force him to do what I think is right. I can’t actually shake him and try to knock some sense into him. I have to completely relinquish control over the situation and let me tell you, that is damn hard.

But I digress.

I think I’m handling the whole single mother thing pretty well, if I do say so myself. It makes me realize just how much I was doing on my own before Rock’s actual move out of the house because aside from having to brave the maggot box (AKA the compost bin) with the kitchen scraps every couple of days and keeping the fire going, not much has been added to my list of stuff to get done. Sometimes it feels overwhelming, to know that nobody is coming home at the end of the day. It’s all up to me. If I don’t hear the alarm, the day falls apart. I can’t sleep in, pretty much ever. And nobody else is ever going to clean out the fridge. But on the other hand, it is now entirely MY house. And it screams Janet more than it ever has (which is saying something). And if I cook dinner an hour early (or an hour late) noone is any the wiser. And if I blow off the laundry until after the kids are in bed and then proceed to sit cross legged on the floor in front of a re-run of Dharma and Greg (because my sister gave me season one on DVD) to fold it slowly and peacefully which means it won’t get put away until the morning, well, noone is any the wiser about that, either.

I won’t get into the way that the kids are reacting to this literal split. Not never… just not this afternoon.

That was a really long point, wasn’t it? Onto the next!

--My washing machine is fucked up. Not entirely broken…just fucked up. And considering that I do at least one load of laundry a day, this really sucks ass.

--My mother turned out to be bat shit fucking crazy. No really. It’s beyond just regular “my mother lives to drive me nuts” stuff. There have been some really scary and out of this world realizations in the last month or so. My sister is not on speaking terms with either of my parents any more. And I’m right smack dab in the middle of my Mom’s insaneness. Rest assured that there will be many the posts about this little tidbit in the future. I apologize in advance.

--Speaking of family, my sister and I are closer than we have ever been before in our lives. I don’t think that we were even this close when she lived with Rock and I. And since pretty much all of my support system turned out to be false and the shades of grey in between went up in smoke and I’m standing alone as alone can be, it’s really nice to have my sister on my side. I love being able to e-mail her or call her up to cry or to share and have a non-judgmental ear on the other end, no matter WHAT I tell her. I love her in this way that I’ve never loved her before and I realized that it’s because she is now my friend as well as my sister and I’m one lucky Canadian girl to have her in my corner.

--I’m still madly in love with Don. More now than ever, I guess. Our last visit was extended to almost two weeks together and it still felt as though my heart was being ripped out of my chest when I watched him pull out of the driveway last Thursday. Now, just in case you’re feeling slightly sorry for me on this one, here’s the thing that will surely make you re-think your decision…he’ll be back on Friday. It will only have been a week in between visits. Yeah. We suck.

--I’m completely housebound and completely broke. The housebound part of things is because Don and my little plan regarding his decision to give me his car backfired and he was forced to drive it home instead of leaving it here, as was the plan. Wondering why it backfired? Oh, go ahead and guess. Really. Go ahead. I’ll wait. I forgot you’re not guessers. You just scroll down to keep reading and don’t feel the least bit badly about it because you know I can’t see you. Right? Cheaters…

Anyway…it was all because of daytime running lights. America doesn’t require them. Ontario does. And nobody could install them in his 2002 car. Believe me. We tried. And that’s the end of the story as far as Ontario is concerned. Except…They will accept fog lights instead. But guess what? No go ahead. Humor me this time, would you?!

You guessed it! They couldn’t install fog lights, either! So back to America my almost new car went. Don is trying to get it up to code by Friday when we will try again. Cross your fingers for us, would you?

Right. So I’m housebound. I can only walk to the little corner store down the road from my house. That’s it. Until the weekend, at least. Which isn’t too terrible considering I’m broke, too.

What’s really strange is that I’m not bothered. Sure, it would be nice to get out. And sure, it would be nice to have some money to go out with. But if I’ve learned nothing over the past two months or so, it’s that we are never finished learning the lesson of trust. The lesson of letting go. The lesson of believing. Because I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried. It’s so beyond me and so beyond anyone. Might as well offer it up and let go.

Right now much of my life is up in the air.

Will I move?
Will Rock fast forward the separation and divorce proceedings?
Will I then be able to fast forward myself to Don?
Will I have another baby?

That leads me to the next point in my ever growing list of boring updates.

--I suffered a miscarriage about a month or so ago.

Remember me blogging that I didn’t think I was alone? Well, I wasn’t. At least for a wee little while. Very, very briefly but as anyone who has suffered a miscarriage knows (and this wasn’t my first in my lifetime), “brief” doesn’t make it any better or any easier.

But everything has a purpose. I believe that even through the hard parts, I really do. And this little flee that was trying to be a baby before it heard a call from up above and decided to wait awhile before making the leap taught both Don and I a lot. And I’m grateful for the lesson.

--My hair is still only half dreaded but the curl is gone entirely and it looks like shit ALL of the time. I have to either wear a bandanna or pull it back into a pony tail. I have a dreading kit but haven’t used it yet. It looks like a two person job and so far, I haven’t been able to con Don (that rhymed! Tee hee!) into helping me. Maybe this weekend, unless I can get a volunteer from the audience? Anyone? Anyone? Ah…you suck..

And on that note…

Herein lies the end of the boring list. Mostly because my fingers are going numb from all of this tapping. There’s more…there’s always more…but it will wait until next time.

And yes, I still promise, there will be a next time.