Strangely...Proud of Myself. A horrible tale of enough already.

It is difficult to gather the strength these days to just deal, you know? In perusing the internets the other day I happened upon my daughter's Myspace. The spot in which I found out that she has been in contact with "the sperm donor". I have mentioned (I think) here and in my other blog on how my husband adopted her after being her true father from the time she was a baby. Intermittently, the "sperm donor" has fallen into our lives because I refuse to hide from him. It is with great regret that I admit here that I am guilty of dating an abusive drug addict. In my defense, I was young and stupid. Very stupid, because I broke up with my beloved husband, at 18, to date this "rock star wannabe bad boy". It was the 80's and I was very, very stupid...like I said. I was trying to break out of the "good girl, good grades, no fun" stereotype...and, instead, it very nearly broke me. Getting back to the story, I left him when I was pregnant with Nicole and had no contact. Due to evidence I had and his failure to respond to repeated attempts to contact him, his rights were severed and my husband adopted her. He found us when there was an article in the paper about her winning the spelling bee. He attempted to call several times, always leaving messages around the time she got home from school. He stupidly thought that perhaps I hadn't told her about him...only I had. And it only succeeded in scaring her. Now, he has contacted her through her Myspace page. They have been conversing for months and, truth be told, I don't care anymore. Sure, it hurts...but one can only be hurt so many times until one stops caring. In fact, this little "conversation" between them (him, of course, suggesting that I have exaggerated and that he is really a "swell" guy who was kept from his child...and then telling her to "protect her ass" and not tell me about it) has made it easier for me to not care. Some of you may not agree with me in this gradual letting go of my mothering duties when it comes to her, but the not liking is far surpassing any pity I may have had. It is still as if I run a hotel where she can eat and sleep and have things paid for without doing one damned thing to help. No chores where once she knew there were chores to be done. The constant "I'm 18 now..." has run its course. Tonight she called me to tell me she had found her Prom dress... Pity she ran through the money I gave her for her birthday and now cannot afford a dress. I'm done underwriting... I really don't care that very much.

While I Was Out...

...every rule was broken, nothing was kept clean (well it was, but only because my dad stayed with her), and her immaturity became very apparent. Well, I always knew it but my dad and others did not.

She is "engaged"... she is "in love"... of course I am not supposed to know this but I do, because she is not good at living a secret life. And I am tired of it and really don't want to deal with it.

And I weep for a little girl lost, and the years we spent teaching her about actions and the regrets/reactions they can cause. The years we wasted. The husband I lost because of it. Insurmountable today. I count the days until I could easily say,"It's time for you to move on" because these actions, this indifference, this inability to understand what happened...on her part... are killing me. Slowly. To be on 200 mgs daily of Toprol, 100 of Tambocor and Diovan HCT and still show up with a blood pressure reading of 140/90 and a 120 heart rate is ridiculous and hateful and hurtful. I am trying. Yet this, this is too much. This knowing that she could "fix it". Not really fix it because fixing it would be my beloved being back next to me at night instead of so very gone. But she could admit the situation. It would, perhaps, break her at first...but I would be there. She is still mine. I still love her, but I don't like her very much right now. I haven't in a long time.

And I find myself caring even less these days... Want to throw your life away at 18? Go for it. Want to not take a scholarship to a good school and instead go to a community college to be close to a boy who, the odds are good, you won't remember the name of in 30 years? Why not. Want to destroy your mother with your indifference to her pain...and your own? Who am I to try to change that?

I am so very done. Done. Done. Done.